Thursday, March 1, 2012

The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Anchor

Lidija lent me this book and it is a motivational type exercise written by a psychologist/corporate trainer about the power of positive psychology. Here’s the thing though: it’s great. A lot of the things he talks about actually work because I use them and I know they work.

So he talks about things like writing down three good things that happened to you each day. If you do this for as little as a week it can affect your view of the world for up to three months. Alternatively write about positive experiences three times a week for twenty minutes. Same result.

We all take the path of least resistance so it is very easy not to do the things we know make us feel good. So you put the desired behaviour right in your path – lay your gym clothes out and get into them the moment you get up. Then it’s too much trouble to take them off again so you go to the gym. Get healthy snacks prepared in the fridge so it’s easy to get them. Etc.

Conversely apply the twenty second rule: put temptation twenty seconds out of reach. Put the TV remote batteries away, put the chocolates in a cupboard downstairs. Etc.

Think about something happy right before a stressful or difficult situation: your performance will improve markedly.

Proven ways to elevate happiness:

1 Meditation, 5 minutes a day is enough
2 Find something to look forward to and give yourself bursts of pleasure by thinking about it
3 Do conscious acts of kindness: go out of the house determined to do five kind things before coming home
4 Infuse positivity into your surroundings: 20 minutes outside on a lovely day; watch less TV; beautify your physical environment
5 Exercise
6 Spend money on activities like concerts, meals with friends, instead of things
7 Exercise your signature strengths (www.viasurvey.org)

Change your mindset: find a positive way of describing whatever you do, especially things you find tedious eg look at the task, its purpose, its results and keep doing that until you find a result that is meaningful to you.

So much of this is common sense, but do we always apply common sense to the things we do?