Happiness: Secret To Success
This week I happened to watch a TED Talk delivered by the leading positive psychology expert and bestselling author, Shawn Achor, The Happy Secret to Better Work.
Usually I have a positive mindset and attitude and I want to keep that attitude but I wasn’t aware of the research and psychology behind the positive attitude after watching the video it has strengthen my belief.
We all want to be happy, but instead of pursuing happiness we want to pursue success and postpone happiness as to be a future task, and we would do the same in future as well. I am not saying do not work to be successful, but do it more productively. Does happiness have any impact on success? Answer is “Yes”. Researches and experiments have have shown that when we feel happy we are more productive, creative, resilient, positive and energetic as compared to when we feel negative or neutral. Shawn Achor is convincing the companies that positively engaged workforce is a modern competitive edge of the companies. Although happiness is a subjective decision but they can achieve higher productivity and better results by educating and motivating their workforce.
Now the question arises how can we be happy even before achieving success. Happiness is not only limited to long awaited results, a random act of kindness can bring the happiness a genuine compliment and act of gratitude can bring happiness.
Shawn Achor in his talk devised 5 simple steps that we can apply in our lives to bring that positive change
- Writing 3 new things everyday that you should be grateful for
- Journal one positive experience for 2 minutes
- Engage in 15 minutes of mindful activity
- Meditate: Watch your breath coming in and going out for 2 minutes
- Engage in conscious random acts of kindness
After we apply these steps for a week or two we will notice substantial changes in our mindset towards positivity.