The Happiness Advantage — by Shawn Achor
Shawn Achor states that it’s not the success that causes happiness, but that happiness gives people a competitive advantage which helps them become successful.
The core ideas of the book are expressed in the following 8 principles.
Principle 1 — The happiness advantage
Shawn postulates that it’s the happiness that leads to success — not the other way around. He defines happiness as a combination of two ingredients:
- Positive mood now
- and a positive outlook for the future
Moreover, happiness is not hereditary and it can be changed in our lifetime. People can have a vastly different interpretation of objectively same reality, which has been proven to significantly change how happy they may be. For example, children complain about school in the West, while children from poor countries others treat it as a privilege and enjoy it immensely.
Principle 2 — The fulcrum effect
In the lever, our leveraged force depends on the force we apply and the position of the fulcrum, which determines the length of the lever arm.
In the same way, the performance of people is not merely their effort, but it also depends on their state of mind, and so the happiness can increase performance in a similar way as moving the fulcrum.
This is supported by a good body of evidence and can be explained with people being more engaged, energetic and more resilient.
Principle 3 — The Tetris effect
Playing the game of Tetris for an extended period of time will rewire your brain. Same with doing anything else on a repetitive basis. This principle states that if we train our brain, repeat and develop some good and positive habits, we can reap the benefits of the happiness advantage.
One particular way to use the Tetris effect is to train yourself to look for the positive, opportunities and ideas, no matter what the situation is. Writing down 3 good things or talking about them with loved ones has been proven to improve people’s well-being. Same with gratitude and giving praise and writing gratitude letters.
This specific action is recommended — writing down 3 positive things that happened on a given day. Alternatively, you can write a short journal entry about the positive outcomes of the given day.
The rose-tinted glasses view is good for us in life. It is important, obviously, to maintain a healthy balance and when the negative outcomes are certain or proven, not to ignore them.
We need to be realistic, careful with risks, but at the same time hoping for the best and staying as optimistic as possible.
Principle 4 — Falling up
One of the most remarkable skills is to be able to turn the adversity around and see it actually as an opportunity. Instead of falling down — find a way to actually fall up.
“The Greatest Power Possible: the ability to move up not despite the setbacks, but because of them.”
In order to fall up — stay optimistic, reinterpret the event in a positive way, accept it and cope with it in a focused way. Remember that every adversity opens up some opportunities and your goal is to find them.
Principle 5 — The Zorro circle
This is a divide-and-conquer strategy which can be used very effectively to face what seems to be an overwhelmingly difficult task, where we feel we’re bound to fail.
Zorro, when learning to use a spade, at first was told only to focus on hitting a small tiny circle and forget about all the other aspects of fighting. Once he got better at it, the circle was increased and more and more aspects of a spade fighting were added.
When facing an overwhelmingly difficult task, this strategy allows us to regain the feeling that we are in control.
When our stresses and workloads seem to mount faster than our ability to keep up, feelings of control are often the first things to go, especially when we try to tackle too much at once.
If, however, we first concentrate our efforts on small manageable goals, we regain the feeling of control so crucial to performance. By first limiting the scope of our efforts, then watching those efforts have the intended effect, we accumulate the resources, knowledge, and confidence to expand the circle, gradually conquering a larger and larger area.
Principle 6 — The 20-second rule
Habits are the key to a lasting change, yet it is very difficult to build a habit. The 20-second rule says that if it takes more than 20-seconds to act on the habit, we will sooner or later fail to repeat the habit and, as a result, fail in building a lasting habit.
We need to modify our environment in a way that executing a healthy habit takes less than 20 seconds and in which we have some good cues that trigger and remind us about habits.
The reverse applies to bad habits — we can manipulate our environment to make it difficult to fall back into a bad habit by extending the time it takes to act on it well beyond the 20-second mark.
One memorable example is going to sleep in your running clothes, so that in the morning, you can just jump into the shoes and act on a good habit straight away. This highly increases chances of success. As well as making sure no junk food is present in your flat and healthy alternatives are there instead.
One thing worth noting is that Richard Davidson in his book “The emotional life of the brain” argues that actually having some temptation from time to time can help us train our self-control muscle.
Principle 7 — Social investment
The strength of our social relationships and the strength of our emotional support network are the best-known correlates of the happiness.
Therefore it is a clear mistake to give up social life when faced with adversity. This social support is extremely important for us.
Positive interactions are the core of good working environment. They also need to be above Losada line, that is, the proportion of positive to negative interactions need to be at least 3 to 1. This is because people are biased towards the negative and risk averse.
Principle 8 — The ripple effect
Emotions are highly contagious and these positive effects have a potential to spread to other areas of our lives as well as influence others in a very positive way.
It appears that the more emotionally expressive people are, the more their emotions spread.
Also, looking in the eyes helps to convey emotional states better. This may be explained by the fact that majority of the face muscles which we cannot control consciously — also known as the truth-telling muscles — are located in the eyes area. People with high emotional intelligence are looking for cues around the eyes. People who have difficulties with recognising emotions, for example, people with autism, generally avoid eye contact and the fusiform area of their brain, responsible for face recognition, is smaller.
Review
8/10 — While the book seems lengthy and repetitive at times, it’s core idea is well explained and proved to be very valuable to me in everyday life.
Related books to read
Before happiness — Shawn Achor
