Happiness is Correlated with Higher Performance

Shawn Achor's book, The Happiness Advantage, outlines seven interventions you can do to adopt a more positive, grateful outlook in your own life.  If this sounds interesting, you might want to check out Hapyr.com, a journaling website, based on Achor's research, that helps people permanently change their brain chemistry.  This begs the question, "will simply repeating these seven activities really make people happy?"  A look at Achor's research might give us a better understanding.

Personal Example of Positive Psychology

When I was with my family over Christmas break, we conducted an "informal test" on the effect of increased testosterone and decreased cortisol on human performance.  My brother-in-law was at a pivotal point during a team board game and needed to respond faster than my sister.  Before the trivia question was read, he called for a "time out," stood up, put his fists on his hips, stuck his chest out (like Superman minus the cape), and just stood there.  "What are you doing?!" we all asked him.  "It's called a power pose."  A moment later he asked for the question and immediately answered correctly, winning the game for his team.  Later, he shared with us a TED talk, by Amy Cuddy, on how a posture can affect our brain, behavior, and events in our lives. After watching this, I became totally converted to power posing!

How Does One Find Happiness?

We all seem to erroneously believe that the formula for happiness:  HARD WORK --> SUCCESS --> HAPPINESS.  However, Achor's findings show that, in reality, it is the other way around: HAPPINESS --> SUCCESS. 

I am a perfect example to illustrate how success doesn't directly yield happiness.  I do this dumb thing where I keep pushing back the measurement standards for "success" so I never quite find it.  For example, my excitement certainly dissolved into stress after only two weeks in my current PhD program!  Just this morning, I was complaining to my sister over the phone about not having the motivation to finish writing a school paper due that day.  She suggested that I treat myself to a meal out or a special purchase as an incentive for finishing it.  Dispassionately, I told her that there was nothing in this world I desired more than not having to write that darn paper.  I didn't specifically hate writing the paper.  I just knew that once I had finished,  I still had an urgent pile of other coursework waiting to be done that I didn't know how to prioritize. At the end of the day, I buckled down and turned in a terrific paper, which I ought to celebrate. But because I didn't have a firm standard for what "success" meant, I adjusted my definition for success to mean be I be successful until I finish my pile of class readings.  If nothing changes, I'll never feel successful. (BTW, I'm taking a break from my homework to write this blogpost.)

If I truly believe all this stuff about positive psychology, I ought to find out and try Achor's seven-steps for thinking positively (in addition to throwing in some power poses).  I believe the secret to unlocking my learning potential is inside of me. I just currently lack the skills to think about it correctly.  I feel somewhat like Neo in the Oracle scene of The Matrix. I'm going to figure this out!

"There is no spoon.  Then you will see that it is the spoon that bends; it is only yourself."

Additional Resources:

• Shawn Achor's website: GoodThinkInc
• Shawn Achor's book, The Happiness Advantage (Book Trailer)
• Barbara Ehrenreich's book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America shares a strong refutation of overdoing such thoughts. You can see her lecture here.
• Richard Schoch wrote, The Myth of Being Happy.  (Email him for a PDF of his book.)
• My Wordpress site = Same post + some educational mumbo jumbo