How Happiness Benefits Productivity at Work
Conventional
wisdom says that if you work hard, you will become successful,
and then you will be happy.
What
science has proven is that happiness and optimism fuel performance and
achievement.
You
frequently hear “do what we love and the money will follow”. But whether you
are an entrepreneur, the CEO of a publicly traded company or fresh out of
college you still have bills and rent or a mortgage, perhaps a car payment
or payroll and you probably pay everyone who works for you before you pay
yourself so how does happiness fix that? Here are some facts
that will explain it
Fact
1- The better your brain is at identifying positives, the greater your
chance at success.
Input
comes to us in 11 million pieces of stimulus every day. Our brain doesn’t just
see things like a still photo from a camera. It is tasked with interpreting and
processing all the input. Our brain has to decide what focus on. Thus your
reality is a choice.
The
better your brain is at using its energy to focus on the positive, the greater
your chance at success. But this doesn’t mean you only have happy thoughts and
experiences at work. It means you can choose to interpret most input as
positive.
Fact
2- This optimism must be rational (but for 80% of us it isn’t).
What
this means is no matter how much cold calling and following up and meeting and
greeting and networking if you do, if you don’t have a great product, it won’t
be effective. When you have a great product or service being happy and
optimistic is the fast track way to success.
I
am sure you have heard the stories of Michael Jordan not making his high school
basketball team and of Thomas Edison having 10,000 unsuccessful attempts before
inventing the light bulb. The attitude here is the key. It wasn’t failure – it
was one step closer to success.
Science
shows that 80% of American men think that they would be in the top half of the
population in their social skills. SEE the problem- there are only 50% in the
top half but 80% think they are in the top half. This means happy people tend
to overestimate their abilities and will actually have confidence in situations
where they have no skills backing this confidence. Having awareness of this and
calculating into decisions is vital to making accurate predictions for future
success.
Do
you have a FIXED MINDSET- believing you have all the skills you are ever going
to have and that success relies of your current skill-set or do you have a
GROWTH MINDSET ( this is not the same as ignoring your weaknesses or chanting
affirmations) it is a mindset that says “ I may not currently have that skill
but I can change through experience and application”.
Fact
3- It is often the perception of stress and not the actual stress that derails
you.
You
know it’s a vicious circle when you have so much stress that you are stressed
about being stressed. The definition we use at the Chopra center for stress is
what happens to you when something comes between you and something you want.
The average person encounters a minimum of 8 sources of stress in a day.
FIGHT
OR FLIGHT happens when your body encounters stress
·
Increase
in blood pressure
·
Releases
stress hormones
·
Increase
in insulin
·
Decreased
growth, sex hormones
·
Weakened
immunity
·
Clotting
of blood platelets
·
Decrease
circulation to digestive tract
Long
Term Exposure to Fight or Flight can lead to
·
coronary
heart disease
·
anxiety,
insomnia, addictions
·
diabetes,
obesity
·
Premature
aging
·
Infections,
cancer
·
heart
attacks, strokes
·
Digestive
disturbances
Fact
4- We all have a base level of happiness but it can be elevated.
It’s
like our happy homeostasis. Things like winning the lottery might temporarily
change our happiness but scientific research has shown that our happiness
returns to the prior level quite quickly unless we train ourselves to think
differently. Nature accounts for approximately 40%, circumstances like having
enough food, shelter, and not being scared for your life count for 10% and the
remaining 50% is up to you. So really quickly, here are a few simple and
scientifically proven steps to becoming happier
1. Have a sense of purpose
2. Feel connected to those around
you
3. Let go of the past
4. Be authentic
5. Have some fun
6. Take mindful moments
7. Be grateful.
Remember,
work can be a chore or work can be full of joy, the choice is always yours.
TAMARA LECHNER
http://www.lifehack.org/319805/how-happiness-benefits-productivity-work?mid=20151014&ref=mail&uid=687414&feq=daily
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