Happiness Strategies | How to be Happy

Hi everyone,

I wanted to let you know I’ll be taking a short break from blogging here as I work full-time on another project.

If you need a happiness refresher while I’m gone I hope you’ll find inspiration in the archives. In particular:

• 101 Happiness Strategies
  Strategies for boosting your happiness level, based on happiness and positive psychology research
• Happiness Life Strategies
  All kinds of ways to be happier everyday – from the serious to the frivolous
• Happiness Media
  Summaries of interesting media reports related to happiness
• How *NOT* to be happy
  A favorite of readers – how to embrace your inner miserati and keep joy at bay.

See you again soon!

Michele

Technorati Tags: happiness,happiness strategies,life strategies,happiness media,how not to be happy

Image: Lukman Kusuma

Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight

If you have any doubt about the wonderful job our brains do, you’ll be won over by this riveting, disturbing and emotional story from Jill Bolte Taylor, neuroanatomist and stroke survivor.

‘How many brain scientists have the opportunity to study their brains from the inside out?’ she asks.

In this fascinating 18-minute talk from last month she describes the euphoria and misery that accompanied the mental machinations of experiencing a stroke, and of perceiving the world alternately from the 2 sides of her brain – the parallel-processing right brain and the serial-processing leftie.

She speaks with obvious heartfelt conviction of the life-changing wisdom it brought her – the peace, synthesis and joy that’s possible by perceiving life through the right bran.

Technorati Tags: Right brain,left brain,stroke

1. Woody Allen

Failed motion picture production at NYU and City College of NY. Oh and also failed English at NYU. Before winning Oscars for directing, producing and writing.

2. Thomas Carlyle

Loaned The French Revolution manuscript to a friend whose servant used it for kindling. Carlyle went home and re-wrote the whole thing.

3. M*A*S*H

Richard Hooker received 21 rejections for this novel before it was published, became a bestseller, a huge movie success and a massively popular TV series.

4. Star Wars

Yoda et al were rejected by every Studio in Hollywood. Eventually 20th Century Fox relented and the film became one of the highest grossing movies evah.

5. E.T., Forrest Gump, Home Alone, Speed and Pulp Fiction

All were passed on by major studios. All are now iconic pieces of popular culture.

[Source: Adapted from Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul (2000) by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Bud Gardner]

The lesson from the lessons:

It’s only failure if you stop there.

More Quick Tricks

Image: carlsilver

If you haven’t yet taken a tour on the Worldwide Telescope don’t wait another minute to hop aboard for this astonishing experience.

It’s like a best-of clip show from the world’s greatest telescopes, with the images merged into a seamless spatial panascope (I know there’s no such word, but you get what I mean).

It brings to life our humble place in this spectacular universe and ignites our sense of wonder. You can’t be jaded too long watching this.

If you can, Download this TEDTalk in high-def (recommended!) >>

Otherwise, watch the low-def version below:

There’ll be a free download later this year.

A new British study has shed more light on the genes/personality contribution to happiness. Genes may contribute up to 50% of the variance in happiness, and the new research suggests this genetic influence on happiness is essentially conveyed via personality.

Researchers using a representative sample of 973 twin pairs found that the heritable differences in happiness were pretty well explained by the differences in personality, particularly the dimensions of neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness.

What does that mean for people who’d like to be a bit cheerier but may not have inherited the ideal personality? Co-researcher Tim Bates from University of Edinburgh said in an article on the study:

‘If people want to raise their own levels of well-being, our best advice is that they practice the kinds of behaviors that characterize calm, conscientious, extroverts…Try and be active and social, even if with just a few people. Practice the things you find emotionally challenging, maybe even keeping a diary to help you keep a sense of reality, and allow you to reflect on which strategies work, and which do not.’

Uh – does this all sound familiar? That’s because we’ve covered a lot of this ground in 101 Happiness Strategies.

To recap:

How to be happy – 11. Focus on what you can do to be happier

Genes – via personality – contribute at most 50% of happiness variance. That leaves a lot of wriggle room around the genetic stuff for boosting happiness.

How to be happy – 12. Make peace with your personality

Much of the personality influence works via the way people act - which is why Bates suggests we ‘practice the kinds of behaviors that characterize calm, conscientious, extroverts’. What you do affects how you feel.

How to be happy – 13. Act like you’re an extravert – even if you aren’t

Introverts who behave like extraverts are happier than those who don’t. Again, personality might be the premise, but it’s not the whole story. You drive the narrative.

How to be happy – 14. Concentrate on intentional factors

When you take into account that genes/personality might contribute 50% and external conditions another 10% to happiness, you’re left with a solid 40% up for grabs. That’s too much happiness potential to leave on the table while complaining about your personality shortcomings.

Happiness Life Strategy: Know your personality

Knowing your personality traits can help you make choices for happiness. For every personality profile there’s a situation that brings out the best – and the worst – in a person.

Technorati Tags: happiness,personality,genes

Image: PixelPet