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The Pursuit of Happiness – Part 2 – What Actually Works

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  Quick Facts

  • The pursuit of happiness is a natural human phenomena and research has revealed effective ways of achieving happiness.
  • Relationships, using our strengths, creating meaning in our lives, and caring for our physical wellness through exercise are four examples of proven happiness boosters.

Detailed Analysis

In our last post, we broke down the myths of happiness and how we can counteract the hedonic adaptation which can compromise our happiness. Fortunately, research has not only broken down our old paradigm of what makes a happy life; it has also given us insight into what we can do to actually be happier, regardless of our circumstances.  Today, we’ll explore four important ways to invest in your happiness.

Take care of your relationships – Relationships are perhaps the most important way for humans to find true and lasting happiness. Family, friends, community connections – these all contribute to human flourishing. Take time regularly to nurture the important relationships in your life and you’re likely to be a happier person (not to mention increase the happiness of those around you, too). Research suggests that actually talking to people – rather than texting and emailing – boosts this relational benefit even further.

Using your strengths – Determining your personal strengths and using them consciously can increase of happiness. In the work world, this is an easy way to create a win-win for ourselves and our business, by discovering how you can being your unique abilities to your work context. Assessment such as the StrengthsFinder or the Via Character Strengths assessment can help you pinpoint some of your strengths, or just honestly assess what you know you are good at – whether it’s as specific as designing analytics strategies, or as general as a quality like empathy or humility – and use them as frequently as you can.

Creating meaning – Orienting ourselves within a bigger picture of values gives our lives meaning and sheds long-term happiness even on struggles and challenges. Regardless of what we are doing, meaning emerges when we have a sense that we are working for something bigger than ourselves – whether a cause, an ideal, or a spiritual truth we believe in. For example, if we value artistic expression, the sometimes long and frustrating process of creating will still bring happiness, since it’s part of living out our values and links to a broader meaning. And working for more money might not create much meaning, but working to provide for your family, experience the joy of achievement, or enjoy the feeling of tackling new challenges can.

Exercise and physical well-being – It’s simple – exercise is one of the most effective ways of increasing happiness. From improving our overall health, to lowering stress, to boosting mood and energy levels, exercise pays huge dividends in the quest for a happy life. And it doesn’t have to be anything complicated, expensive or time consuming – it has been reported that even a 12 minute walk can enhance our mood (not to mention provide us with many physical benefits as well). Of course, walking is only one option among many. Perhaps you prefer yoga, running, team sports, dance or hitting the gym. Whatever your preference, know that your body is not the only beneficiary of your fitness regime – your mental state is, too.

In the end, it seems that happiness is less of an end-state and more of a journey – a constant process of investing in the things that matter and mindfully limiting our emphasis on things that don’t. Gratitude, savouring, love, growth, physical well-being – these are the building blocks of a happy life.

The Pursuit of Happiness Part 1 – What Doesn’t Work

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Quick Facts

  • The pursuit of happiness is a natural human phenomena; however, we often use ineffective means to reach this goal.
  • One of the most common methods, the pursuit of material wealth and comfort, is one such ineffective method, due to a human adaptive trait known as “hedonic adaptation”.

Detailed Analysis

The pursuit of happiness has been part of the human experience for millennia. But only recently has science begun to shed light on the path (and limits) to sustainable happiness.  Positive psychology is the branch of psychology focused on positive human well-being, or what pioneer Martin Seligman describes as “flourishing”. In this post, we’ll look at some of the myths and pitfalls of the pursuit of happiness, while our next post will explore a few proven ways to increase happiness in our lives.

The happiness question often centers on achievement and its rewards, and this can be especially true for businesspeople working in competitive environments and rewarded for hard work. However, the acquisition of material wealth is often a less effective path to happiness than we might think. Consider income: In Canada, some of the happiest places are in Newfoundland, while some of the least happy in Ontario, despite that fact that the average income in Ontario is about $10,000 higher than in Newfoundland.  This is just one example of the lack of correlation between income and happiness. In fact, research shows that, once people have enough money for relative security and comfort, earning power and its corollaries (luxury items, larger homes, etc.) don’t change happiness much at all (the distinction is important – it can’t be emphasized enough that people who are not able to earn enough for stability and comfort are compromised in many ways, including happiness).

So it turns out the old saying is true: money (once our necessities are taken care of) really can’t buy happiness. But why? Blame a phenomena called ‘hedonic adaptation’. As humans, our ability to adapt is one of our great strengths – but one of its side effects is that we quickly adapt to an improvement in our material circumstances, too.

In othe words, if you go from having no home to having a home, the difference in happiness is significant. But if you move from a comfortable home to a bigger or more expensive home, after a brief happiness bump, your mind quickly adapts to having more space or luxury, and soon you are about as happy as you were before the upgrade, but not happier. This can trigger a frustrating and ineffective cycle of chasing that initial bump in happiness through more earning or acquisition.

While the hedonic treadmill is ingrained in the human mind, there are two practices we can undertake to counteract it:

  • Gratitude: It’s such common advice these days as to almost be cliché, but science confirms that gratitude makes us happier. Taking some time a few times a week to make a note of the things we are grateful for is a proven method to keep us from being carried away by the hedonic adaptation trap.
  • Savouring: A form of mindfulness, the practice of savouring is one in which we take the time to fully experience and enjoy what we are doing and where we are. Be fully present to the comfort you experience as you drive your car. Give your entire attention to enjoying your meal. Put your phone down and really listen to your kids, your spouse or your best friend when they talk. Whatever it is, we increase our enjoyment by taking the time to fully engage with our experience, rather than thinking about what’s coming next, or being distracted by our email.

So, while the pursuit of happiness comes naturally to us, some of the ways we instinctively try to pursue it are less effective – and in fact can work against our goal. In our next post, we’ll look at proven ways to boost happiness.

Hobbies Make You a Better Businessperson

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Quick Facts

  • Hobbies are not just a pastime – they support the development of soft skills that are beneficial to our careers.
  • Creativity, the ability to see things from a different perspective, and confidence are just three of the key benefits we reap when we invest in our hobbies.

Detailed Analysis

As we enjoy the summer months and – hopefully – prioritize some rest and relaxation as part of our routine, it’s an excellent time to focus on, or discover, our hobbies. Far from being ‘just a pastime’, hobbies can actually help us build some of the soft skills that are essential to our success in the workplace. As with most things leading to our overall well-being, our careers and businesses are beneficiaries of our own self-care. In fact, an article in the Harvard Business Review notes that three critical soft skills are supported by our hobbies:

  • Creativity: This is perhaps the most obvious of the three, in terms of how hobbies can help us – especially (but not only) if our hobby is a traditionally creative pursuit like art or music. But how does this help us in business? LinkedIn reports that creativity is the most sought after soft skill in 2020. Creative thinkers can bring new perspectives to problems and challenge conventions (these skills are especially valuable during times of upheaval, when business as usual is not an option).
  • The article sees perspective as something akin to empathy, or the ability to take the perspective of another person. The arts in particular can be helpful with this soft skills. Additionally, hobbies give us the perspective that comes with creating space between yourself and the everyday problems you may face during your workday. This space supports the ability to ‘zoom out’ and see things from a different, or most holistic, angle, enabling us to bring more strategic and long-term thinking to the situation. Perspective is also an important tool in stress management, enabling us to place our work stress into a broader context thus making it easier to manage.
  • Confidence is a keystone habit. It enables us to build other skills – both hard and soft – that we may need to adapt to changing workplaces and changing times. Hobbies enable us to tackle challenge in a relatively safe and low stakes environment, helping us build our resilience muscles.

Although these three benefits of hobbies are particularly notable, just about every hobby can net us some soft skills benefits: reading, writing, and drama can support the development of our written and oral communication skills; technology hobbies can hone hard technical skills; puzzles of various types support mental acuity and problem solving; team sports and activities promote collaboration and leadership; volunteer work builds empathy. All hobbies give us a positive sense of humility and lifelong learning.

Regardless of whether you enjoy running, gardening, reading, coding, playing baseball, practicing yoga or tackling the crossword in the New York Times, your hobbies are a worthwhile investment.  

Rituals for Businesspeople

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Quick Facts

  • Anxiety is always a challenge, and it may be heightened during times of uncertainty and rapid change.
  • Anxious circumstances can make stress-inducing tasks like giving presentations or having difficult conversations even more stressful.
  • Rituals can be used as a tool to create feelings of calm and control.
  • Rituals can be empathy-, exertion-, spiritual-, or mantra-based, depending on what works for your personality and preferences.

Detailed Analysis

We’ve heard again and again that anxiety levels are high, and the shift to remote work has only exacerbated the problem. Consider some scenarios: a manager who already finds giving presentations nerve-wracking now has to give them via video, adding a layer of technical difficulty and making it harder to connect with the audience; a leader has to give bad news or difficult feedback to an employee over the phone rather than in person; a businessperson whose children are now at home full-time is trying to interview for a new job with the noise of play in the background.

In the remote world, even just starting your workday in what may be a less-than-conducive work environment can be stress-inducing. Any of these scenarios would be stressful under normal circumstances; add some of the current complications to the mix, and for some they become downright daunting. How can we boost our confidence and re-claim our calm in these situations?

Science suggests that using rituals is a natural human propensity that we can consciously leverage to manage stressful situations, likely because they give us a sense of control and predictability when things feel overwhelming or scary. Although not a panacea, using rituals before stressful situations can boost confidence and calm.

What ritual you choose will depend on your personality and preferences, and there is no one-size-fits all ritual for everyone. Effective rituals can include things as different as performing vigorous jumping jacks, to sitting in stillness and breathing deeply.

The important feature seems to be that it is planned and predictable – so you do the jumping jacks or the deep breathing 10 minutes before your presentation, every time you present, for example. Again, it’s the sense of familiarity and predictability that seems to have the calming effect. An HBR report on this phenomenon suggests that there are four basic types of ritual you can try:

  1. Empathy-based rituals focus on connecting with others. Examples could include taking some time to speak with meeting or presentation attendees before your formal presentation (on a video conference, this could mean opening the call 5 or 10 minutes early for some informal chat) or visualizing things from the audience’s point of view (for example, before a difficult phone conversation, visualizing the other person’s perspective).
  2. Exertion rituals focus on moving your body and expelling some of the excess energy and tension that can build prior to a stressful conversation or event. A quick walk, jumping up and down, dancing around – anything that utilizes your body’s movement counts as an exertion ritual.
  3. Spiritual rituals can connect us with whatever it is that grounds us – our beliefs, values, or even just our connection to our breath. Prayer, meditation, and deep breathing can all be used as spiritual rituals.
  4. Mantra rituals involve repetition of a meaningful phrase or word – for example “I am present to this moment” or something as simple as “Breathe”.  There is no magic to any set of words – the repetition itself seems to be what is soothing, and the words can give you a positive focal point to direct your energy towards

Whatever ritual you choose to try, it is not a replacement for other important steps – for example, practicing your presentation and being really familiar with its content, or preparing for your difficult conversation. However, a ritual can give us a sense of calm and control in difficult situations, enabling the hard work and preparation we’ve done to shine in its best light.  

How Are You Sleeping?

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Quick Facts

  • Sleep disruption takes a toll on our professional success as much as it does our personal happiness.
  • Lack of sleep has been shown to reduce the quality of our work and create problems in our professional relationships.
  • Determining the causes of our sleep problems and implementing solutions can get us back on track.

Detailed Analysis             

How are you sleeping lately? During this trying time, reports suggest  that sleep may be yet another casualty of the pandemic and the consequent change in our social and work structures. Most of us are familiar with the toll a lack of sleep can take on our mood and general happiness – but often we bring a ‘push through it’ attitude to these challenges, refilling our coffee cup to keep us going. After all, there’s work to be done. But what about the toll a lack of sleep takes on our work? There are two serious impacts sleep deprivation can take on our success, and that of the teams we manage and lead:

Quality: Lack of sleep has a myriad cognitive impact, including poorer decision making, reduced ability to focus, and increased errors. Quite simply, when we are not sleeping, we are less able to do our jobs efficiently and effectively.

Relationships: How well do you deal with disagreements when you are tired? Research shows that tiredness is correlated with increased anger and hostility, especially in circumstances where frustration is high. Given the many adaptations we’ve been asked to make in recent months and the unavoidable challenges that come with rapid change, lack of sleep increases the likelihood that we’ll act – and react – in ways that could have a detrimental effect on our relationships with peers and teams. So, what can we do? After all, sleep problems are in issue even without the added stresses of the current moment. Fortunately, there are some simple tips we can implement that are proven to help with sleep difficulties:  

The Problem: Disruptions in Schedule.

The Solution: Establish – or re-establish, your sleep schedule. Choose a realistic bedtime and stick to it.

With schedules disrupted and work from home the ‘new normal’, our usual sleep routines may have suffered. We may be waking and going to bed at different times, working later than usual, or shifting our working hours to accommodate childcare, home schooling or elder care responsibilities. Often as adults, we assume we can easily adapt to less predictable sleep and wake hours, but research shows that adult benefit from a regular bedtime.

The Problem: Too many screens.

The Solution: Shut down an hour or two before bedtime.

With the shift to remote work, it can be difficult to delineate work and personal time. Additionally, with other avenues of entertainment such as gyms and restaurants closed, we may be relying more than ever on technology to fill our spare time. But the blue light emitted by phones and devices is known to disrupt our bodies’ natural sleep cycles. Additionally, information overload can set our minds buzzing, making it hard to wind down at the end of the day. By shutting off our devices at least an hour prior to sleep time, we can decrease some of the sleep-disrupting effects of tech.

The Problem: Too little physical activity during the day.

The Solution: Exercise.

Another side effect of the work-from-home shift is that, for some people, their natural forms of exercise and activity have been removed. No longer do we need to walk to the subway station, go up and down stairs between floors, or walk a few blocks to grab lunch. Additionally, with gyms and other activities shut down, our physical activity may have fallen by the wayside. Evidence is strong that exercise improves sleep, although it may take some experimentation to figure out what time of day works best for you (for example, exercising in the evening might be energizing for some, and a morning workout might work better in that case). Whether it’s a walk or run, a workout video (you’re sure to finds a workout you’ll enjoy on YouTube) or even working more lifestyle exercise into your day (through household chores, walking to do errands when possible, etc.), bumping up your physical activity can help you sleep better.

The Problem: Stress & anxiety.

The Solution: Find a relaxation technique that works for you and work it into your day as often as is realistic.

Stress & anxiety are particularly insidious causes of sleep problems because they can trigger a vicious cycle, where your lack of sleep is causing anxiety, and the increased anxiety aggravates your sleep problems. Disrupting this cycle is critical.  There are a multitude of stress management techniques you can try: exercise, progressive relaxation, deep breathing, walks in nature, and meditation are some of the most common. Whatever you choose, try to practice regularly to keep stress & anxiety at bay.

As always, when your physical or mental health becomes a concern, speak to your medical professional. In addition, the National Sleep Foundation offers these quick tips for improving sleep.