We believe we should work hard in order to be happy, but could we be thinking about things backwards? In this fast-moving and very funny talk, psychologist Shawn Achor argues that, actually, happiness inspires us to be more productive.
He's worked with schools and companies in over 45 countries and found that happiness is not due to the external world but how our brain processes the world.
If you can raise somebody's level of positivity in the present, then their brain experiences what we now call a happiness advantage, which is your brain at positive performs significantly better than at negative, neutral or stressed. Your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy levels rise. In fact, he's found that every single business outcome improves. Your brain at positive is 31% more productive than your brain at negative, neutral or stressed. You're 37% better at sales. Doctors are 19 percent faster, more accurate at coming up with the correct diagnosis when positive instead of negative, neutral or stressed.
If we can find a way of becoming positive in the present, then our brains work even more successfully as we're able to work harder, faster and more intelligently. We need to be able to reverse this formulaso we can start to see what our brains are actually capable of.Because dopamine, which floods into your system when you're positive, has two functions. Not only does it make you happier, it turns on all of the learning centers in your brainallowing you to adapt to the world in a different way.
When your brain is positive it produces dopamine which makes you happier. It also opens learning centres in the brain, making you better able to adapt to the world.
So how can you get more positive and productive? How can you rewire your brain, allowing your brain to actually work more optimistically and more successfully?
Spend 2 mins a day for the next 21 days doing the following daily:
1. Write three new things you are grateful for (Emmons & McCullough 2003)
2. Journaling one positive thing that happened in the last 24 hours (Slatcher & Pennebaker 2006)
3. Exercise (Babyak et al 2000)
4. Mediation (Dweck 2007)
5. Random acts of kindness (Lyubomirsky, 2005)
1. Write down three new things you are greatful for.
Write down three new things that they're grateful for for 21 days in a row, three new things each day. And at the end of that, their brain starts to retain a pattern of scanning the world not for the negative, but for the positive first
2.Journaling one positive experience you've had in the last 24 hours
Journaling about one positive experience you've had over the past 24 hours allows your brain to relive it
3.Exercise
Exercise teaches your brain that your behavior matters
4.Meditation
We find that meditation allows your brain to get over the cultural ADHD that we've been creating by trying to do multiple tasks at once and allows our brains to focus on the task at hand
5.Random acts of kindness
random acts of kindness are conscious acts of kindness. We get people, when they open up their inbox, to write one positive email praising or thanking somebody in their support network.
So by doing these 5 things, you can train your brain, just like people train their bodies and create positivity, productiveness and success.
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