 I am fascinated by happiness. I’ve worked with people for many years and I’ve lost count the number of times when people tell me that all they want is to be happy. And who wouldn’t agree with that sentiment? I know I’m certainly looking to do what makes me happy and avoid or remove the things which don’t. I’m also a generally “glass half full” type of person; there’s always negative stuff going on, and always loads more good stuff happening, and that’s what I end up focussing on.
Despite this, we all know people who seem unhappy for no apparent reason, and when something bad actually happens to them, it appears to give them something to hang their unhappiness on. And it leaves me wondering how some can be so miserable when others can be so happy. I recently read a BBC article “Why things may not be as bad as we think”. This article suggests that we are programmed to react more to the negative than the positive, which means that bad news stories will stay with us longer than good news stories. Happiness researcher, Gretchen Rubin, points to research which suggests about 50 percent of our ability to be happy is hardwired, meaning some of us are hardwired to be more happy than others, who are hardwired to be less happy. 20 percent is a response to life events and circumstances, which means that 30 percent is within our immediate control. In the article “The Reason Some People Just Seem Happier Than Others” Rubin goes on to talk about the changes that she made to improve her overall sense of happiness. As with so many changes, she successfully improved her level of happiness by making small but concrete changes in her everyday life. Being happy rather than sad surely has to be better. There are, though, some benefits to being down, as the article “The emotion centre is the oldest part of the human brain: why is mood so important?” points out. The article also looks at the autobiographical memory and cognitive memory, and the part that they play in mood disorders and the potential treatment options for those disorders. What is clear is that being happy, which a great aim in itself, is a poor goal. We can have everything we want yet be anything but happy as a result of immediate events and circumstances around us. In simple terms, great goals are about doing more of the things that we like and less of the things that we don’t. Some of us may have to work a little bit harder to overcome the negative emotions and the limiting beliefs, yet it is all within our control. Even if we are being held back by any one of the many mood disorders, we can learn to be positive and, using that new-found positivity, achieve our goals. You know that it you really want it, you can achieve it, don’t you?
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 The vast majority of us have no choice but to go to work. After all, living is not free and we all have bills to pay. If you’re fortunate enough to love the job you have, the chances are your days will mostly end on a positive note. However, whether you are in your dream job or not, the article “4 Simple Ways to End Each Workday Happy” provides four great ways to ensure that your workdays do end well.
All four suggestions are great, and the first really stood out for me. We frequently forgot to praise what went well and all too easily slip into the criticism of what didn’t go as planned, allowing this to overwhelm us. Taking a few moments to review all of our accomplishments, however small, is a real boost. Read the article. See what works for you. Try them out for 30 days and see what a difference they make. If they make your great job even better, that’s brilliant. If you realise that despite everything you do to find the successes, it’s still not the job for you, then it’s time to make some changes. Work out what you want, set some goals and go for it. You can do that on your own or with help, can’t you?  In what appears to be an increasingly busy world, finding ways to achieve a good work-life balance takes on an ever-greater importance. It also links in with a greater interest in looking after our mental well-being and the growing recognition of the damage that stress can do.
A quick Internet search reveals a real smorgasbord of tips, advice and ideas to achieve a better work-life balance. I was particularly taken with an article by Deborah Jian Lee, “6 Tips For Better Work-Life Balance”. All six tips make great sense, and it was the final tip which really resonated with me. It suggests starting small, rather than attempting major changes, to build sustainable change. This is the ideal way to get to where you want to be; work out the end goal, and then establish the steps to get there. If you get can there on your own, with the resources that you already have, then go for it. If, however, you are not sure, coaching provides real support in setting those goals and working out how to get there. You know that, don’t you?  It almost sounds crazy to suggest that if you smile and tell yourself out loud it will make the task easier. Yet it actually is the case and there is science to support it. So, take a deep breath, smile and say out loud “I’m going to read the rest of the article”.
It must work as you’re still reading! Let’s start with the smile. We know that we smile when we are happy, and we equally know how good it feels when someone smiles at us; not a fake smile, which we are extraordinarily good at spotting, but a real smile, one that lifts our spirits and brightens our day way beyond the time that the smile itself lasts. Leo Widrich, author of “The Science of Smiling: A Guide to The World’s Most Powerful Gesture”, looks at what happens to our brains when we smile (he argues that smiling provides a reward that is greater than chocolate and money) as well as what smiling does to our wellbeing, our sense of success and our levels of happiness. He also gives a three step guide to a better smile which, if we do what he says, will allow us to smile more, with greater confidence and generate better responses from those around us. Now that we know the importance of smiling, it’s time to think about talking out loud. In the article “Is talking to yourself a sign of mental illness? An expert delivers her verdict” Paloma Mari-Beffa looks at the science behind the idea of talking out loud to achieve better results. It seems that we respond to the auditory stimulus of hearing ourselves give instructions, which is the reason for us then completing the task more effectively. As such, rather than a sign of madness, talking out loud to yourself is more sign of an evolved mind wanting to achieve more.
"There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit,
no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect." Ronald Reagan  In what appears to be an increasingly busy world, finding ways to achieve a good work-life balance takes on an ever-greater importance. It also links in with a greater interest in looking after our mental well-being and the growing recognition of the damage that stress can do.
A quick Internet search reveals a real smorgasbord of tips, advice and ideas to achieve a better work-life balance. I was particularly taken with an article by Deborah Jian Lee, “6 Tips For Better Work-Life Balance”. All six tips make great sense, and it was the final tip which really resonated with me. It suggests starting small, rather than attempting major changes, to build sustainable change. This is the ideal way to get to where you want to be; work out the end goal, and then establish the steps to get there. If you get can there on your own, with the resources that you already have, then go for it. If, however, you are not sure, coaching provides real support in setting those goals and working out how to get there. You know that, don’t you? |
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