A new study by Harvard University has discovered a fun way to become more successful.

We all want to succeed. But the tips you read probably come down to the wish to “work more”. In this article, we will explain why success does not bring happiness, but happiness is the cause of success .

Sean Eykor is the most popular author of the book “The Advantage of Happiness” , who has studied this at Harvard for years: happiness.
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What is so special about Sean's work? His research has shown that it is not success that brings happiness, but happiness is the cause of success. He did what scientists had never done. Instead of removing the bizarre deviations from the data, he meticulously examined them. He wanted to know that happy people do things that we do not do.

Sean:

Instead of removing people from the sample that seem strange to us, we intentionally studied them. We tried to find out why, while all other employees have small sales, 3-4 people demonstrate transcendental results. Or they went to one of the worst social and economic schools in Chicago, where grades are below average, and found there a couple of students whose grades are breathtakingly high. Studying these deviations, we collect information on crumbs not about how to tighten those who are below to normal, but how to transfer people from middle peasants to excellent students.

Sean believes (and his research proves it): you can do something and become happier. And staying in this state will make you more successful.

I called Sean to find out what his findings were. Want more joy and success in your life? That's what Sean can say on this topic.

1) Does success bring happiness? Not. Happiness leads to success.

We all are after success, hoping that he will make us happy:

• I will be happy if I get a promotion.
• I will be happy if they raise my salary.
• I will be happy if I lose 7 kg.

But research shows that this is not true. You achieve the goal and, it seems, become happier ... but then the next major task is found.

What did Sean's study demonstrate? When you grasp the essence and focus on happiness, you begin to move towards success.

Sean:

If we are able to persuade someone to increase their level of optimism or deepen their social connections, or increase the intensity of happiness from each business or learning outcome, we will know exactly how to look for improvements. You can raise the success rate all your life, but the feeling of happiness will remain at the same level. But if you become happier and more optimistic, each of the indicators of your success will grow significantly compared to what it would be if you were in a negative, neutral or stressful state.

MET Life witnessed these remarkable results among the happy sales people. They decided to do an experiment and started hiring optimists.

They hired them, even if they showed low efficiency in the proficiency test. What were the results?

It turned out that a group of optimists sold more than their pessimistic colleagues, by 19% in the first year and by 57% in the second.
How is this possible? Sean explained that mental abilities and technical skills determine only 25% of success.

If we know the intellectual data and skill of the employee, we can only predict his achievements in work with 25% confidence. The success of his work activity is 75% determined not by his intelligence or the level of proficiency in equipment, which we usually take into account, improve and train, and three other major categories. This is optimism (the belief that your behavior affects problem solving), social connections (how deep and interpersonal your relationship is), and how you feel about stress.

Students who want to succeed in the future should worry less about their grades, and more about optimism.

Sean found that throwing dice can predict your income with the same precision as the average score in college. (And millionaires agree with this).

So, your well-being has a huge impact on the level of success. What is the most useful thing that Sean found during his observations of happy anomalies?

2) Take problems as tasks, not as threats

Sean studied bankers immediately after a major crisis occurred. Most of them were in deep stress. But some were happy and cheerful.

What did these guys have in common? They did not see danger in problems, but considered them to be difficulties to be overcome.

Sean:

What did these positive exceptions do? When changes occurred in the economic or political landscape or in an educational institution, they saw it as not a threat, but an opportunity.

These people are simply created by others, and we have to envy them, right? Not. Sean conducted an experiment that proved that such an attitude can be learned.

Just by showing the ordinary bankers a video explaining how to see an adventure in stress, he turned the sad bank employees into superdeales.

Sean:

We watched groups of people over the next 3-6 weeks, and what did we find? If we could make people perceive stress as an improvement, an opportunity, and not as a threat, then we saw that the symptoms of stress were 23% less pronounced. This gave a significant increase not only in terms of happiness, but also significantly increased the level of their interaction at work.

But what if you can not cope with something? Probably, these “opportunities” are more than you need.
Should we just put an end to achieving a balance of work and personal life ? Abandon plans with friends and spend more time in the office?

Again, the answer is completely the opposite.

3) Doing double work means you need double your friends

After defending his undergraduate degree at Harvard, Sean was a student inspector there. He helped newcomers to adapt to an environment full of stress and competition.

For many students, a serious burden led to the fact that they lived in the library and ate right in their rooms, so as not to break away from their studies.

Did they show better results? Not. They ran out of steam and ended up wanting to move to another school.

Sean would tell them that they unknowingly cut themselves off from the greatest source of happiness.

Sean:

The people who best endure stress usually increase their social investment in the middle of a difficult period, which is exactly the opposite of most of us.

When I used them in research, it turned out that social ties are the largest source of happiness we have. When we work with indicators of social support, they always take precedence over all the rest of our affairs.

What did we learn about happiness? It predicts success. And there is no contradiction.

We have found that social interaction is essential to achieve academic success.

Do you want to resist stress , increase productivity and get a boost? Then not only look for support in society, but also provide it to others.

These results are confirmed by a study by the head of Wharton, Professor Adam Grant: people who give social support get the most out of it.

Sean noticed this not only among his students at Harvard. He gave similar recommendations to 1/3 of Fortune 100 companies, and it worked there too.

Some of you may think: “Well, happiness will make me more successful. I got it. But how can I be happier? ”
It is easier than you think.

4) Send a letter of thanks every morning

It may seem to you that happiness comes only with major victories and great achievements. You are not right. The study showed that the little things are more important.

Sean believes: instead of focusing on major events like vacations, it’s wiser to create small, steady habits like teeth brushing.

What small business will strengthen feeling of happiness for a long time? Send a 2-minute email or thank-you message immediately upon arrival to the office.

Sean:

The simplest thing you can do is to write a 2-minute eulogy or thank-you letter to one of your friends. We practiced it on Facebook, on US Food, on Microsoft. They wrote short letters of thanks or praise to one person they knew, each time choosing new people for 21 days. That's all. As a result, we found a significant increase in their social ties, which is the largest source of happiness found in organizations. It also improved teamwork. We measured the cumulative IQ in teams and teams working together for many years, but in both cases the results were lower than with social cohesion.

What other daily small “habits of happiness” recommends Sean?

• Write down everything that brings you pleasure.
• Meditate.
• Exercise.

Over 120,000 people get my weekly mailing list. It is carried out from my present address. People can answer. And they do it.

What do readers usually want to know?

You offer wonderful things. I read it all. I agree with them. But I just can't start doing them. How do i handle this? Sean has a great answer to that.

5) 20 seconds rule

What keeps you from making the necessary changes in your life? Sean calls this "energy to activate."
You know that the activation energy makes you break away from the sofa and go to the hall. The hardest part is to get started.

If you reduce the amount of energy needed to activate, the difficult actions will become simple. Therefore, make it so that new habits require no more than 20 seconds to prepare.

Sean would sleep in sportswear and put sneakers next to the bed. This would give him more chances to start the exercises after waking up.

Sean:

If you can reduce the preparation for a good habit to 3-20 seconds, the likelihood that you complete your plans increases significantly.

And you can use the same trick to get rid of negative traits. Watch too much tv? Simply remove the batteries from the control panel. This will create a 20-second hitch and significantly reduce the number of episodes of viewing programs.

So how to combine this all? And what is the most inspiring moment of all that Sean told me about happiness and success?

Results

This is what we can all learn from Sean:

1. Success does not bring happiness. Happiness is the source of success.
2. Think of problems as opportunities, not dangers.
3. Excess work means that you need enhanced social support. And it is better to provide it than to receive it.
4. Email a 2-minute thank you letter every morning.
5. Use the rule of 20 seconds to form a habit.

Some people might think that becoming happier is very difficult. Perhaps they suffer from depression. Or they saw a study that we have a “happiness limit”, and our genetics peremptorily determines how happy we can be.

Do you know what is most inspiring in Sean's words? A recent study showed that good habits are able to beat genes.

Sean:

Looking at the anomalies in the diagrams, we find people who have gotten rid of the dictatorship of genetics and the environment by consciously creating useful traits. These habits really allow them to interact with life in a more positive way. As a result, their activity is accompanied by an increase in the success rate, a decrease in the level of stress and an increase in resilience. They achieved all this by changing their mental attitudes and habits, and thus were able to replay their genes.

Many people have come to terms with the way they were born and with the fact that they will be like this for the rest of their lives. They remain this year just as they were in the past. I think positive psychology has shown us that this is not true.

Send a thank you letter right now. It only takes a couple of minutes. And write the following tomorrow morning.

Such a habit will make you happier. And this feeling will allow you to achieve great success and deepen your relationship.

Happiness. Success. Strong relationship. What else matters?

PS We recommend another article on the topic - How to turn self-improvement into a habit ?.

Translated by Vyacheslav Davidenko, founder of MBA Consult