“The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.” William James (1842-1910)
An absolute scientific revolution has uncovered “Positive Psychology” as a dynamic human force that results in performance enhancement across all aspects of life.
As a singular vital behavior, an increase in positivity has been shown to have a measurable and direct impact on your intelligence, your creativity and your energy levels.
What is the most profound aspect of positivity? Positivity can be learned, positivity can be increased and positivity can become a constant of daily life through formational strategies and continued practice.
There is a quantifiable connection between happiness and success. This is a vital behavior to be learned.
Martin Seligman, the recognized founder of positive psychology referred to “using your signature strengths every day to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification.”
Shawn Achor, founder of GoodThinkInc, Professor of Advanced Management Program at Wharton Business School, and collaborator on research with Yale and Columbia University postulates that if you could raise the level of positivity in the present, then the “brain experiences a ‘happy advantage’…brain at positive performs better, intelligence rises, creativity rises, energy levels rise.“
Wellbeing companies like LiveAnew work with employers across the country using the science of Positive Psychology and goal theory to maximize the opportunity for positivity to occur. In it’s simplest form LiveAnew has developed strategies to impact health, wellness and productivity by helping employees learn to have fun, be happy and live healthy.
Studies have documented that 75% of career success is predicted not by your IQ, but by your optimism, your social supports and your ability to handle stress in a positive way.
Practicing brief positivity strategies every day for as little as three weeks has produced lasting impact— happiness is a choice, you can cultivate positive habits and positive mindsets which lead to higher levels of success in every day life.
The easiest way to increase one’s happiness is by doing something that increases the ratio of positive to negative emotions.
Achor outlines the following daily strategy to train your brain and heighten your positivity turning on the brain learning centers. Do these things for 2 minutes at least 21 days in a row to rewire for positivity:
- Gratitude—Jot down three different things you were grateful for.
- Journaling—describe in a journal your most meaningful experience of the past 24 hours.
- Exercise—teach yourself that behavior matters.
- Meditation—allow you to focus.
- Random Acts of Kindness—daily outreach.
Achor found that, “Conventional wisdom holds that if we work hard we will be more successful, and if we are more successful, then we’ll be happy. But recent discoveries in the field of positive psychology have shown that this formula is actually backwards:
Happiness fuels success, not the other way around.
Watch the following presentation on positive psychology—