The Secret Of Success - Is It Happiness?
Louder and louder we hear the cry... Work Harder! And you will taste the joy of success. PHOTO BY JORDAN WHITFIELD ON UNSPLASH
Have you ever seriously considered this question? Take a moment to track back to your early education. Think back to your school timetable, the homework, the tests, the relentless pursuit of better grades and excellence being the key to achieving what you desired in life.
The path of success leading to happiness is baked into us from an early age. Yet neuroscience suggests we may have the sequence the wrong way round.
Since the Industrial Revolution, it’s been success first.
Our current education and schooling systems broadly follow a structure and ethos that was born out of the industrial revolution. Systems primarily designed to power enterprise and to provide the modern industrial world with its quota of workforce in each vertical.
So, for generations we’ve pushed ourselves and our children to succeed in this system of leaderboards and score-driven academia, relegating and forgetting the softer skills in life.
And, once we’ve left education and entered the world of work, we’re told time and again that if we focus and keep on competing and climbing the ladder of our chosen profession, then we will be a success. The reward for that success will be the job, the home, the car and the partner of our dreams and the assumption is that ultimately we will be happy.
Has our drive to put success first made us happy?
With the increasing cost of higher education, spiraling student debt, competition for work and escalating house prices, we’ve created a pressured society that demands success. This carries over into the workplace, where mental health problems are now the leading cause of sickness absence in the U.K. 70 million work days are lost every year due to mental health issues, costing employers £2.4 billion per year.
According to a recent study of 1,000 full-time employees in the U.S., more than 50% said they feel more stressed today than they did just one year ago. And, 60% reported being stressed all or most of the time at work.
Are we chasing our own tail of success in the search for happiness? Is it time we changed our approach?
Neuroscience has proven happiness precedes success.
Neuroscience and studies of positive psychology prove that happiness is a key driver and precursor of success, with two decades of research backing this up.
One reason is that positive feelings make the brain work better. Positive emotion triggers the release of serotonin and dopamine, which significantly enhance motor control, motivation, memory, problem-solving, mental focus and the ability to process multiple concepts simultaneously. So, positive thinking really can make you more successful.
A 2018 study by Stanford researchers demonstrated that positivity for a subject increases the activity of the hippocampus, an area of the brain that’s closely linked with memory and learning. They discovered that school children don’t just like subjects they’re good at, they also do better at subjects they like because their brains work better.
While the evidence is conclusive, the positive psychology movement has yet to spread widely into the mainstream.
Four things you can practice now to put happiness first in your pursuit of success.
With the evidence in hand, we can take tips from some of the leaders in the field of positive psychology.
Pursue meaningful engagement
Martin Seligman, the pioneer of positive psychology, talks about meaningful engagement as a key factor of happiness. When we identify our greatest strengths and recraft our life to use them in our social and family interactions we gain more meaning. His quote summaries this brilliantly, “One of the best ways of discovering this value is by nourishing our unique strengths in contributing to the happiness of our fellow humans.”
Practice mindfulness
A study by Harvard psychologists showed that we spend about 47% of our waking hours thinking about what isn’t going on. And that this typically makes us unhappy. The solution? To focus on whatever we are doing and the experience we are having in this very moment. In other words, to develop the skill of mindfulness.
Strengthen your friendship circles
Shawn Achor, in his book The Happiness Advantage talks of the challenges and periods of stress we face. It’s how we choose to handle them that’s the most telling. Whereas some people choose to retreat within themselves when the going gets tough, the most successful people will instead make time for friends, peers and family members, always seeking to strengthen their friendship circles.
Develop your softer skills to enable you to flourish
When LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner was asked which professional skill is most in demand, he said that what the job market is crying out for at the moment is people with excellent soft skills. Those are personal and communication skills including empathy, listening skills and the ability to build a team.
Isn’t it time we put the pursuit of happiness before success.
With 60% of workers in significant global economies experiencing increased workplace stress and with money worries and fears about the future topping the leaderboard of U.S. stress stats, it’s time we seriously considered the evidence of neuroscience as we look for more ways to adopt positive psychology into our lifestyles and workplaces and strive to prioritize the pursuit of happiness.
by Nick Bennett