Happiness Is Never In The Future
By Shawn Achor in The Happiness Advantage
I was at a Starbucks in New York, completely minding my own business... Actually, I was intentionally eavesdropping on the conversation of some people at the table next to me, when I overheard one slightly overweight woman say to her three fit friends, "I've tried 19 diets over the past year, and none of them worked. I'll be so happy when I look more like you." My first thought was that if you've tried 19 diets in a year, you've tried none. I then looked at my watch and realized I was cutting it close to be at my talk to a large bank. So I bolted for the door onto Wall Street.
A few minutes later, I was giving a talk on how the business world needs to reverse the happiness formula. Most people think, if I work harder at my company, then I'll be successful, and then I'll be happy. But my research proves that formula is backwards.
Every time you're successful at work, your brain changes the goalposts of success. Thus, your brain never quite gets to happiness.
Moreover, if you can raise your happiness in the present (not looking for it in the future), then every business outcome improves. It is what we call the "happiness advantage."
That's when it hit me. That woman at Starbucks, was failing at her diets because she was using the wrong formula. The science of the "happiness advantage" has as much to do with dieting and exercise as it does for productivity and profitability (and to wonderful relationships. - Jim)
Most people think, if I can lose ten pounds, then I'll be happy. Or once I get six pack abs, then I'll be happy and girls will like me. Or man, I'd be so happy if I looked like the person on the cover of that health magazine. So people go about figuring out which flaw to fix first, resurrecting New Year's resolutions, and buying magazines to remind them that they don't yet look how they'd like to look. We think about how happy we'll be once get to some place in the future.
But most diet and exercise plans we set for ourselves fail. That's why it's such a fantastic cash cow for publishers, because the failure rate is so high. Once people fail, they try some or other diet or exercise plan. But the main reason we fail to hit goals is because we are working against our brain, not with it. Our brains are actually designed over the long run to function better at positive, rather than negative, neutral or stressed.
When you are negative, you spend a lot of your brain's resources activating the "Jerk" (the amygdala) instead of the "Thinker" (the prefrontal cortex). The more you use the Jerk to exercise, the less successful you will be long term.
We need to stop thinking, "I will be happy when..." That puts happiness after your diet and exercise goal (or relationship goal. --Jim) which means you miss out on a huge advantage.
A few months after sitting in that Starbucks, I met Zelana Montminy (Dr. Z) and Michelle Gielan (UPenn), two health and wellness experts in the field of positive psychology who helped connect my research in the Happiness Advantage the health sphere.
It's fine, even great, to want to be more fit and eat healthier, and it's great to set exercise goals. But most people doom their chances for success by starting with negative thoughts.
They start with the fact that they don't like something about themselves. They fixate on it, and decide to be unhappy until they fix it.
Without happiness first, you miss out on all of the "happiness advantage", namely: increased energy, improved self-efficacy, higher resilience, improved immune system and greater consistency.
Next are three ways to use happiness to improve your health and achieve your health goals. (See tomorrow's Marriage Tip.)
