TEDTalk: The happy secret to better work
In his funny and insightful TedTalk, psychologist Sean Achor shares his research arguing that happiness inspires us to be more productive.
The talk starts off with a hilarious anecdotal story about Sean and his sister Amy as children. To avoid punishment, Sean encouraged his sister Amy not to tell on him after she fell while playing with her older brother. To do so, he played up her interests and found a way to distract her from her distress with childhood joy and wonder. Through this event, Sean introduces his topic: positive psychology.
What Sean does today is study statistical outliers—people who do better than average on tests, in their careers, etc. and tries to learn from them to see what it is that they are doing differently to have such success.
In his talk, Sean states that from his research he has found:
“it's not necessarily the reality that shapes us, but the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality. And if we can change the lens, not only can we change your happiness, we can change every single educational and business outcome at the same time.”
Studies have shown that 90 percent of your long-term happiness is predicted not by the external world, but by the way your brain processes the world.
Being able to maintain a positive outlook is thus an incredibly important skill to develop.
Sean describes some steps to take to do this:
“Journaling about one positive experience you've had over the past 24 hours allows your brain to relive it. Exercise teaches your brain that your behavior matters. We find that meditation allows your brain to get over the cultural ADHD that we've been creating by trying to do multiple tasks at once and allows our brains to focus on the task at hand. And finally, random acts of kindness are conscious acts of kindness. We get people, when they open up their inbox, to write one positive email praising or thanking somebody in their support network.”
Let’s all try to apply these new abilities into our daily lives and see just how far happiness can take us!
To increase your happiness through laughter and get some more insight, check out the talk:
