• Train Yourself to be Happier

  Filed under Shift Perspective
  Jan 10

  Audio: Train Yourself to be Happier [Time - 8:40, File Size - 8.1 MB]

  ” …scientists now believe happiness is a skill that can be learned, just like skiing or playing a musical instrument: With daily practice, you get ever better.” (from Willing Your Way to Happiness,” DenverPost online)

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  “For much of its history, psychology has seemed obsessed with human failings and pathology. The very idea of psychotherapy, first formalized by Freud, rests on a view of human beings as troubled creatures in need of repair….A watershed moment arrived in 1998, when University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman, in his presidential address to the American Psychological Association, urged psychology to “turn toward understanding and building the human strengths to complement our emphasis on healing damage…That speech launched today’s positive psychology movement…The University of Pennsylvania offers a master’s degree in the field… focusing on people’s strengths and virtues as a point of departure…Their lab experiments … define not the conditions that induce depraved behavior, but those that foster generosity, courage, creativity, and laughter.”   – from The Science of Happiness: Psychology Explores Humans at Their Best by Craig Lambert in a Harvard Magazine online article:  http://harvardmagazine.com/2007/01/the-science-of-happiness.html

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  “I became interested in the Science of Happiness as a result of banging together three ideas that, for me at least, were fairly compelling news. These ideas are:
  1) Researchers using MRI have been able to isolate the portions of the brain that are related to happiness and watch them in operation, in real time.
  2) We’ve learned that the brain is plastic. Throughout our lives, we can make actual physical changes to the brain’s structure depending on how we use it or what we ask our brains to focus on.
  3) The new Science of Happiness (based on Positive Psychology) is developing some science-based tools and methods to enable us to train our brains to help create more happiness in our lives.”

  - Michael Greer in “The Science of Happiness: Part 1, A Little Theory” from The Best Free Training blog.

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  OK. So we know that you can train yourself to be happier. But what are some practical ways you can apply this stuff to a project team?

  Greer’s Challenges…

  Reflections

  Reflect on these questions:

  • Is your project team happy? Are they excited, engaged, connected, and glad to be working on the project?
  • Do any of your team members seem depressed? Overly anxious?
  • Are you willing to gently, diplomatically, introduce your project team members to some ways they might train themselves to be happier?

  Team Challenges

  Ask your team:

  • (Diplomatically, gently, in a non-threatening setting…) Are we as happy as we might be?
  • Are you aware that there is a “Science of Happiness” and research is showing that you can train yourself to be happy?
  • Would you like to learn more  about how we can train ourselves to be happier?

  If appropriate, suggest the following free resources to your team members:

  • The Happiness Formula, from BBC, provides lots of interesting, light-hearted, though well-documented, info in a journalistic format:
    URL — http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/happiness_formula/
  • Go to Martin Seligman’s Authentic Happiness website ( http://www.authentichappiness.org ), sign up for your free membership, and work through the VIA Signature Strengths Questionnaire. According to Dr. Seligman:   “I do not believe that you should devote overly much effort to correcting your weaknesses. Rather, I believe that the highest success in living and the deepest emotional satisfaction comes from building and using your signature strengths.”  — Seligman in Authentic Happiness
  • Work through three key exercises which were used by Seligman’s researchers to help develop happiness in their research subjects.
    • Gratitude visit. You have one week to write and then deliver a letter of gratitude in person to someone who had been especially kind to you but had never been properly thanked.
    • Three good things in life. Every night for one week, write down three things that went well each day and provide a causal explanation for each good thing (i.e., describe why it happened).
    • Use signature strengths in a new way. Take the inventory of character strengths online at http://www.authentichappiness.org and get individualized feedback about your top five (“signature”) strengths. Then use one of these top strengths in a new and different way every day for one week.

  Project Manager Challenges

  • Work through all the resources recommended above in Team Challenges.
  • Try to make sure you apply your own signature strengths daily as manager of your project.
  • Find ways to express gratitude to team members when appropriate. And be a “gratitude role model” by expressing gratitude openly and often in front of your team members.
  • In private discussions with each team member, ask each of them how you can support their applying their signature strengths to the project. Then do everything in your power to provide this support.

  Learn More…

  • Review my series on The Best Free Training blog:
    • The Science of Happiness: Part 1, A Little Theory
    • The Science of Happiness: Part 2, Some Fun Stuff
    • The Science of Happiness: Part 3, Train Yourself to Be Happier

  • Go to PhilosophersNotes and get the full notes and MP3 on Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman
  • Get the full, 4 1/2 hour audio of Authentic Happiness, narrated by the author, Martin Seligman, from LearnOutLoud.com.
  • Check out Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman on Amazon.com

  Book version:

  
  Kindle version:
  

  Tagged as: Add new tag, gratitude, happiness, science of happiness, Seligman
  
  2 Comments

2 Responses to “Train Yourself to be Happier”

1. 

   Roland said on March 20th, 2010 at 3:04 am

   I trace my family history so I will know who to blame.

2. 

   Michael Greer said on March 20th, 2010 at 10:57 am

   Hmmm…. this may be a thinly veiled pitch for your genealogy website, eh?

   I think the notion of “blaming” someone for your unhappiness is fairly wrong-headed and a waste of time. All the literature and great teachers tell us that one of the first steps on your journey toward happiness is to take responsibility for your own state of being (see, “Consciously Choose Your Attitude” — http://www.inspiredprojectteams.com/?p=1026 or “Learn to Be Optimistic… Learn to Succeed” — http://www.inspiredprojectteams.com/?p=507 ) as well as all the links related to the post above, Train Yourself to be Happier.

   What’s more, all the great teachers and even clinical psychologists who study happiness tell us that developing the habit of actively expressing gratitude, keeping a gratitude log, etc. is essential to happiness. So if you spend time ruminating about all the bad things that other people have done to you, you will be going in the OPPOSITE direction of happiness. Instead, I recommend you ignore any sins perpetrated against you by others, instead focusing on all the good things in your past (including kindnesses extended to you, help given, etc.) and ignoring the bad stuff.

   And, if you must root around in your family tree (which I personally don’t enjoy or recommend), try to find specific reasons to be grateful to your ancestors! – Mike G.

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