I’ve been asking people inside and outside Microsoft what their definition is of … the good life.  I think it’s important, so you know what it is when you’ve got it, or you know what is is that you’re chasing, so you can make smarter choices.

At dinner the other night, a friend of mine put the good life in very simple terms:

1. Freedom to spend more time in your values.
2. Freedom to spend more time in your priorities.
3. You know what you want.

It’s surprisingly simple and surprisingly true, especially the more you move up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  It also resonates perfectly with one of my mentor’s cutting question to guide my career, “What do you want to spend more time doing?”

Photo by brianna.Lehman.

It surprised me, but it was also refreshing to learn that optimism is not about positivity. Another way to put it is, it’s your unchallenged thoughts that can lead to pessimism. I was also surprised by how amazingly simple the practice is to build an optimistic mindset. While I’m already an optimist, there’s always room for improvement, and I like the fact that this is a simple skill I can share with family and friends.

Know Your ABCs for Analyzing Your Thinking
According to Seligman, you can analyze your explanations of bad events using the ABC model. Let’s walk through the ABCs:

• Adversity – This is the bad event or challenge you face.
• Belief – This is your default thinking or belief about the bad event or challenge. It’s your explanation and interpretation of why things have gone wrong.
• Consequences – This is the impact of your beliefs. It’s what you feel and what you do, as a result of your belief or interpretation of what happened.

A simple way to think of the ABC model is, what happened? … why do you think that happened? … and how does that make you feel and act, as a result?

Disputation
Seligman refers to arguing with your thoughts as disputation. It’s the key practice for building your optimism. It works by countering your negative thoughts and rumination. To dispute your negative thoughts, you can practice with your ABCs.

To practice with your ABCs, identify the adversity, your belief and consequences. Next, dispute your beliefs. Notice how disputing your beliefs changes your consequences. For example, if you originally explained your adversity with beliefs that were permanent, personal, and pervasive, the consequences are you feel paralyzed and want to give up.

When you explain your beliefs in the opposite way, temporary, external, and specific, you create hope, which leads to action.

4 Ways to Improve your Disputation
According to Seligman, there are 4 ways you can dispute your beliefs more effectively:

• Evidence – Ask yourself, “”What’s the evidence you have for and against the belief?”
• Alternatives – Ask yourself, “Is there another way to look at the adversity?”
• Implications – Ask yourself, “What’s the impact?”, assuming that your negative explanation is right. Check whether you are making mountains out of molehills.
• Usefulness – Ask yourself, “Will thinking about the problem now, do any good?” If now is not the time, then either do something physically distracting, schedule a time to think things over, or write the negative thoughts down and deal with them when you’re ready.

My Related Posts

• Change Rumination or Pessimism to Defeat Optimism
• 3 Stories for Improving Your Thinking, Feeling, and Doing
• Master My Stories
• Secrets of Self-Esteem

Photo by Nicholas_T.

By filling your quiver of insights with inspiring quotes, you have more to draw from in any situation.  This post will help you fill your quiver with happiness quotes you can use throughout your life.   As you scan and sift through the happiness quotes, ask yourself, “how can I use this?”

What the Great Ones Teach Us on Happiness

Philosophers, scientists, and comedians have taught us a lot about happiness.  Maybe one of the most important lessons they’ve taught us is to look inward for happiness.  Sometimes it’s right in front of you and you just have to grab it.   They’ve also taught us that our thought patterns can limit or enable our happiness.  They’ve  taught us that happiness isn’t static.   They’ve taught us that happiness isn’t about things.  In fact, sometimes it’s about doing … doing what we love.

My Thoughts on Happiness

I think the key themes boil down to how we talk to ourselves, how we respond to things, how we make meaning, who we spend time with, and how we make the most of what we’ve got.   The other key thing is that happiness is dynamic and it’s not a static state.  It’s about living, learning and growing, and rolling with the punches.  I also think it’s important to think of happiness as a skill.  Drive from happiness.  For durable happiness, lead your happiness from the inside out.  Most importantly – enjoy the process.

Top 10 Happiness Quotes

Here are my top 10 favorite happiness quotes:

1. "Growth itself contains the germ of happiness." – Pearl S. Buck
2. "I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse.  I suspect people of plotting to make me happy." – J.D. Salinger
3. "If you think sunshine brings you happiness, then you haven’t danced in the rain." – Unknown
4. "It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day to day basis." – Margaret Bonnano
5. "It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about." – Dale Carnegie
6. "Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." – Abraham Lincoln
7. "Nobody can take away your pain, so don’t let anyone take away your happiness." – Unknown
8. "The art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging to a particular mode of happiness, but in allowing happiness to change its form without being disappointed by the change; happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up. " – Charles L. Morgan
9. "The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet." – James Oppenheim
10. "The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for." – Allan K. Chalmers

What is Happiness

According to Wikipedia, happiness is “a state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment, love, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy.”    Here are some quotes that illuminate and define happiness from different perspectives:

• "But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?" – Albert Camus
• "Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude." – Denis Waitley
• "Happiness is… usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults." – Thomas Szasz
• "Happiness is a direction, not a place." – Sydney J. Harris
• "Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself." – Ralph Waldo Emerson
• "Happiness is a Swedish sunset -it is there for all, but most of us look the other way and lose it." – Mark Twain
• "Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same." – Francesca Reigler
• "Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you." – Nathaniel Hawthorne
• "Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city." – George Burns
• "Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product." – Eleanor Roosevelt
• "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." – Mohandas K. Gandhi
• "Happiness is when your mind is thinking through your heart." – Judi Singleton
• "Happiness, it seems to me, consists of two things: first, in being where you belong, and second -and best -in comfortably going through everyday life, that is, having had a good night’s sleep and not being hurt by new shoes." – Theodor "Fontane
• "Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
• "Independence is happiness." – Susan B. Anthony
• "That is happiness; to be dissolved into something completely great." – Willa Cather
• "There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved." – George Sand
• "To fill the hour -that is happiness." – Ralph Waldo Emerson
• "Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations." – Edward de Bono
• "Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness." – Sophocles

Skilled Happiness

 You can learn to be happy and you can improve your happiness with skills.  When you think of it as a skill, you can change your thinking, feeling, and doing to drive from happiness.  Here are some quotes on building a happiness habit:

• "Everything is material for the seed of happiness, if you look into it with inquisitiveness and curiosity. The future is completely open, and we are writing it moment to moment. There always is the potential to create an environment of blame -or one that is conducive to loving-kindness." – Pema Chodron
• "Happiness held is the seed; happiness shared is the flower." – Unknown
• "Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response." – Mildred Barthel
• "Happiness is a habit—cultivate it." – Elbert Hubbard
• "Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like the violin." - John Lubbock
• "Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times." – Aeschylus
• "Happiness is an attitude of mind, born of the simple determination to be happy under all outward circumstances." – J. Donald Walters
• "If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion." – Dalai Lama
• "It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves." – Katherine Mansfield
• "Misery is almost always the result of thinking." – Joseph Joubert
• "The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and "start searching for different ways or truer answers." – M. Scott Peck
• "There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life — happiness, freedom, and peace of mind — are always attained by giving them to someone else." – Peyton Conway March
• "When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us." - Helen Keller
• "When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace." – Dalai Lama

The Pursuit of Happiness

Chasing happiness can make it elusive.  You have to bake happiness into the journey.  Here are some quotes on pursuing happiness:

• "Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you." – Nathaniel Hawthorne
• "If only we’d stop trying to be happy we’d have a pretty good time." – Edith Wharton
• "If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that has rolled under the radiator." – W. Beran Wolfe
• "In the pursuit of happiness, the difficulty lies in knowing when you have caught up." – R. H. Grenville
• "It’s pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness. Poverty and wealth have both failed." – Kin Hubbard
• "The perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy is to proportion our wants to our possessions, our ambitions to our capacities, we will then be a happy and a virtuous people." – Mark Twain
• "The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase, if you pursue happiness you’ll never find it." – C. P. Snow
• "The true way to render ourselves happy is to love our work and find in it our pleasure." – Francoise de Motteville
• "There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -are always attained by giving them to someone else." – Peyton Conway March
• "We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier." – Walter Savage Landor
• "You can never get enough of what you don’t need to make you happy." – Eric Hoffer
• "You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life." – Albert Camus

The Secret of Happiness

You don’t have to climb a mountain and ask a guru about the secret of happiness (although that could be fun.)  You can gain deep insights from some of the various happiness quotes:

• "Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action." – Benjamin Disraeli
• "Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy -because we will always want to have something else or something more." – Brother David Steindl-Rast
• "Happiness belongs to the self-sufficient." – Aristotle
• "Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves." – Helen Keller
• "Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others." – Buddha
• "Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open." – John Barrymore
• "I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve." – Albert Schweitzer
• "If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that has rolled under the radiator." – W. Beran Wolfe
• "It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day to day basis." – Margaret Bonnano
• "Many people have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose." – Helen Keller
• "My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. What am I doing right?" – Charles Schulz
• "Our days are happier when we give people a bit of our heart rather than a piece of our mind." – Unknown
• "People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within." – Ramona L. Anderson
• "Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy." – Thich Nhat Hanh
• "Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." – Albert Schweitzer
• "That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest." – Henry David Thoreau
• "The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart." – Thich Nhat Hanh
• "The basic thing is that everyone wants happiness, no one wants suffering. And happiness mainly comes from our own attitude, rather than from external factors. If your own mental attitude is correct, even if you remain in a hostile atmosphere, you feel happy." – Dalai Lama
• "The happiest people don’t have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything." – Unknown
• "The happiness that is genuinely satisfying is accompanied by the fullest exercise of our faculties and the fullest realization of the world in which we live." – Bertrand Russell
• "The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness." – William Saroyan
• "The greatest part of our happiness depends on our dispositions, not our circumstances." – Martha Washington
• "The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven." – John Milton
• "There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state to another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life." – Alexandre Dumas
• "To be truly happy and contented, you must let go of what it means to be happy or content." – Confucius
• "What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life." – Leo Buscaglia

General Quotes About Happiness

Here are some general quotes about happiness:

• "A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort." – Herm Albright
• "All men have a sweetness in their life. That is what helps them go on. It is towards that they turn when they feel too worn out." – Albert Camus
• "All seasons are beautiful for the person who carries happiness within." – Horace Friess
• "But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine." – Thomas Jefferson
• "Consider the following. We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others’ actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others’ activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others." – Dalai Lama
• "Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.” — Carl Jung
• "Everyone smiles in the same language." – Unknown
• "Everyone wants to be happy and nobody wants to feel pain, but you can’t make rainbows without any rain." – Unknown
• "Happiness is not so much in having as sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." – Norman MacEwan
• "Here we are the way politics ought to be in America; the politics of happiness, the politics of purpose and the politics of joy." – Hubert H. Humphrey
• "I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure." – John D. Rockefeller
• "I don’t know why we are here, but I’m pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves." – Ludwig Wittgenstein
• "I think I’m afraid to be happy, because whenever I get too happy, something bad always happens." – Charlie Brown
• "Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." – Marcel Proust
• "Love is a condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own." – Robert Heinlein
• "One should never direct people towards happiness, because happiness too is an idol of the market-place. One should direct them towards mutual affection. A beast gnawing at its prey can be happy too, but only human beings can feel affection for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can aspire to." – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• "Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination." – Mark Twain
• "Smile -it makes people wonder what you’re thinking." – Unknown
• "Smile -tomorrow could be a lot worse." – Unknown
• "The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. I have no wealth to bestow on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward. Is not friendship divine in this?” -  Henry David Thoreau
• "The truest greatness lies in being kind, the truest wisdom in a happy mind." – Ella Wheeler Wilcox
• "The truth which has made us free will in the end make us glad also." – Felix Adler
• "The world has to learn that the actual pleasure derived from material things is of rather low quality on the whole and less even in quantity than it looks to those who have not tried it." - Oliver Wendell Holmes
• "There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year’s course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. " – Carl Jung
• "There is no duty we so underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world." – Robert Louis Stevenson
• "Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves." – James M. Barrie
• "To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness." – Bertrand Russell
• "What everyone wants from life is continuous and genuine happiness." – Baruch Spinoza
• "When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him; and you are torn by the thought of the unhappiness and night you cast, by the mere fact of living, in the hearts you encounter." – Albert Camus
• "Whoever is happy will make others happy, too." – Mark Twain

Help me find the best of the best.  What are your favorite quotes on happiness?

Photo by lepiaf.geo.

Editor’s note: What does somebody who spent a year test-driving principles, tips, theories, and scientific studies on happiness think are the real keys to happiness?  That’s what I wanted to know.  This is a guest post on lessons learned in happiness by Gretchen Rubin. Gretchen is a best selling author and former lawyer. What’s interesting to me about Gretchen is that she studied happiness by making it a project. During The Happiness Project, Gretchen spent a year test-driving lessons in happiness from Aristotle to Oprah. In her new book, The Happiness Project: Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun, Gretchen writes about the year she spent studying and testing principles, patterns, and practices for happiness.   This post is Gretchen’s top 10 lessons learned in happiness.  Enjoy!

Top 10 Lessons Learned in Happiness
These are the top 10 lessons I’ve learned about happiness …

• Lesson 1. First Splendid Truth: To be happy, you need to consider feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.
  These are the elements of happiness. If you want to boost your happiness, try tackling one element. Get more “feeling good,” say. Or eliminate a source of “feeling bad.” Think about whether you “feel right” about the shape of your life. And look for an area in your life where you can create “an atmosphere of growth.”
• Lesson 2. Second Splendid Truth: One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
  People often focus on the first half of this statement, but the second half is just as important. It turns out, studies show, that happy people are more altruistic, more likely to volunteer, more interested in other people’s problems, and they are also better leaders and better able to bring about changes, when they try to do so.
• Lesson 3. Third Splendid Truth: The days are long, but the years are short.
  Check out my one-minute internet movie about this: http://www.theyearsareshort.com/
• Lesson 4. Fourth Splendid Truth: You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy.
• Lesson 5. Your body matters.
  It sounds obvious, but it’s easy to overlook! Get enough sleep, exercise regularly, get some sunshine, go to a doctor if you need to.
• Lesson 6. Happiness is other people.
  Philosophers and scientists agree: a KEY to happiness is strong relationships with other people. Building strong bonds should be one of your top priorities in life.
• Lesson 7. Outer order contributes to inner calm.
  For most people, making an effort to keep surroundings in decent order really pays off in happiness.
• Lesson 8. Happiness comes not from having more, not from having less, but from wanting what you have.
• Lesson 9. You can choose what you do, but you can’t choose what you like to do.
  To make a happy life, you need to know yourself and acknowledge your own nature. For some people, this is a real challenge.
• Lesson 10. “There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.” –Robert Louis Stevenson.

Photo by Capture Queen.

Last week, I picked up the book The Likeability Factor , by Tim Sanders.  It’s a book about how the single biggest improvement you can make in your life is likability.  From winning elections to having the best job … it’s all about likability, based on research.  The more likeable you are, the happier your life will be.  Likability impacts your health, wealth, and happiness. People choose people who they like.  They hire them, vote for them, buy from them, and spend time with them.  Research even shows that doctors spend more time with those they like.

4 Keys to Likeability
The beauty of the book is it treats likability as a skill.  Here are the key parts:

• Friendliness
• Relevance
• Empathy
• Realness

Friendliness is your ability to communicate liking and openness to others.  Relevance means you know what matters to people and you can connect with others’ wants, interests, and needs.  Empathy means your ability to recognize, acknowledge and experience other people’s feelings.  Realness means your authenticity and integrity behind your likeability.

Working On Your Likeability is Like Working Out
Unless you’re naturally a 10 on the likeability scale, it takes work.  As Sanders puts it, “A high L-factor is a form of social fitness, and achieving it can be just as tough and time-consuming as developing physical fitness.”  In this case, your L-Factor is your likeability factor.

It’s an insightful book, full of anecdotes, stories, and pragmatic advice.  I’ll be sharing more book nuggets in the future.

Photo by (pranav}.

In this Ted Talk on Synthetic Happiness, Dan Gilbert talks about how we can create our own happiness and how it’s like a mental immune system.  You don’t need to get what you want to be happy.  You can be just as happy if you don’t get what you want, as you can if you get what you want.  It’s not just sour grapes.  You can manufacture your own happiness.  It’s synthetic happiness.

Key Take Aways
Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, teaches us that synthetic happiness is just as real and enduring as real happiness.  Dan also teaches us that our longings and worries are overblown because we have the capacity to create happiness within ourselves rather than depend on experiences.  Here’s my key take aways:

• Our prefrontal cortex is our experience simulator.  In 2 million years our brains grew almost 3 times as big.  As they grew, we got a new structure, the prefrontal cortex.  The prefrontal cortex acts as an experience simulator.  None of our ancestors and no other animal can simulate experience the way we can. 
• Our mental simulator works badly.  We have impact bias.  Impact bias is our tendency for our mental simulator to work badly.  We imagine one scenario to be dramatically different from another scenario in terms of impact.  For example, the differences between winning or losing an election, gaining or losing a romantic partner, getting or not getting a promotion, passing or not passing a college test have far less impact, less intensity, and much less duration than we expect.  The differences between winning or losing and getting or not getting is less significant because happiness can be synthesized.
• Synthetic happiness.  Synthetic happiness is what we make when we don’t get what we want.
• Natural happiness .  Natural happiness is what we get when we get what we want.
• Synthetic happiness is as real as natural happiness.  Synthetic happiness is every bit as real and enduring as the kind of happiness you get when you get exactly what you were aiming for.
• Happiness can be synthesized.  Synthetic happiness acts like our psychological immune system.  It works to keep us happy.  It’s a system of cognitive processes, largely non-conscious cognitive processes, that help them change our views of the world so we can feel better about the worlds we find ourselves in.  It works best when we’re totally stuck, when we are trapped.  This is the difference between dating and marriage.  In dating, you look to get what you want, in marriage, you find a way to like what you’ve got. 
• Experiments show we can’t predict our happiness.  Experiments show time and again we can’t predict our happiness.  We overestimate our pleasures or overestimate our pains.  For example, we overestimate that winning the lottery will increase our happiness and we overestimate that losing the use of our legs will ruin it.
• Experiments show that choices can negatively impact our happiness.  When we have choices we worry about opportunity lost.  When we don’t have choices we come to like what we’ve got, more than what we originally predicted.
• Freedom is the friend of natural happiness.   When you get what you want, this is the playground of natural happiness.
• Freedom to choose is the enemy of synthetic happiness.   When you don’t get what you want, this is the playground of synthetic happiness.
• Our longing and worries are overblown.  Our longings and worries are overblown because we can manufacture our own happiness from within.

I really think “sour grapes” takes on a whole new light.  Maybe it’s just that your “bird in hand” really is worth 2 in the bush.

My Related Posts

•  Keys for Skilled Happiness
• Intelligence Doesn’t Determine Happiness
• 12 Little Laws of Life
• Choice
• Expectation Shapes Reality

Happiness is a skill you can develop.  Some people are born happy, while others have to work at it.  Some have to work harder than others.

Rather than work harder, work smarter.  Luckily, with all the focus on happiness, we now have a better body of knowledge to draw from.

Carlin Flora shares a collection of patterns and practices for skilled happiness from a variety of sources in her article, The Pursuit of Happiness, in Psychology Today.

Key Happiness Skills

Here are my key take aways:

1. We’re lousy at predicting what makes us happy.  This is especially true when we try to make predictions from our past experience.  Things are almost never as good or bad as we expect them to be.  Our memory is a bad recording device.  We recall beginning and endings better than the long middles.
2. Improve your self-talk.  Your can lift yourself up or bring yourself down.  Practice a positive internal dialogue.  Another way to put it is, be your coach not your critic.
3. Find engaging activities.  Focus on activities that are dynamic, surprising, and require your full attention.   This is a way to find your flow in your day to day activities.
4. Feel your full range of emotions.  Don’t fear your negative emotions.  Just notice them, but don’t let them overwhelm or control you.   Remember that what you resist persists.
5. Practice mindfulness.  Don’t struggle against your negative emotions.  Just let them be there without struggling against them.  Be open and curious towards your feelings rather than making judgments.
6. Work towards goals.  Don’t make happiness a goal.  Enjoy the pursuit.  Progress and pursuit are the key to happiness.  Be sure to stop and smell the roses.
7. Be generous.  Share more of yourself.  Whether it’s your time, experience or wealth, giving is the key to getting true joy.
8. Be careful who you hang with.  Your peer group can have a large influence on how you feel and what your expectations are.  The more values you share, the more you’ll enjoy it.
9. Limit your choices.   While more choices sound good, it can actually lead to frustration.  You worry more about making the wrong choices, or you stress over lost opportunities.  Enjoy the choices you do make.
10. Build your relationships.  Make building strong personal relationships a priority.  Your relationships can wax or wane.  Invest your time and energy in your relationships rather than take them for granted.
11. Evaluate your well-being at the macro as well as the micro level.  Step back and take a look at your life.   What makes you happy day to day, may not be what makes you happy over the last 10 years.  Use different time frames to find your personal trends in what makes you happy and to gain perspective.
12. Find out whether somebody else liked it.  Chances are, you might too.  We’re bad at predicting what we’ll enjoy.  Rather than try and predict what you’ll like, ask somebody who’s been there and done that.  One of the best ways to figure out whether you’ll enjoy something is to ask one of your friends.  This goes for jobs or vacations or just about anything.  The key here is to ask a friend who has similar values and taste.
13. Leverage your natural coping style.  If you’re not a shiny, happy person, don’t pretend to be.  Instead, leverage your natural style to be more effective.  For example, maybe you can turn your stress into better performance.  (see Use Stress to Be Your Best.)

I think the key themes boil down to how we talk to ourselves, how we respond to things, how we make meaning, who we spend time with, and how we make the most of what we’ve got.   The other key thing is that happiness is dynamic and it’s not a static state.  It’s about living, learning and growing, and rolling with the punches.

What is Happiness

Happiness is more like satisfied than ecstatic.  Flora writes:

“What is happiness?  The most useful definition – and it’s one agreed upon by neuroscientists, psychiatrists, behavioral economists, positive psychologists, and Buddhist monks – is more like satisfied or content than “happy” in its strict bursting-with-glee sense.  It has depth and deliberation to it.  It encompasses living a meaningful life, utilizing your gifts and your time, living with thought and purpose.”

We Lack the Skills to Get Out of Ruts

Rather than quick fixes, we need skills to get out of ruts.  Flora writes:

“Both the happiness and anti-happiness forces actually agree on something important – that we Americans tend to grab superficial quick fixes such as extravagant purchases and fatty foods to subdue any negative feelings that overcome us.  Such measures seem to hinge on a belief that constant happiness is somehow our birthright.  Indeed, a body of research shows instant indulgences do calm us down – for a few moments.  But they leave us poorer, physically unhealthy, and generally more miserable in the long run- and lacking in the real skills to get us out of our rut.”

You’re Wrong About What Makes You Happy

We’re not good at predicting what will make us happy.  You’re wrong about what will make you happy, and you’re wrong about what made you happy.Flora writes:

“We’re terrible at predicting our future feelings accurately, especially if our predictions are based on our past experiences.  The past exists in our memory, after all, and memory is not a reliable recording device: We recall beginnings and endings far more intensely than those long “middles,” whether they’re eventful or not.  So the horrible beginning of your vacation will lead you astray in deciding the best place to go next year.  Gilbert’s take-away advice is to forgo your own mental projections.  The best predictor of whether you’ll enjoy something is whether someone else enjoyed it.  So simply ask your friend who went to Mexico if you, too, should go there on vacation.”

My Related Posts

• Intelligence Doesn’t Determine Happiness
• 12 Little Laws of Life
• Lessons Learned from Peaceful Warrior
• Choice
• Process Over Product Orientation
• How To Figure Out What You Really Want

Photo by Hamed Masoumi

Given the economic climate and some horror stories I’m hearing, I’m refocusing on some patterns and practices for feeling good.   I think motivation is one of the most crucial skills you need throughout your life.  Even if already have motivation techniques that work for you, this is a set of expert techniques from the book Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy Revised and Updated , by Dr. David Burns.

Thought Patterns
Before reviewing the motivation techniques, you should be familiar with the following thought patterns:

• 10 Distorted Thinking Patterns
• 13 Negative Motivation Patterns

13 Motivation Techniques
Here’s a summary of the techniques:

• Antiprocrastination Sheet – This technique helps improve your negative assumptions. To use it, you list the tasks you need to perform.  You predict the difficulty and your satisfaction on a scale of 100.  After you perform the tasks, you write down your actual difficulty and your actual satisfaction.  See Antiprocrastination Sheet.
• Butt-Rebuttal Method – This technique is a way to deal with excuses you make where you talk yourself out of things.  For example, you could work out today “But.”  To use it, you write down the tasks you want to do.  You then write down your “but” excuses.  Next, you write a rebuttal for each excuse.  This works because you’re giving yourself a response to your excuses, rather than having to deal with them on the fly.  It’s also a way to remind yourself of why you are doing what you’re doing.  See But-Rebuttal Method.
• Can’t Lose System – This technique is a way to combat your fear of failure. It works by listing your fears, exposing distorted thinking, and identifying ways to cope.  To use it, first, list your worst case fears.  Next, rationalize your list.  Finally, identify coping strategies and fallback plans.  By thinking on paper, you can be more objective about your fears as well as more creative in terms of finding potential solutions.  See Can’t Lose System.
•  Count What Counts – This technique is a way to improve your self-confidence and remind yourself of the positive actions you take each day.  To use it, you simply either use a wristwatch counter and click each time you take a positive action, or you use a notebook and write it down.  As simple as this technique is, it’s produced profound results time and again.  What it does it retrain your brain to pay attention to the positive actions you take each day, which are easy to miss if you’re not counting them.  This gives you a more balanced view and helps build confidence in your ability to perform actions.  See Count What Counts.
•  Daily Activity Schedule – This technique is for breaking out of a lethargy cycle and to get motivated again for basic activity.  To use it, you list the activities you plan to get done for the day.  Identify whether each activity is for mastery or for pleasure.  After your activities, rate them as from 0 – 5, where 0 is low and 5 is high.  This technique helps you find the joy in things you do, and refocuses you on simple pleasures and simple mastery.  See Daily Activity Schedule.
•  Disarming Technique – This technique is for helping you respond to pushy, critics with advice.  Although the critics may have good advice, when it’s pushy, it’s easy for you to push back and cut off your nose to spite your face.  Instead, to use this technique, you disarm the critic by agreeing with them, but then you own the decision.  If your critic cares about your well being, this ends up being a win win.  See Disarming Technique.
• Little Steps for Little Feet – This technique is about dealing with overwhelming tasks or an overwhelming backlog.  To use it, you breakdown your tasks.  Think of them as little hurdles.  You divide a task into manageable units using time limitations.  For example, you might break it up into 20 minutes tasks or 30 minute tasks.  By breaking your tasks down and using timeboxes, it helps you take little steps to get major things done incrementally, rather than get overwhelmed up front.  See Little Steps for Little Feet .
• Motivation Without Coercion – This technique is about eliminating your “musts”, “shoulds”, and “oughts”.  Musts, shoulds, and oughts can drain you.  Instead, reframe your tasks as “wants.”  The idea is to create a reward system instead of using a whip against yourself.  See Motivation Without Coercion.
•  Pleasure Predicting Sheet – This technique is for helping you find out what activities you really enjoy and how much you enjoy them.  To use it, you write down your list of activities you will do for pleasure.  You predict your satisfaction on a 100 point scale.  After the activity, you record your actual satisfaction.  See Pleasure-Predicting Sheet.
• Self-Endorsement – Many people beat themselves up.  This technique is about helping you endorse yourself.  To use this technique, you list your self-downing statements.  Next to each statement, you write your self-endorsing statements.  Don’t dismiss your accomplishments.  Focus on your accomplishments.  This teaches you how to lift yourself up over time.  See Self-Endorsement.
• Test Your Cant’s – This technique is a about testing your negative assumptions.  It’s easy to fall into a pattern of thinking you can’t do this or you can’t do that.  This technique helps you prove it.  to use it, break down your assumptions into small hurdles.  Take action and test against each one, proving yourself right or wrong.  See Test Your Can’ts.
• TIC-TOC Technique – This technique is for getting past negative thoughts that block you from taking action.  To use it, you first write down the negative thoughts that get in the way of your tasks.  Next rationalize each item objectively.  Be sure to check for potential negative motivation patterns or distorted thinking patterns.  Lastly, write your rebuttal next to each negative thought. See TIC-TOC Technique.
• Visualize Success – This technique is about visualizing the prize.  Rather than motivate yourself with a stick, the idea is to create a big, fat carrot.  To use this, get a good picture of the end in mind.  Next, list the benefits of taking actions towards this outcome.  Lastly, repeat the benefits so that you can easily recall them.  See Visualize Success.

My Related Posts

• 6 Steps for Putting Your Strengths to Work
• Spend 75 Percent on Your Strengths
• Motivation or Action First

A friend of mine sent me an email titled “Twelve Little Laws of Life.”   The laws were short and sweet and I was impressed.   I hunted down the original author Tom Hoobyar.  Tom said I was free to republish the laws.  Here are the 12 laws of life, followed by my take on them. 

The 12 Little Laws of Life
Here’s Tom’s 12 little laws of life:

• SELF-MANAGEMENT AND PEOPLE SKILLS ARE THE KEYS TO YOUR SUCCESS AND HAPPINESS.
• YOU ARE AT THE CENTER OF YOUR UNIVERSE. STAY THERE!
• WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT MOST IS WHAT YOU GET.
• YOU MAKE YOUR HABITS AND THEN YOUR HABITS MAKE YOU.
• GUILT ENSLAVES YOU. RESPONSIBILITY LIBERATES YOU.
• “OBLIGATIONS” ARE A FRAUD.
• EXPECT LESS FROM OTHERS AND MORE FROM YOURSELF.
• NOBODY WAKES UP IN THE MORNING CHOOSING TO BE THE VILLAIN.
• THERE IS NO “HAPPILY EVER AFTER” IN THE REAL WORLD.
• THERE IS A HELL, AND IT STARTS EARLY.
• YOU CAN CREATE PARADISE ON EARTH. MANY PEOPLE DO.
• IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO CHANGE.

My Take on the 12 Little Laws of Life
To me, the laws seem robust and succinctly capture the heart of a lot of lessons that people have learned the hard way, myself included.  I like the fact that the laws are consistent with some of the best insights from Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP.)  Here’s what the laws mean to me:

• SELF-MANAGEMENT AND PEOPLE SKILLS ARE THE KEYS TO YOUR SUCCESS AND HAPPINESS.  Self-management includes what you say, think and do.  I think how you run your brain is one of the most important skills for life.  At the end of the day, it’s not what happens in your life but what you make of it that matters.  I’m also a fan of getting people on your side.  People can open doors or close them.  They can drag their feet or they can lift you up when you fall down.
• YOU ARE AT THE CENTER OF YOUR UNIVERSE. STAY THERE!    To me, this means drive your life from the inside out.  This echoes Covey’s lessons on using your internal compass.  This is about living your values and being true to you.  Don’t let other people make you something you’re not and don’t let an unstable world knock you off your rocker.  Create your firm foundation internally.
• WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT MOST IS WHAT YOU GET.    When you get a new car, suddenly you see it everywhere.  You get what you focus on.  if you want to find what’s wrong with things, you always can.  If you want to find what’s right with things, you can do that too.  If you want lead a life of magic, than focus on magic.  If you want a life of tragedy, then focus on tragedy.  You’re the director of your life, so ultimately you need to figure out what to point your camera at.
• YOU MAKE YOUR HABITS AND THEN YOUR HABITS MAKE YOU.  So true!   Any habit has inertia in the beginning.  You might bootstrap yourself with motivation.  Maybe a Rocky movie or Karate Kid.  Eventually though, your motivation wears thin or wears off entirely.  Your self-discipline though keeps you going.  Self-discipline is how you control your behavior for a longer-term benefit.  Eventually, your habit is burned into your body.  It’s a part of you.   It supports you.  What you say, think and do is a sum of your habits.  Your habits are either by design or by default.  You’re the architect of your life.  If you want a new design, start with your habits.
• GUILT ENSLAVES YOU. RESPONSIBILITY LIBERATES YOU.   Own it.  Taking responsibility liberates you from the guilt.  When you don’t take responsibility, guilt is a obvious response. 
• “OBLIGATIONS” ARE A FRAUD.   An obligation is a requirement to take some course of action.  Be flexible in your approach.  Turn your “have tos” into “choose tos.”  You know the saying, “The only thing certain is death and taxes,” by Benjamin Franklin.  You also know the saying, “rules are made to be broken.”  Don’t limit yourself by limiting your thinking.
• EXPECT LESS FROM OTHERS AND MORE FROM YOURSELF.  Don’t hold others to the bar you set for yourself.  Set a bar that makes sense for you.  Challenge yourself.   Surprise yourself.  Continuously raise the bar and stretch yourself.
• NOBODY WAKES UP IN THE MORNING CHOOSING TO BE THE VILLAIN.  People do the best they can with the resources they’ve got.  Forgive and forget.  Don’t take things personally.  People aren’t out to get you.  Assume people have the best intentions, you just might not agree with their approach. 
• THERE IS NO “HAPPILY EVER AFTER” IN THE REAL WORLD.  Happiness isn’t something you work towards and then achieve and then enjoy the rest of your life.  Life’s not static.   When you stop climbing, you start sliding.   You also can’t put happiness out of your reach.  if only you get this job, or if only you get that house, or if only you get this or that.  Happiness is from the inside out.   You make it a part of your daily existence.
• THERE IS A HELL, AND IT STARTS EARLY.   You can create your own Hell on earth.  Many people do it every day.  It’s the choices they make in terms of what they say, think, and do.  You can be a slave to your own thinking, or your thinking can unleash your best self, and your best life.
• YOU CAN CREATE PARADISE ON EARTH. MANY PEOPLE DO.    Decide to be happy.  Find the joy in your life.  There’s a lot of people in worse scenarios than you that found happiness.   There’s lots of examples of people with better scenarios than you  that make themselves miserable every day.
• IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO CHANGE.  Each moment is a new moment of choices.  Each moment is a new moment to start from scratch.  Imagine each moment is a fresh start.  Baggage wears you down.  Don’t bring any baggage with you.  Instead, carry forward lessons learned. 

My Related Posts

• The Change Frame
• Choose “How” Questions Over “Why” Questions
• Beliefs On Which NLP is Based
• Meta-Programs and Intrinsic Values in NLP

Well, it’s the holiday season, so I thought I’d share some lessons from old St. Nick.   Santa has always been one of my heroes.    Granted I never thought much of his outfit and never wanted to dress like him on Halloween, but all in all, he’s a great role model in other areas.  Everybody’s got their strengths and weaknesses.  While fashion’s not his forte, he’s got that relentless positive attitude and a contagious laugh.

The thing is, you can learn something from anybody if you want to.  The world’s cast of characters is your candy store of positive attributes.  You don’t have to like everything about them. Instead, just find the things you want to model from.      

Lessons from Santa
These are in no particular order.  It’s just a starter set of lessons from Santa (or The Jolly One, as I like to call him):

• Make the most of what you’ve got.  Santa’s got that signature “Ho, Ho, Ho …” and that belly of jelly.  If you’ve got it, flaunt it. 
• Laugh hard.   Don’t take yourself so seriously or you’ll never make it out alive.  Laugh hard, laugh often.  I’m sure Santa has his off days, but overall he’s a jolly camper.  He knows misery loves company and he knows that if you laugh, the world laughs with you, and if you cry, you cry alone. 
• Follow your passion.  Santa just wouldn’t live it any other way.  In Santa Claus is coming to Town we see Santa follow his heart, despite the resistance.  Is Santa just following his Golden Circle or did he read the Dip ?
• Find the joy in what you do.  I’ve never seen anybody with more passion in their work.  Granted, it’s officially only one day, but he lives his values throughout the year. (Maybe he read The 4-Hour work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich),   Yeah, there was one year, The Year without a Santa Claus, where Santa was going to take a holiday, but it was because he didn’t feel valued.  All it took was one little girl to lift him back on his feet.  She wrote a letter to Santa how she’d have a blue Christmas without him. Next thing you know, he’s back on the saddle again.  Ah, the power of prose! 
• Team up.  Surround yourself with a great team.  You don’t have to be great at everything and you don’t need to go it alone.  Santa’s got a team who’s got it back.  From elves to reindeer to Mrs. Claus, he’s got his bases covered.   The sum is way more than the parts.
• Find your voice, help others find theirs.  No doubt, Santa found his calling.  He’s the best at what he does.  If you know the story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer , Rudolph’s shiny bulb makes him leader of the pack, and an elf finds his calling as a dentist.  And let’s not forget the abominable snowman, Bumble.  He gets to put the star on the top of the tree.  It might not seem like much, but it meant a lot to him.   Somehow, I almost forgot about the Island of Misfit Toys.   Santa even finds homes for outcast toys like Charlie-in-The Box and a cowboy who rides an ostrich.  Go Santa!
• Focus on what’s right over what’s wrong.  There’s that power of positivity again.  Sure, I know you can get coal in your stocking, but Santa’s main focus is not what you did wrong, it’s what you did right.  Rock on!
• Forgive and forget.  In Frosty the Snowman , Santa forgives Hinkle the bad guy magician.  Hinkle never planned on being the bad guy and Santa knew this.  He even tells Hinkle he might find a gift in his stocking if he writes out an apology.   
• Believe in yourself.   I doubt Santa’s friends were supportive when he first shopped the idea of wearing a bright red suit with a sack of toys over his shoulder.  That didn’t stop him.  If he didn’t believe in himself first, he never would have pulled it off.  Confidence before competence.      
• It’s better to give, than to get.  Santa’s joy comes from making other people happy.  He doesn’t expect anything in return.  But, what goes around comes around.  If you’ve seen The Year without a Santa Claus, you know what I mean.  When the kids found out Santa was taking a holiday, they decided to make him presents.  Plucks at your heart strings, doesn’t it? 
• The world’s what you make of it.  If you believe in magic, you find magic.  In Frosty the Snowman , Frosty melts, but Santa brings him back to life with a gust of wind because Frosty’s made of Christmas snow.
• it’s Never Too Late to Start.  Just start.  It’s never too late to lead the life you want to live.  If you’ve seen Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, all it took was one night (and 3 ghosts), to turn Scrooge from a miserable miser to a charitable, community rockstar.  The more Scrooge gave, the more he got.

Now, I could go into Santa’s productivity practices, but that’s another day.  Rumor has it he’s working on his new life style book, The One-Day a Year Workweek.  The bulk of it is about how to use elves to outsource your life so you can free up your time, which is how Santa makes time to get jiggy with Mrs. Claus.

… Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, and happy Kwanzaa to all, and to all a good night!

Additional Resources

• The Blog of Tim Ferris (The 4-Hour Workweek)
• A Charlie Brown Christmas
• Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
• Santa Claus is Coming to Town
• The Year Without a Santa Claus