10 Simple Things That Will Make You Happier

10 Simple Things You Can Do Today That Will Make You Happier, Backed By Science

Posted by R & S in Science On December 2, 2013

Happiness is so interesting, because we all have different ideas about what it is and how to get it. It’s also no surprise that it’s the Nr.1 value for Buffer’s culture, if you see our slidedeck about it. So naturally we are obsessed with it.

I would love to be happier, as I’m sure most people would, so I thought it would be interesting to find some ways to become a happier person that are actually backed up by science. Here are ten of the best ones I found.

1. Exercise more – 7 minutes might be enough

You might have seen some talk recently about the scientific 7 minute workout mentioned in The New York Times. So if you thought exercise was something you didn’t have time for, maybe you can fit it in after all.

Exercise has such a profound effect on our happiness and well-being that it’s actually been proven to be an effective strategy for overcoming depression. In a study cited in Shawn Achor’s book, The Happiness Advantage, three groups of patients treated their depression with either medication, exercise, or a combination of the two. The results of this study really surprised me. Although all three groups experienced similar improvements in their happiness levels to begin with, the follow up assessments proved to be radically different:

The groups were then tested six months later to assess their relapse rate. Of those who had taken the medication alone, 38 percent had slipped back into depression. Those in the combination group were doing only slightly better, with a 31 percent relapse rate. The biggest shock, though, came from the exercise group: Their relapse rate was only 9 percent!

You don’t have to be depressed to gain benefit from exercise, though. It can help you to relax, increase your brain power and even improve your body image, even if you don’t lose any weight.

A study in the Journal of Health Psychology found that people who exercised felt better about their bodies, even when they saw no physical changes:

Body weight, shape and body image were assessed in 16 males and 18 females before and after both 6 × 40 mins exercise and 6 × 40 mins reading. Over both conditions, body weight and shape did not change. Various aspects of body image, however, improved after exercise compared to before.

We’ve explored exercise in depth before, and looked at what it does to our brains, such as releasing proteins and endorphins that make us feel happier, as you can see in the image below.

2. Sleep more – you’ll be less sensitive to negative emotions

We know that sleep helps our bodies to recover from the day and repair themselves, and that it helps us focus and be more productive. It turns out, it’s also important for our happiness.

In NutureShock, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman explain how sleep affects our positivity:

Negative stimuli get processed by the amygdala; positive or neutral memories gets processed by the hippocampus. Sleep deprivation hits the hippocampus harder than the amygdala. The result is that sleep-deprived people fail to recall pleasant memories, yet recall gloomy memories just fine.

In one experiment by Walker, sleep-deprived college students tried to memorize a list of words. They could remember 81% of the words with a negative connotation, like “cancer.” But they could remember only 31% of the words with a positive or neutral connotation, like “sunshine” or “basket.”

The BPS Research Digest explores another study that proves sleep affects our sensitivity to negative emotions. Using a facial recognition task over the course of a day, the researchers studied how sensitive participants were to positive and negative emotions. Those who worked through the afternoon without taking a nap became more sensitive late in the day to negative emotions like fear and anger.

Using a face recognition task, here we demonstrate an amplified reactivity to anger and fear emotions across the day, without sleep. However, an intervening nap blocked and even reversed this negative emotional reactivity to anger and fear while conversely enhancing ratings of positive (happy) expressions.

Of course, how well (and how long) you sleep will probably affect how you feel when you wake up, which can make a difference to your whole day. Especially this graph showing how your brain activity decreases is a great insight about how important enough sleep is for productivity and happiness:

Another study tested how employees’ moods when they started work in the morning affected their work day.

Researchers found that employees’ moods when they clocked in tended to affect how they felt the rest of the day. Early mood was linked to their perceptions of customers and to how they reacted to customers’ moods.

And most importantly to managers, employee mood had a clear impact on performance, including both how much work employees did and how well they did it.

Sleep is another topic we’ve looked into before, exploring how much sleep we really need to be productive.

3. Move closer to work – a short commute is worth more than a big house

Our commute to the office can have a surprisingly powerful impact on our happiness. The fact that we tend to do this twice a day, five days a week, makes it unsurprising that its effect would build up over time and make us less and less happy.

According to The Art of Manliness, having a long commute is something we often fail to realize will affect us so dramatically:

… while many voluntary conditions don’t affect our happiness in the long term because we acclimate to them, people never get accustomed to their daily slog to work because sometimes the traffic is awful and sometimes it’s not. Or as Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert put it, “Driving in traffic is a different kind of hell every day.”

We tend to try to compensate for this by having a bigger house or a better job, but these compensations just don’t work:

Two Swiss economists who studied the effect of commuting on happiness found that such factors could not make up for the misery created by a long commute.

4. Spend time with friends and family – don’t regret it on your deathbed

Staying in touch with friends and family is one of the top five regrets of the dying. If you want more evidence that it’s beneficial for you, I’ve found some research that proves it can make you happier right now.

Social time is highly valuable when it comes to improving our happiness, even for introverts. Several studies have found that time spent with friends and family makes a big difference to how happy we feel, generally.

I love the way Harvard happiness expert Daniel Gilbert explains it:

We are happy when we have family, we are happy when we have friends and almost all the other things we think make us happy are actually just ways of getting more family and friends.

George Vaillant is the director of a 72-year study of the lives of 268 men.

In an interview in the March 2008 newsletter to the Grant Study subjects, Vaillant was asked, “What have you learned from the Grant Study men?” Vaillant’s response: “That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.”

He shared insights of the study with Joshua Wolf Shenk at The Atlantic on how the men’s social connections made a difference to their overall happiness:

The men’s relationships at age 47, he found, predicted late-life adjustment better than any other variable, except defenses. Good sibling relationships seem especially powerful: 93 percent of the men who were thriving at age 65 had been close to a brother or sister when younger.

In fact, a study published in the Journal of Socio-Economics states than your relationships are worth more than $100,000:

Using the British Household Panel Survey, I find that an increase in the level of social involvements is worth up to an extra £85,000 a year in terms of life satisfaction. Actual changes in income, on the other hand, buy very little happiness.

I think that last line is especially fascinating: Actual changes in income, on the other hand, buy very little happiness. So we could increase our annual income by hundreds of thousands of dollars and still not be as happy as if we increased the strength of our social relationships.

The Terman study, which is covered in The Longevity Project, found that relationships and how we help others were important factors in living long, happy lives:

We figured that if a Terman participant sincerely felt that he or she had friends and relatives to count on when having a hard time then that person would be healthier. Those who felt very loved and cared for, we predicted, would live the longest.

Surprise: our prediction was wrong… Beyond social network size, the clearest benefit of social relationships came from helping others. Those who helped their friends and neighbors, advising and caring for others, tended to live to old age.

5. Go outside – happiness is maximized at 13.9°C
In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor recommends spending time in the fresh air to improve your happiness:

Making time to go outside on a nice day also delivers a huge advantage; one study found that spending 20 minutes outside in good weather not only boosted positive mood, but broadened thinking and improved working memory…

This is pretty good news for those of us who are worried about fitting new habits into our already-busy schedules. Twenty minutes is a short enough time to spend outside that you could fit it into your commute or even your lunch break.

A UK study from the University of Sussex also found that being outdoors made people happier:

Being outdoors, near the sea, on a warm, sunny weekend afternoon is the perfect spot for most. In fact, participants were found to be substantially happier outdoors in all natural environments than they were in urban environments.

The American Meteorological Society published research in 2011 that found current temperature has a bigger effect on our happiness than variables like wind speed and humidity, or even the average temperature over the course of a day. It also found that happiness is maximized at 13.9°C, so keep an eye on the weather forecast before heading outside for your 20 minutes of fresh air.

The connection between productivity and temperature is another topic we’ve talked about more here. It’s fascinating what a small change in temperature can do.

6. Help others – 100 hours a year is the magical number
One of the most counterintuitive pieces of advice I found is that to make yourself feel happier, you should help others. In fact, 100 hours per year (or two hours per week) is the optimal time we should dedicate to helping others in order to enrich our lives.

If we go back to Shawn Achor’s book again, he says this about helping others:

…when researchers interviewed more than 150 people about their recent purchases, they found that money spent on activities—such as concerts and group dinners out—brought far more pleasure than material purchases like shoes, televisions, or expensive watches. Spending money on other people, called “prosocial spending,” also boosts happiness.

The Journal of Happiness Studies published a study that explored this very topic:

Participants recalled a previous purchase made for either themselves or someone else and then reported their happiness. Afterward, participants chose whether to spend a monetary windfall on themselves or someone else. Participants assigned to recall a purchase made for someone else reported feeling significantly happier immediately after this recollection; most importantly, the happier participants felt, the more likely they were to choose to spend a windfall on someone else in the near future.

So spending money on other people makes us happier than buying stuff for ourselves. What about spending our time on other people? A study of volunteering in Germany explored how volunteers were affected when their opportunities to help others were taken away:

Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall but before the German reunion, the first wave of data of the GSOEP was collected in East Germany. Volunteering was still widespread. Due to the shock of the reunion, a large portion of the infrastructure of volunteering (e.g. sports clubs associated with firms) collapsed and people randomly lost their opportunities for volunteering. Based on a comparison of the change in subjective well-being of these people and of people from the control group who had no change in their volunteer status, the hypothesis is supported that volunteering is rewarding in terms of higher life satisfaction.

In his book Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being, University of Pennsylvania professor Martin Seligman explains that helping others can improve our own lives:

…we scientists have found that doing a kindness produces the single most reliable momentary increase in well-being of any exercise we have tested.

7. Practice smiling – it can alleviate pain
Smiling itself can make us feel better, but it’s more effective when we back it up with positive thoughts, according to this study:

A new study led by a Michigan State University business scholar suggests customer-service workers who fake smile throughout the day worsen their mood and withdraw from work, affecting productivity. But workers who smile as a result of cultivating positive thoughts – such as a tropical vacation or a child’s recital – improve their mood and withdraw less.

Of course it’s important to practice “real smiles” where you use your eye sockets. It’s very easy to spot the difference:

According to PsyBlog, smiling can improve our attention and help us perform better on cognitive tasks:

Smiling makes us feel good which also increases our attentional flexibility and our ability to think holistically. When this idea was tested by Johnson et al. (2010), the results showed that participants who smiled performed better on attentional tasks which required seeing the whole forest rather than just the trees.

A smile is also a good way to alleviate some of the pain we feel in troubling circumstances:

Smiling is one way to reduce the distress caused by an upsetting situation. Psychologists call this the facial feedback hypothesis. Even forcing a smile when we don’t feel like it is enough to lift our mood slightly (this is one example of embodied cognition).

One of our previous posts goes into even more detail about the science of smiling.

8. Plan a trip – but don’t take one
As opposed to actually taking a holiday, it seems that planning a vacation or just a break from work can improve our happiness. A study published in the journal, Applied Research in Quality of Life showed that the highest spike in happiness came during the planning stage of a vacation as employees enjoyed the sense of anticipation:

In the study, the effect of vacation anticipation boosted happiness for eight weeks.

After the vacation, happiness quickly dropped back to baseline levels for most people.

Shawn Achor has some info for us on this point, as well:

One study found that people who just thought about watching their favorite movie actually raised their endorphin levels by 27 percent.

If you can’t take the time for a vacation right now, or even a night out with friends, put something on the calendar—even if it’s a month or a year down the road. Then whenever you need a boost of happiness, remind yourself about it.

9. Meditate – rewire your brain for happiness
Meditation is often touted as an important habit for improving focus, clarity and attention span, as well as helping to keep you calm. It turns out it’s also useful for improving your happiness:

In one study, a research team from Massachusetts General Hospital looked at the brain scans of 16 people before and after they participated in an eight-week course in mindfulness meditation. The study, published in the January issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, concluded that after completing the course, parts of the participants’ brains associated with compassion and self-awareness grew, and parts associated with stress shrank.

Meditation literally clears your mind and calms you down, it’s been often proven to be the single most effective way to live a happier live. I believe that this graphic explains it the best:

According to Shawn Achor, meditation can actually make you happier long-term:

Studies show that in the minutes right after meditating, we experience feelings of calm and contentment, as well as heightened awareness and empathy. And, research even shows that regular meditation can permanently rewire the brain to raise levels of happiness.

The fact that we can actually alter our brain structure through mediation is most surprising to me and somewhat reassuring that however we feel and think today isn’t permanent.

We’ve explored the topic of meditation and it’s effects on the brain in-depth before. It’s definitely mind-blowing what this can do to us.

10. Practice gratitude – increase both happiness and life satisfaction
This is a seemingly simple strategy, but I’ve personally found it to make a huge difference to my outlook. There are lots of ways to practice gratitude, from keeping a journal of things you’re grateful for, sharing three good things that happen each day with a friend or your partner, and going out of your way to show gratitude when others help you.

In an experiment where some participants took note of things they were grateful for each day, their moods were improved just from this simple practice:

The gratitude-outlook groups exhibited heightened well-being across several, though not all, of the outcome measures across the 3 studies, relative to the comparison groups. The effect on positive affect appeared to be the most robust finding. Results suggest that a conscious focus on blessings may have emotional and interpersonal benefits.

The Journal of Happiness studies published a study that used letters of gratitude to test how being grateful can affect our levels of happiness:

Participants included 219 men and women who wrote three letters of gratitude over a 3 week period.

Results indicated that writing letters of gratitude increased participants’ happiness and life satisfaction, while decreasing depressive symptoms.

For further reading, check out 7 Simple productivity tips you can apply today, backed by science, which goes even deeper into what we can do to be more grateful.

Quick last fact: Getting older will make yourself happier

As a final point, it’s interesting to note that as we get older, particularly past middle age, we tend to grow happier naturally. There’s still some debate over why this happens, but scientists have got a few ideas:

Researchers, including the authors, have found that older people shown pictures of faces or situations tend to focus on and remember the happier ones more and the negative ones less.

Other studies have discovered that as people age, they seek out situations that will lift their moods — for instance, pruning social circles of friends or acquaintances who might bring them down. Still other work finds that older adults learn to let go of loss and disappointment over unachieved goals, and hew their goals toward greater wellbeing.

So if you thought being old would make you miserable, rest assured that it’s likely you’ll develop a more positive outlook than you probably have now.

See also:

Pharrell William's "Happy"
Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry Be Happy"

The Science of Happiness

Life Is A Choice. It Is Your life: The Top 5 Regrets People Make On Their Deathbed

Bronnie Ware says; for many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality.

I learnt never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

It is very important to try and honor at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realize, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Often they would not truly realize the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again. When you are on your deathbed, what  others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.

Source: This article originated from blog of author Bronnie Ware.

Based on this article, Bronnie has released a full-length book. It is a memoir of her own life and how it was transformed based on the regrets of the dying people she cared for. The book is available from her website, and major online bookstores and is called ‘The Top Five Regrets of the Dying – A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing’.

See Also:
The Top 37 Things Dying People Say They Regret

PROP US UP ON THE LEANING SIDE

Every time I am asked to pray, I think of the old fellow who always prayed, "Lord, prop us up on our leaning side." After hearing him pray that prayer many times, someone asked him why he prayed that prayer so fervently.

He answered, "Well sir, you see, it’s like this . . . I got an old barn out back. It’s been there a long time. It’s withstood a lot of weather, it’s gone through a lot of storms, and it’s stood for many years. It’s still standing. But one day I noticed it was leaning to one side a bit. So I went and got some pine poles and propped it up on its leaning side so it wouldn’t fall.

Then I got to thinking about how much I was like that old barn. I’ve been around a long time. I’ve withstood a lot of life’s storms, and I’ve withstood a lot of bad weather in life, I’ve withstood a lot of hard times, and I’m still standing, too. But I find myself leaning to one side from time to time, so I like to ask the Lord to prop me up on my leaning side.

I figure a lot of us get to leaning at times. Sometimes we get to leaning toward anger, leaning toward bitterness, leaning toward hatred, leaning toward cussing, leaning toward a lot of things that we shouldn’t. So we need to pray, "Lord, prop us up on our leaning side, so we will stand straight and tall again to glorify Thee.”

We need Thee, Lord, to give us the strength to stand whenever we get out of balance. In those times, “Lord, prop us up on our leaning side.”

Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. (Isaiah 41:10)

Author Unknown

Believe in Yourself!

The professor stood before his class of 30 senior molecular biology students, about to pass out the final exam. 'I have been privileged to be your instructor this semester, and I know how hard you have all worked to prepare for this test. I also know most of you are off to medical school or grad school next fall,' he said to them.

'I am well aware of how much pressure you are under to keep your GPAs up, and because I know you are all capable of understanding this material, I am prepared to offer an automatic 'B' to anyone who would prefer not to take the final.'

The relief was audible as a number of students jumped up to thank the professor and departed from class. The professor looked at the handful of students who remained, and offered again, 'Any other takers? This is your last opportunity.' One more student decided to go. 

Seven students remained. The professor closed the door and took attendance. Then he handed out the final exam. There were two sentences typed on the paper:
'Congratulations, you have just received an 'A' in this class. Keep believing in yourself.'

I never had a professor who gave a test like that. It may seem like the easy way out of grading a bunch of exams, but it's a test that any teacher in any discipline could and should give. Students who don't have confidence in what they've learned are 'B' students at best.

The same is true for students of real life. The 'A' students are those who believe in what they're doing because they've learned from both successes and failures. They've absorbed life's lessons, whether from formal education or the school of hard knocks, and become better people.

Those are the people who you look for when you're hiring or promoting, and the ones you keep if you're downsizing. Your organization needs their brand of thinking.

Psychologists say that by the age of two, 50 percent of what we ever believe about ourselves has been formed; by age six, 60 percent, and at eight years, 80 percent. Wouldn't you love to have the energy and optimism of a little kid? There is nothing you couldn't do or learn or be.
But you're a big kid now, and you realize you have some limits. Don't let the biggest limit be yourself. Take your cue from Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to reach the summit of Mount Everest: 'It's not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.'

Believing in yourself comes from knowing what you are really capable of doing. When it's your turn to step up to the plate, realise that you won't hit a homerun every time. Baseball superstar Mickey Mantle struck out more than 1,700 times, but it didn't stop him from excelling at baseball. He believed in himself, and he knew his fans believed in him.

Surround yourself with positive people - they know the importance of confidence and will help you keep focused on what you can do instead of what you can't. Who you surround yourself with is who you become.

Never stop learning! Don't limit yourself only to work-related classes, either. Learn everything about every subject that you can. When you know what you're talking about, it shows.

Be very careful not to confuse confidence with a big ego. If you want people to believe in you, you also have to believe in them. Understand well that those around you also have much to contribute, and they deserve your support. Without faith in yourself and others, success is impossible.

At the end of a particularly frustrating practice one-day, a football coach dismissed his players by yelling, 'Now all you idiots, go take a shower!' All but one player headed toward the locker room. The coach glared at him and asked why he was still there.

'You told all the idiots to go, Sir,' the player replied, 'and there sure seems to be a lot of them. But I am not an idiot.'

Confident? You bet. And smart enough to coach that team some day.

Moral: Believe in yourself, even when no one else does.

from Ankur Bhandari

The Choices We Make, from Music and the Spoken Word

Not long ago, a family decided to spend a hot summer afternoon floating down a river on inner tubes. A river guide gave them clear instructions to make their trip enjoyable and safe. In particular, he warned them about a stretch of river where a bridge produced a strong undercurrent. he instructed them to get out of the river at that point and carry their tubes to the next launching area.  All went well, until one adult family member decided to ignore the river guide’s warning. The detour seemed like an unnecessary limitation. Besides, he had floated the river before, and he knew what he was doing.

It was a mistake. The violent undercurrent flipped his tube over and plunged him into the water. Luckily, his life jacket kept him afloat, and all he lost were some of his belongings. It could have been much more tragic. He quickly realized how much better off he would have been to avoid the danger zone all together.

Life, like an unpredictable river, is fraught with danger zones—some of them obvious, but many of them unseen. Are we sometimes content to follow the current of popular culture or popular opinion, wherever it might take us? Often the best course is to heed the advice of those who have foreseen the dangers, those who are wiser and better informed, even when it is inconvenient or unpopular.

The counsel to avoid these dangers may at first seem like an unnecessary and unwanted restriction. Sooner or later, however, we realize that such counsel does not restrict our freedom; it protects 
it.  Although we can choose to rationalize, reject, or ignore good counsel and divine commandment, the choices we make—though they may seem small and unimportant at the time—have lasting consequences.

To make it safely home, it is not enough to simply “go with the flow.” The safe course is rarely the path of least resistance; rather, it requires deliberate choices, willingness to learn, and humble recognition that we don’t know everything. Truly, these choices determine our safety, our happiness, and our destiny.

- from "Music and the Spoken Word", by Lloyd Newell, October 6, 2013

The Purpose of Life: Recalculating

The purpose of life is to learn and grow and become better. Surely, heaven will be filled not with those who never made mistakes but with those who recognized they were straying and made corrections to get back on course. And we have opportunities to do that throughout life.

Think how much better life could be if this were our attitude—to learn from setbacks and mistakes rather than being defined or paralyzed by them. Anyone who has ever been lost or confused knows how absolutely vital it is to occasionally reassess the direction of our lives.

One writer compares the matter-of-fact tone of a GPS, a satellite-based navigation system, to the ideal attitude toward accepting course corrections in life. “Here’s what I really love about the GPS,” she says. “When you miss the turn, it doesn’t fall apart. It just calmly says, ‘Recalculating,’ and tells you how to fix your mistake.” And then she laments: “I wish I could be as gentle and objective about my life mistakes as the GPS is about my driving ones. How marvelous it would be to be able to see things objectively and say to myself, ‘Well, you missed that turn, but we can still get you there.’”

We all need to recalculate from time to time. It might be a change of plans or goals, an adjustment in our expectations and outlook, a fine-tuning of our attitude and character. In all these course corrections and recalculations, let us be patient and gentle and a little objective with ourselves. 

Remember, we are here to learn and grow and become better—and that takes time. Once we come to see mistakes as building blocks for a better life rather than stumbling blocks that keep us down, we truly begin to understand the purpose of life.

- from Music and the Spoken Word

Smile

Most of us would agree with the lyrics of the well-known song, “When you’re smiling, the whole world smiles with you.” But did you know that smiling may also be good for your health? Researchers are finding that smiling slows down the heart rate, reduces stress, and can make you feel happier. In fact, some research suggests that the smile doesn’t even have to be genuine—even a forced smile can have a positive effect on your well-being. When you smile, you just feel better.

Of course, on long, hard days it can be difficult to summon a smile or muster a grin. But that may be when a smile is needed the most.

One dark, snowy winter day, a young man was walking across a deserted university campus on his way to an early-morning class. It was hard to find anything to smile about that cold and windy morning. And then he heard someone singing—loudly! As he got a little closer, he recognized his roommate walking toward him, singing at the top of his lungs, “Oh, what a beautiful morning! Oh, what a beautiful day!” It’s practically impossible to sing those words without a smile. It can’t be done.

Now, some may say that this young man was silly or deluded, but those who knew him well understood who he really was—optimistic, upbeat, always on the lookout for the positive.4

You can’t always do much to change your circumstances, but you can always smile. Smiling is an outward expression of a full and abundant heart.

So smile. Smile because you are alive. Smile because you live in a glorious world. Smile because there are good people around you who could use a smile. Smile because there’s always the promise and hope that life will get better. Having the courage and disposition to greet others and yourself with a smile may be just enough to turn the day around.

- from Music and the Spoken Word

Life: Capture the Moment, Be In It!

How do you capture a moment?  Do you record a mental picture in your mind or do you record it digitally like these concert fans?

     

At nearly every concert or event you can as many phones recording pictures or videos of moment as you can see eyes watching it. It's great to have the technology to capture our moments in real time. However, sometimes we are so busy digitally capturing an event for later that we forget to emotionally and viscerally capture it in the moment. We lose the present moment by trying to preserve it for the future.

Photos and images are wonderful, but they can never replace actually being there. Live moments can never be relived.  This reminds me of my motto I share with my family, "Life - be in it!"

by Julie Davis-Colan

Success vs. Significance: The Tale of Two Eddies

         "Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.” 

          – Albert Einstein

The Tale of Two Eddies

Al “Scarface” Capone was the king of organized crime in Chicago in the 1920s, and his lieutenant was a lawyer people called “Easy Eddie”.  Eddie helped Al run his affairs – bootleg liquor, gambling, prostitution, murder – and hide them from the authorities.  Eddie was very good at his job, which was basically keeping Scarface out of jail.

Capone paid him well for his services.  Eddie had a big house, servants, a fine car.  He lived well as an industrial baron, and he didn't lose sleep over what was going on around him.  Life was for the successful.

But Easy Eddie did have one soft spot – his beloved son.  Eddie lavished him with clothes, a car, a good education, the best of everything money could buy.  But there was one other thing Easy Eddie wanted his son to have, something Easy Eddie himself did not have: a good name.

Son one day  Easy Eddie made a difficult and dangerous decision,  In 1930 he asked a reporter friend to put him in touch with the Internal Revenue Service.  He would reveal how Capone made his money and dodged taxes.  He became what a top government investigator later said was “one of the best undercover men I have ever known.”

Capone was tried and found guilty of tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in prison.  A few years later, Easy Eddie was shot to death in his car by killers unknown.

The Navy’s first Medal of Honor aviator of World War II was another Eddie, a superb fighter pilot whose many friends called him “Butch”.  In the Southwest Pacific in early 1942, the Japanese launched a bomber attack on his aircraft carrier, the USS Lexington.  Butch and his wingman were the only flyers aloft close enough to intercept the enemy formation, and the wingman’s guns were jammed.  Butch dived at the bombers again and again, weaving in and out of formation with all six 50-caliber guns blazing, shooting down five of the nine enemy planes and so disrupting the attack that none of the bombs fell on target.  Butch’s bravery and skill were credited with saving the ship, and he became a national hero.

By late 1943, because of the success of the U.S. navy’s flight tactics, the Japanese bombers had changed their operations and were attacking after dark.  To counter this new tactic, Butch and his squadron were developing the Navy’s first night operations.  Airborne radar and navigation equipment were primitive in 1943, nowhere near as capable as the modern gear that makes night operations routine.  In this risky environment, the Navy’s first Medal of Honor aviator was shot down.  Neither he nor his plane was ever found.

In 1945 the U.S. Navy named a new destroyer after him: the USS O’Hare (DD-889).  The city of Chicago went a step further.  To honor their hometown hero, in 1949 its citizens named their new airport after him: O’Hare International.

In the end, “Easy Eddie” O’Hare, Al Capone’s top lawyer, had found a way to transform his life from one of success – tainted though it was by the crimes he abetted – to a life of significance.  He gave the world a principled son, Edward “Butch” O’Hare, who redeemed the family name.

           “The key to realizing a dream is to focus, not on success but significance – and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning."                                        – Oprah Winfrey

Sometimes Quitting is Good: Excerpts from "Winners Always Quit"

The following are excerpts from the book "Winners Always Quit: Seven Pretty Good Habits You Can Swap for Really Great Results" by Lee J. Colan and David Cottrell

Sometimes Quitting is Good.

Most of our actions are built in behaviors, instilled by natural inclination and the weight of experience. Patterned behavior helps us function.  Not having to plan our every move, every second of every day, is an enormous time saver.

But there are exceptions.  We all have behaviors that are detrimental.  Many are trivial, like turning on the TV even when we know there's nothing on worth watching.  Others are dangerous, like smoking or speeding.

Our natural tendency is to avoid change unless it's absolutely necessary.  Just keep doing the same thing and everything will work out.  Change is like rain; we all know it's good for us, but we don't like to get wet.

Patient: It hurts when I do this.
Doctor: Then quit doing that.

Quitting is required for success when, in order to do the right thing, you have to quit doing the wrong thing.

Things change!  We have to constantly reconsider whether we're adding value to our lives or just clutter. If something is draining our energy, can we do without it?  Does a crammed schedule help us achieve our goals?  Maybe it's time to quit doing some things and instead do other things that help us go where we want to go.

Priorities shift!  Our personal and professional situations demand that we make changes. Sometimes on a moment's notice a budget gets cut, a former pet project is put on the back burner, a spouse gets transferred.

Timing is everything!  There's a time to persevere and a time to quit. What are you doing now?  What do you need to be doing now?  What do you need to quit doing now in order to be doing what you need to be doing now?

Quit Taking a Ride . . . and Take the Wheel

        "Be the change you want to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi

On any of life's journeys, we have to make a choice before we begin the trip.  Our options are these: we can be a passenger, or we can be the driver.  It's our choice.

It's not what happens to us but how we choose to respond to what happens that determines our next move. If you choose to be a driver, you avoid potholes and stray ice chests in the road.  You decide when to stop and refuel.  You may choose to take a detour.  You make all the decisions that affect the safety of your passengers and your success in reaching the goal.

When problems arise, what's your first reaction?  Do you think like a cop, identifying culprits and assigning blame?  Do you vent your anger on  anyone within your yelling radius?  Do you submerge yourself in regret, thinking, If only?  Or do you immediately get creative and think, How can we make this right?

The more you focus on the positive side of life, the more you will attract these things.  The truth is that being lucky doesn't have much to do with luck at all.  In other words, luck is 90 percent preparation and 10 percent opportunity.

Quit Getting Comfortable . . . and Explore the Edge

We are all averse to change to some degree.  If we changed, we might realize some benefit, but typically we weigh the chance of improvement against our comfort with the old ways and find it wanting.

In order to grow in wisdom and spirit, we need to challenge our assumptions now and then.

The comfort zone is where most of life is played.  Consider a football field: 90 percent of the game is played between the 20-yard lines.  That's why they call anything outside that area the "red zone" - it's where the difference in the game is made.  It's okay to feel good and play well inside the comfort zone before you explore the edge and go for the score.

But like the football team that's trapped between the 20-yard lines, we cannot win in the comfort zone. Because the risk is small, so is the reward.  Learning and growth occur when we are uncomfortable.  Think of the defining moments of learning and growth in your life.  Were you hanging out in your comfort zone? No, you were hanging over the edge.

Success naturally makes us comfortable.  How many times have we watched teams take a lead, lose their momentum, then lose the game because instead of playing to win they begin playing not to lose?  They get ahead, then they get nervous about protecting their lead, so they pull back and start playing more cautiously, losing the intensity that earned them the lead.  Before long, their lead evaporates.

        "We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are." - Max DePree

We must let go to grow!

Let's Get Uncomfortable.

Recognize that discomfort is not lethal; it can be a sign of growth, a signal that changes are happening, changes that can benefit you in the long run.

Keep your eye on the teams that have a better game.  Learn from them.

Challenge yourself.  Your goals should force changes, require tough decisions, and inspire bold actions.

Change will come; it is inevitable.  We waste energy when we resist change, and in the end we waste the opportunity to control what happens.  Will this change be on our terms?  Will we be ready for it?  Will the inevitable change mean growth and improvement, or only discomfort and danger?

Quit Analyzing... and Follow your Intuition

        "All the problems of the world could be solved easily if men were only willing to think." - Thomas J. Watson, Sr.

        "Think. Then do." - IBM slogan

Think of intuition as a shortcut to higher productivity.  Applying the 80/20 Principle to our thinking can help us make smarter, faster, more intuitive decisions.  Example: 80% of problems are generated by 20% of causes.

Quit Managing Your Time...and Manage Your Attention

        "Only one thing has to change for us to know happiness in our lives: where we focus attention." - Greg Anderson

Sportscaster Charlie Jones interviewed the rowers in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games and asked them what they would do in case of rain, strong winds, or breaking an oar.  The response was always the same: "That's outside my boat."  Jones realized that these Olympic athletes had a remarkable focus.  He wrote, "They were interested only in what they could control - and that was what was going on inside their boat."

The Yellow Car Phenomenon:  Let's say, you see a bright yellow car driving by.  You think to yourself, hmm, I don't see one of those very often.  Later that same day, you see two more bright yellow cars.  The next day, you see three more.  Has there been a sudden invasion of bright yellow cars?  No, they've been there all along.  The difference is you've suddenly become aware of them; you have a heightened awareness of yellow cars.

It's the power of personal attention.

Instead of paying attention to every single piece of information in our stimulus-rich world, if we really look for those things we want in our life, that's exactly what we will find.  Need proof?  Just count how many yellow cars you notice today.  Now - how many did you see yesterday?

The Eisenhower Method for setting priorities: Don't be fooled into thinking that whatever seems urgent is worth taking your mind off your most important goal. Eisenhower's mantra was "What's important is seldom urgent, and what's urgent is seldom important."



Quit Showing Interest... and Commit

        "The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field of endeavor." - Vince Lombardi

        "When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened." - Winston Churchill

We typically worry five times as much about things that will never happen as about things that actually do occur.

        "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." - Reinhold Niebuhr's "Serenity Prayer"

Choosing the language of commitment creates accountability for getting best from yourself and others. Written goals build accountability to yourself and others.

Quit Moving...and Be Still

Did you ever drive a car at night in a thick fog?  If you have, you know that you can see farther down the road if you use your low beams, because your high beams just reflect off the fog and blind you.  But if you use your low beams instead - get away from the problem and let your creative intuition do its work - often the answer emerges and the path to the goal becomes clearer to you.

The way to find the answers is to stop moving for a while and let things settle down.  Be still.  Relax. Be quiet.  Look around.  Listen.

To get into your chillax zone, you don't actually have to go on vacation or head for the spa.  All you've got to do is change the scenery in your mind.

It may seem counterintuitive to put aside your work in order to accomplish something great, but great ideas often come when you're relaxed and out of your work routine.

Winners - whether in business, at home, or in the community - generally spend at least 50 percent of their time listening rather than talking.

Quit Striving for Success . . . and Seek Significance

There's a sweet spot that you sometimes hit that makes everything seem easier.  Want to know an easy way to find your sweet spot?  Answer the following two questions, and think about how your answers intersect:
1. What am I absolutely passionate about?
2. Which tasks are easy and natural for me?

So- quitters always win?
Yes!

All right, maybe quitters don't always win. After all perseverance is also a key to winning.  You've got to keep working until the job is finished.  But the key point is that perseverance counts only if you're doing the right thing.  If you're doing the wrong thing, and you keep on doing the wrong thing, you'll never win.

So you do have to quit.

You don't have to be great to get started, but you do have to get started to be great.

______

See also:
I Quit!