The Positive Psychology Foundation
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How to Achieve Enduring Happiness and Positively Transform Your Life!
Most people would like live a happier life but few know how to make it happen. Happiness is a conscious choice or positive mindset, and it can be easily attained by training. Most of us grew up believing that if you work hard, you will be happy. The new Science of Happiness, Positive Psychology, has found that the reverse is true: if you have a happy or positive mindset before starting a task, you increase your success by up to fifty percent.
Research has found that we are 'hard wired' to perform optimally when we are happy or experiencing positive emotion. Both adults and children are able to diagnose problems fifty percent more accurately by starting off with a positive mindset, and we also experience a three times increase in our intellectual flexibility as a result of positive emotion. This is what Harvard professor Shawn Achor refers to as an 'unfair advantage'. We perform better when we are primed to be positive - in fact, when we lead our teams and teach our children without priming them to be positive, we are handicapping them by fifty percent!
In the now famous longitudinal Nun's study which covers five decades of the lives of 180 Catholic nuns from the School Sisters of Notre Dame, it was found that the happy nuns had better immune systems than their less positive peers, and the happy nuns also lived about six and a half years longer than the nuns that did not share their optimistic mindsets. In short, their happiness contributed to better lives.
Research has found that we are 'hard wired' to perform optimally when we are happy or experiencing positive emotion. Both adults and children are able to diagnose problems fifty percent more accurately by starting off with a positive mindset, and we also experience a three times increase in our intellectual flexibility as a result of positive emotion. This is what Harvard professor Shawn Achor refers to as an 'unfair advantage'. We perform better when we are primed to be positive - in fact, when we lead our teams and teach our children without priming them to be positive, we are handicapping them by fifty percent!
In the now famous longitudinal Nun's study which covers five decades of the lives of 180 Catholic nuns from the School Sisters of Notre Dame, it was found that the happy nuns had better immune systems than their less positive peers, and the happy nuns also lived about six and a half years longer than the nuns that did not share their optimistic mindsets. In short, their happiness contributed to better lives.
In business, positive people make more money, find it easier to land a job, are better at keeping their jobs, have superior productivity, have more resilience, suffer less burn-out, take fewer sick days throughout the year, have superior performance, show less turnover and perform better at sales because they are perceived to be more charismatic, more attractive, more trustworthy and more persuasive than less positive peers.
Over 200 studies on 275 000 people worldwide share findings consisent with the fact that happiness leads to success in almost every walk of life: work, health, friendship, personal relationships, sociability, creativity and energy. More than a decade's research has revealed that happiness is the precursor to success, not merely the result. Happiness and optimism drive and fuel performance and achievement. Cultivating positive brains makes us more motivated, efficient, resilient, creative and productive.
These positive outcomes are our birthright. We can choose to THRIVE: to discover our character strengths and learn the skills to make positive choices in all aspects of our lives.
If you want an above average life and learn how to use your strengths to positively THRIVE in your work and relationships, have a look at our Services Page to access the tools and skills we teach to help you lead an authentically happy life - every day of your life.
Over 200 studies on 275 000 people worldwide share findings consisent with the fact that happiness leads to success in almost every walk of life: work, health, friendship, personal relationships, sociability, creativity and energy. More than a decade's research has revealed that happiness is the precursor to success, not merely the result. Happiness and optimism drive and fuel performance and achievement. Cultivating positive brains makes us more motivated, efficient, resilient, creative and productive.
These positive outcomes are our birthright. We can choose to THRIVE: to discover our character strengths and learn the skills to make positive choices in all aspects of our lives.
If you want an above average life and learn how to use your strengths to positively THRIVE in your work and relationships, have a look at our Services Page to access the tools and skills we teach to help you lead an authentically happy life - every day of your life.
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