Test Your Happiness

Anticipating the new year is fun because we look for a new beginning.

But why is it that we feel we need a new beginning? Is it because we've been trained to believe that we're not perfect enough and that we need improvement.

All the diets, exercise programs and new years resolutions won't help if we don't fix one thing first. That one thing is our ability to be happy. Are you ready to experience real joy and happiness?

If so, then you must do one thing. That is, be happy in the present moment. That means NOW!

Today I heard an excellent interview with a woman who is an editor at Prevention Magazine. She talked specifically about happiness and how we can achieve it. Here's some of the best points she made:

1) Positive Thinkers are Happier. Optimism and happiness are directly correlated because optimists feel more hope for better things to come. Scientific research has actually proven that those who are optimistic versus pesimistic on average are much happier.

2) Optimists make more money. Research demonstrated that when a group of over 900 people were tested and given scores for their ability to be optimistic, the correlation in terms of money making was an additional $33,000 for each 1 point increase on the scale over the average.

3) Self reflection can actually lead to less happiness! Though it may be counter-intuitive,
when you stop to consider your happiness, you are actually internally trying to find out what's wrong in your life in order to evaluate if you are really happy. It leads to thinking about what's wrong, rather than what's right. So her point was that it's better to just stop focusing on it and get out there and enjoy the present moment!

Her solutions for becoming more happy?
1) If you are pesimistic and a worrier, stop and take your worry to the extreme. Think of all the bad and possible outcomes from the first worry to the silliest extremes. For example, if you are stuck in traffic, you might take that all the way to "I'll lose my job, and then I'll end up on the street and I'll be a begger for the rest of my life and my family will disown me and I'll starve to death!" You'll begin to realize just what a time waster worrying can be and you might even go the other side and consider all the positive outcomes of the same event.

2) Fake it till you make it. Even if you don't FEEL happy, ACT happy! One study put 50 people in a room and split them. Half were told to ACT happy, regardless of how they felt. At the conclusion of the study they then reviewed the happiness scores of each person. Those who had ACTED happy actually felt happier and ranked themselves as feeling happier than those who did not pretend to be happy.

OK, so what does this have to do with Secrets of Successful Business Women?

In answer, I'll ask you a question that you might want to reflect upon this new year.

"Exactly by what criteria do you judge happiness?"

Is it money or power? Or is it the ability to feel good, to feel joy, in the present moment?

Wishing you and yours the very happiest 2007!

Warm Regards,
Roxanne