I'm Shawn Achor, the author of The Happiness Advantage
and a researcher in the field of the science of happiness.
I spent over a decade at Harvard trying to understand
how we can increase levels of happiness in our own lives.
And what we found is we can actually learn practical tools for raising your levels of happiness
to make it so that you not only feel greater levels of optimism and hope,
But you start to believe your behavior matters.
Raising your levels of optimism will not stop you from having MS,
or stop someone you love from having MS.
What we're looking for, is how do we increase the quality of life that people have.
I think we get happiness and success backwards. Most of us think, "if I get a job I'll feel happier.
I'll feel happy when: I feel better."
In each of those moments happiness is off in the future, after success.
But the problem is, success for the brain is a moving target. So every time you hit that success moment
what does our brain do? Changes the goalpost of what success looks like.
So you get into that school or you feel better for a little bit or you get that job
but that doesn't make us happy forever.
If you prioritize happiness now,
if you raise your levels of optimism,
connect more deeply with your social support networks,
and see stress as a challenge instead of as a threat,
we can then increase all of your success outcomes.
The easiest step somebody can take, is if they're feeling depressed,
or if they're feeling negative in the moment , their brain is constantly scanning for
"what's going on wrong in my world?" If we can flip it, and get their brain to
look for what's going on right in their world, some incredible things happen.
If you just say out loud three things that you're grateful for, that are new that have
happened over the past 24 hours, and you keep this habit going for 21 days in a row,
we can actually rewire your brain for higher levels of optimism.
If you give me 2 minutes a day, we can get you to journal about
a meaningful experience, that transforms your brain's ability to look for meaning in your life.
Or if we have you meditate for 2 minutes a day -- just watch your breath go in and out --
we can actually rewire your brain to decrease the stress you feel from multitasking all day long.
My favorite thing to do
is to get somebody to write a 2-minute email praising or thanking somebody in their life.
If you can find a way of connecting to other people -- opening up to them, allowing them to be greater friends to you --
what we find is not only does that improve your own levels of happiness,
but it deepens that bond which is the greatest buffer against depression
and the greatest source of meaning within our own lives.
Why don't we all just choose happiness? We have all the information, we have all the education
but it doesn't create the transformation we want. The reason is something called activation energy.
In order to catalyze a change in your life
it requires an initial investment of energy. But if we lower the amount of energy
-- that barrier to you doing a new positive habit -- we can significantly increase your likelihood of doing it.
For me one of the things I wanted to do was I wanted to start exercising in the morning
but I could not get myself to do it. So I made it 20 seconds easier in the morning
to go exercise. By just going to sleep in my gym clothes.
And what I found was, when I woke up in the morning, the path of least resistance
moved away from just staying in the bed towards wanting to go exercise.
When we're feeling overwhelmed, that's usually because our brains are overloaded with information.
So one of the things I actually have people do
when they feel overwhelmed is to actually just write out a list of all the things that
they're stressed or worrying about, then pick one action that you know you could
do to decrease your stress on one of those. And as soon as your brain accomplishes that
small task, your brain records a victory. Once you've recorded a victory,
it makes the next step easier, and then the next step easier,
and what we find is you can actually accomplish those huge audacious goals you've set for yourself
by initially starting with the smallest manageable action that you can do.
If you're going to do one thing, I want you to smile. What we found is if you start to smile
your brain actually releases neurochemicals that make you happier immediately.
Not only does it change your mindset, actually makes you more optimistic and makes you feel better
but it ripples out to the people around you.
You want to see how powerful you actually are?
Try something as simple as smiling.
Happiness is a choice. It's a choice about how we decide to focus our brain's attention in the world.
The more we can focus on the things that provide hope in our lives,
the ways that we can change our lives, the choices that we can make,
the more powerful our brains become
And the happier we become.