Be more successful with these tips from Harvard

Be mora successful with behauptung tips from HarvardBe mora successful with these tips from HarvardWe all want to be mora successful.But everything you read probably sounds like a lot of work. Isnt there a scientifically proven method thats a little mora fun? There is.Shawn Achor is the bestselling author of The Happiness Advantageand for years at Harvard he studied exactlythat happiness.FollowLadders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard coveringHappiness,Productivity,Job Satisfaction,Neuroscience, andmoreHe gavean extremelypopular (and, in my opinion, the all-time funniest) TED talk.And his ideaseven attracted the attention of Oprah Winfrey, whofilmed an interview with him.Whats so special about Shawns work? His researchshows that success doesnt bring happiness - happiness brings success.He did what a lot of researchers never do instead of scrubbing the freak outliers from the data he aggressively studied them.He wanted to know what people with happiness superpowers do that we dont.Heres ShawnInstead of deleting those people that are weirdos in the data what we do is we intentionally study them. We try and find out why it is that while an entire sales force has low numbers, were finding three or four people whosesales are skyrocketing. Or were looking at a low socioeconomic school in Chicago, where the academic scores are below average, there are a couple students whose grades are skyrocketing. By studying those outliers, what were doing is were gleaning information not on how to move subpar performersup toward that average point, but how to move people from average to superior.Shawn believes (and his research shows) that you can do things to be happier. And being happier will make you more successful.I gave Shawn a call to find outwhat hes learned. Want more joy and success in your life? Heres what Shawnhad to say.1) Success Brings Happiness? No. Happiness Brings Success.We allchase success hoping itwill make us happyIll be happy onceIget that pr omotion.Ill be happy once I get that raise.Ill be happy onceI lose 15 pounds.But the research shows that isnt true. Youachieve a goal and yourebriefly happier butthen youre looking toward the nextbig thing.What Shawns research showed welcheswhen you flip the formula andfocus on increasing happiness, you end up increasing success.Heres ShawnIf we can get somebody to raise their levels of optimism or deepen their social connection or raise happiness, turns out every single business and educational outcome we know how to test for improves dramatically. You can increase your success rates for the rest of your life and your happiness levels will flatline, but if you raise your level of happiness and deepen optimism it turns out every single one of your success rates rises dramatically compared to what it would have been at negative, neutral, or stressed.MET Life saw such great results among happy salespeople that they tried an experiment they started hiring peoplebased on optimism.And th at was even if those people performed poorly on the standard industry aptitude test. What wasthe result?It turns out that the optimisticgroup outsold their more pessimistic counterparts by 19% in year one and 57% in year two.How can this be? Shawn explained that intelligence and technical skills only predict 25% of successIf we know the intelligence and technical skills of an employee, we can actually only predict about 25% of their job success. 75% of long term job success is predicted not by intelligence and technical skills, which is normally how we hire, educate and train, but its predicted by three other umbrella categories. Its optimism (which is the belief that your behavior matters in the midst of challenge), your social connection (whether or not you have depth and breadth in your social relationships), and the way that you perceive stress.And students who want success in their future shouldworry a little less about grades and more about optimism.Shawn found that rolling a pair of dice was as predictive of your future income as your college GPA is. (And millionaires agree.)(For more on how to be more optimistic, click here.)So your attitude has a huge effect on how successful you are. What was the most powerful thingShawn learned from looking at those happiness outliers?2) landsee Problems As Challenges, Not ThreatsShawn did a study ofbankers right after the huge banking crisis hit. Most of them were incredibly stressed. But a few were happy and resilient.What did those guyshave in common? They didnt see problems as threats they saw them as challenges to overcome.Heres ShawnWhatthese positive outliers do is that when there are changes that occur in the economic landscape or the political landscape or at an educational institution, they see those changes not as threats, but as challenges.So those people are just wired differently and our duty is to envy them, right? Nope. Shawn did an experiment thatprovedthis attitude can be learned.Just by showing th e normal bankers a video explaining how to see stress as a challenge, he turned sad bankers into super-bankers.Heres ShawnAnd we watched those groups of people over the next three to six weeks, and what we found was if we could move people to view stress as enhancing, a challenge instead of as a threat, we saw a 23% drop in their stress-related symptoms. It produced asignificant increasenot only in levels of happiness, but a dramatic improvement in their levels of engagement at work as well.(For more on what the happiest people do every day, click here.)But what aboutwhen theres just too much to do? Maybe there are more challenges than youcan handle.Should we just give up onany chanceofwork-life balance? Cancel those plans with friends and spend more hours at the office?Once again the answer is the exact opposite.3) Twice As Much Work Means You Need Friends Twice As MuchAfter doing his undergraduate workat Harvard, Shawn was a proctor there, helping freshman adapt to the often stres sful, competitive environment.Many students would respond to the workload by livingin the library and eating meals in their bedrooms so they could keep studying.Did those students perform better? No. Those were the ones who burned out the ones who ended up wanting to transfer to another school.Shawn would tell them what they had unknowingly done was cut themselves off from the greatest predictor of happiness.Heres ShawnThe people who survive stress the best are the ones who actually increase their social investments in the middle of stress, which is the opposite of what most of us do.Turns out that social connection is the greatest predictor of happiness we have when I ansturm them in my studies. When we run social support metrics, they trump everything else we do, every time.And what did we just learn about happiness? It predicts success. And it was no different hereWe found that social connection is extremely important for predicting academic achievement.Want to resist stress, inc rease productivity and get a promotion? Then dont just seek social support - provide it to others.Confirming the research of top Wharton professorAdam Grant, people who provide social support get some of the greatest benefits.Shawn saw this not only with his students at Harvard but hes since advised over a third of the Fortune 100 companies - and it worked there too.Heres ShawnWork altruists were ten times more likely to be engaged than the bottom quartile of that list and the top quartile was significantly happier and 40% more likely to receive a promotion over the next 2-year period of time.(For more on how work altruism can benefit you, click here.)Some of you might be thinking, Alright already, happiness makes you more successful. I get it.But how do I get happier?Its simpler than you think.4) Send A Thank You Email Every MorningYou mightthink happiness only comes from big wins or big achievements. Youre wrong. Research shows little things are more important.So Shawn believes rather than focusing onbig boosts like vacations, its smarter to build little, consistent habits akin to brushing your teeth.What little habit gives a big happiness boost over time? Send a 2-minute thank you email or text as soon as you get into the office.Heres ShawnThe simplest thing you can do is a two-minute email praising or thanking one partie that you know. Weve done this at Facebook, at US Foods, weve done this at Microsoft. We had them write a two-minute email praising or thanking one person they know, and a different person each day for 21 days in a row. Thats it. What we find is this dramatically increases their social connection which is the greatest predictor of happiness we have in organizations. It also improves teamwork. Weve measuredthe collective IQ of teams and the collective years of experience of teams but both of those metrics are trumped by social cohesion.What other little daily happiness habits does Shawn recommend?List the things youre grateful for.Meditate .Exercise.(For more on five emails that can improve your life, click here.)Over 120,000 people receive my weekly email. And its sent from my real email address. People can reply. And they do.Whats one of the most common things readers email me to say?Eric, you suggest all these great things. I read them. I agree with them. But I dont end up doingany of them.How can I follow through?Shawn has a great answer for this too.5) The 20-Second RuleWhat stops you from making the changes you know you should? Shawn says its activation energy.You know, like the activation energy it takes to initially get your butt off the couch and to the gym. The hard part is getting started.If you reduce the amount of activation energy required, tough things become easy. So make new habits 20 seconds easier to start.Shawn would sleep in hisgym clothes and put hissneakers next to the bed and it made him much more likely to exercise when hewoke up.Heres ShawnIf you can make the positive habit three to 20 second s easier to start, youre likelihood of doing it rises dramatically.And you can do the same thing by flipping it for negative habits.Watching too much television? Merely take out the batteries of the remote control creatinga 20 second delay and it dramatically decreases the amount of television people will watch.(For more easy ways to build new habits, click here.)So how do we pull all this together? And what was the most inspiring thing Shawn told me about happiness and success?Sum UpHeres what we can all learn from ShawnSuccess doesnt bring happiness. Happiness brings success.See problems as challenges, not threats.morawork means you need moresocial support. And giving support is better than receiving.Send a 2-minute thank you email every morning.Use the 20-second rule to build the habit.Some people might think its too hard to get happier. Maybe theyve suffered from depression.Or theyve seen the research that we have a happiness platzset point, and our genetics ultimately decide ho w happy we can be.You know what the most inspiring thing Shawn told me was? The latest research showsgood habits might trump genes.Heres ShawnWhen you look at outliers on the graph, you find people who actually break the tyranny of genes and environment by creating these conscious positive habits that actually cause them to interact with life in a more positive way with higher levels of success, lower levels of stress, and higher levels of resilience. They do it by changing their mindset and changing their habits, and by doing so they actually trump their genes.Most people acceptthat theyre just born some way and thats how theyre going to be the rest of their life, and whatever they were last year is what theyre going to be this year. I think positive psychology shows us that that doesnt actually have to be the case.Send a gratitude email right now. It only takes 2 minutes. And send another one tomorrow.That habit will make you happier. And being happier will make you more successfu l and deepen your relationships.Happiness. Success. Strong relationships. What else reallymatters?Join over 285,000 readers.Get a free weekly update via emailhere.Related postsHow To Stop Being Lazy And Get More Done 5 Expert Tips6 Things The Most Productive People Do Every Day8 Things The Worlds Most Successful People All Have In CommonThis article originally appeared at Barking Up the Wrong Tree.Be more successful with these tips from HarvardWe all want to be more successful.But everything you read probably sounds like a lot of work. Isnt there a scientifically proven method thats a little more fun? There is.Shawn Achor is the bestselling author of The Happiness Advantageand for years at Harvard he studied exactlythat happiness.He gavean extremelypopular (and, in my opinion, the all-time funniest) TED talk.And his ideaseven attracted the attention of Oprah Winfrey, whofilmed an interview with him.Whats so special about Shawns work? His researchshows that success doesnt bring happ iness - happiness brings success.He did what a lot of researchers never do instead of scrubbing the freak outliers from the data he aggressively studied them.He wanted to know what people with happiness superpowers dothat we dont.Heres ShawnInstead of deleting those people that are weirdos in the data what we do is we intentionally study them. We try and find out why it is that while an entire sales force has low numbers, were finding three or four people whosesales are skyrocketing. Or were looking at a low socioeconomic school in Chicago, where the academic scores are below average, there are a couple students whose grades are skyrocketing. By studying those outliers, what were doing is were gleaning information not on how to move subpar performersup toward that average point, but how to move people from average to superior.Shawn believes (and his research shows) that you can do things to be happier. And being happier will make you more successful.I gave Shawn a call to find outw hat hes learned. Want more joy and success in your life? Heres what Shawnhad to say.1) Success Brings Happiness? No. Happiness Brings Success.We allchase success hoping itwill make us happyIll be happy onceIget that promotion.Ill be happy once I get that raise.Ill be happy onceI lose 15 pounds.But the research shows that isnt true. Youachieve a goal and yourebriefly happier butthen youre looking toward the nextbig thing.What Shawns research showed waswhen you flip the formula andfocus on increasing happiness, you end up increasing success.Heres ShawnIf we can get somebody to raise their levels of optimism or deepen their social connection or raise happiness, turns out every single business and educational outcome we know how to test for improves dramatically. You can increase your success rates for the rest of your life and your happiness levels will flatline, but if you raise your level of happiness and deepen optimism it turns out every single one of your success rates rises drama tically compared to what it would have been at negative, neutral, or stressed.MET Life saw such great results among happy salespeople that they tried an experiment they started hiring peoplebased on optimism.And that was even if those people performed poorly on the standard industry aptitude test. What wasthe result?It turns out that the optimisticgroup outsold their more pessimistic counterparts by 19% in year one and 57% in year two.How can this be? Shawn explained that intelligence and technical skills only predict 25% of successIf we know the intelligence and technical skills of an employee, we can actually only predict about 25% of their job success. 75% of long term job success is predicted not by intelligence and technical skills, which is normally how we hire, educate and train, but its predicted by three other umbrella categories. Its optimism (which is the belief that your behavior matters in the midst of challenge), your social connection (whether or not you have depth an d breadth in your social relationships), and the way that you perceive stress.And students who want success in their future shouldworry a little less about grades and more about optimism.Shawn found that rolling a pair of dice was as predictive of your future income as your college GPA is. (And millionaires agree.)(For more on how to be more optimistic, click here.)So your attitude has a huge effect on how successful you are. What was the most powerful thingShawn learned from looking at those happiness outliers?2) See Problems As Challenges, Not ThreatsShawn did a study ofbankers right after the huge banking crisis hit. Most of them were incredibly stressed. But a few were happy and resilient.What did those guyshave in common? They didnt see problems as threats they saw them as challenges to overcome.Heres ShawnWhatthese positive outliers do is that when there are changes that occur in the economic landscape or the political landscape or at an educational institution, they see those changes not as threats, but as challenges.So those people are just wired differently and our duty is to envy them, right? Nope. Shawn did an experiment thatprovedthis attitude can be learned.Just by showing the normal bankers a video explaining how to see stress as a challenge, he turned sad bankers into super-bankers.Heres ShawnAnd we watched those groups of people over the next three to six weeks, and what we found was if we could move people to view stress as enhancing, a challenge instead of as a threat, we saw a 23% drop in their stress-related symptoms. It produced asignificant increasenot only in levels of happiness, but a dramatic improvement in their levels of engagement at work as well.(For more on what the happiest people do every day, click here.)But what aboutwhen theres just too much to do? Maybe there are more challenges than youcan handle.Should we just give up onany chanceofwork-life balance? Cancel those plans with friends and spend more hours at the office?Once a gain the answer is the exact opposite.3) Twice As Much Work Means You Need Friends Twice As MuchAfter doing his undergraduate workat Harvard, Shawn was a proctor there, helping freshman adapt to the often stressful, competitive environment.Many students would respond to the workload by livingin the library and eating meals in their bedrooms so they could keep studying.Did those students perform better? No. Those were the ones who burned out the ones who ended up wanting to transfer to another school.Shawn would tell them what they had unknowingly done was cut themselves off from the greatest predictor of happiness.Heres ShawnThe people who survive stress the best are the ones who actually increase their social investments in the middle of stress, which is the opposite of what most of us do.Turns out that social connection is the greatest predictor of happiness we have when I run them in my studies. When we run social support metrics, they trump everything else we do, every time.And what did we just learn about happiness? It predicts success. And it was no different hereWe found that social connection is extremely important for predicting academic achievement.Want to resist stress, increase productivity and get a promotion? Then dont just seek social support - provide it to others.Confirming the research of top Wharton professorAdam Grant, people who provide social support get some of the greatest benefits.Shawn saw this not only with his students at Harvard but hes since advised over a third of the Fortune 100 companies - and it worked there too.Heres ShawnWork altruists were ten times more likely to be engaged than the bottom quartile of that list and the top quartile was significantly happier and 40% more likely to receive a promotion over the next 2-year period of time.(For more on how work altruism can benefit you, click here.)Some of you might be thinking, Alright already, happiness makes you more successful. I get it.But how do I get happier?Its simple r than you think.4) Send A Thank You Email Every MorningYou mightthink happiness only comes from big wins or big achievements. Youre wrong. Research shows little things are more important.So Shawn believes rather than focusing onbig boosts like vacations, its smarter to build little, consistent habits akin to brushing your teeth.What little habit gives a big happiness boost over time? Send a 2-minute thank you email or text as soon as you get into the office.Heres ShawnThe simplest thing you can do is a two-minute email praising or thanking one person that you know. Weve done this at Facebook, at US Foods, weve done this at Microsoft. We had them write a two-minute email praising or thanking one person they know, and a different person each day for 21 days in a row. Thats it. What we find is this dramatically increases their social connection which is the greatest predictor of happiness we have in organizations. It also improves teamwork. Weve measuredthe collective IQ of teams and the collective years of experience of teams but both of those metrics are trumped by social cohesion.What other little daily happiness habits does Shawn recommend?List the things youre grateful for.Meditate.Exercise.(For more on five emails that can improve your life, click here.)Over 120,000 people receive my weekly email. And its sent from my real email address. People can reply. And they do.Whats one of the most common things readers email me to say?Eric, you suggest all these great things. I read them. I agree with them. But I dont end up doingany of them.How can I follow through?Shawn has a great answer for this too.5) The 20-Second RuleWhat stops you from making the changes you know you should? Shawn says its activation energy.You know, like the activation energy it takes to initially get your butt off the couch and to the gym. The hard part is getting started.If you reduce the amount of activation energy required, tough things become easy. So make new habits 20 seconds easier to start.Shawn would sleep in hisgym clothes and put hissneakers next to the bed and it made him much more likely to exercise when hewoke up.Heres ShawnIf you can make the positive habit three to 20 seconds easier to start, youre likelihood of doing it rises dramatically.And you can do the same thing by flipping it for negative habits.Watching too much television? Merely take out the batteries of the remote control creatinga 20 second delay and it dramatically decreases the amount of television people will watch.(For more easy ways to build new habits, click here.)So how do we pull all this together? And what was the most inspiring thing Shawn told me about happiness and success?Sum UpHeres what we can all learn from ShawnSuccess doesnt bring happiness. Happiness brings success.See problems as challenges, not threats.Morework means you need moresocial support. And giving support is better than receiving.Send a 2-minute thank you email every morning.Use the 20-second rule to build t he habit.Some people might think its too hard to get happier. Maybe theyve suffered from depression.Or theyve seen the research that we have a happiness set point, and our genetics ultimately decide how happy we can be.You know what the most inspiring thing Shawn told me was? The latest research showsgood habits might trump genes.Heres ShawnWhen you look at outliers on the graph, you find people who actually break the tyranny of genes and environment by creating these conscious positive habits that actually cause them to interact with life in a more positive way with higher levels of success, lower levels of stress, and higher levels of resilience. They do it by changing their mindset and changing their habits, and by doing so they actually trump their genes.Most people acceptthat theyre just born some way and thats how theyre going to be the rest of their life, and whatever they were last year is what theyre going to be this year. I think positive psychology shows us that that does nt actually have to be the case.Send a gratitude email right now. It only takes 2 minutes. And send another one tomorrow.That habit will make you happier. And being happier will make you more successful and deepen your relationships.Happiness. Success. Strong relationships. What else reallymatters?Join over 285,000 readers.Get a free weekly update via emailhere.Related postsHow To Stop Being Lazy And Get More Done 5 Expert Tips6 Things The Most Productive People Do Every Day8 Things The Worlds Most Successful People All Have In CommonThis article originally appeared at Barking Up the Wrong Tree.