The Happy Secret To Better Work

We believe that we should work to be happy, but could that be backwards?

Conventional wisdom holds that if we work hard, we will be more successful, and if we are more successful, we will be happy.  Yet, sadly, this no longer seems to be the case for many people, does it? 

When  we achieve success, whether it’s a new job, a promotion, or losing weight, we are happy – for a while.  But when the newness wears off, we find ourselves back in the same state of dissatisfaction that we were before, so we set our sights on a new success that’s finally going to make us happy.  And the cycle keeps repeating.

Recent research in the field of Positive Psychology has shown that it actually works the other way round: happiness helps make us more successful.  The dust jacket for The Happiness Advantage says:

“When we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, resilient, and productive at work. This discovery has been repeatedly borne out by rigorous research in psychology and neuroscience, management studies, and the bottom lines of organizations around the globe.”