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A Life Worth Living: Andy Cope

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This is the first in a regular series of interviews looking at the approach different people take to creating A Life Worth Living.  This interview is with Andy Cope, author of a number of books including The Art of Being Brilliant and The Art of Being a Brilliant Teacher.   Andy is currently studying for a PhD in “Happiness” and delivers workshops and seminars via his company The Art of Brilliance. Enjoy the interview.

Andy Cope

Andy Cope

1.  What prompted you to write your book “The Art of Being Brilliant” and who is it aimed at? What has been the response to your book?

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‘The Art of Being Brilliant’ is basically all the best bits from my PhD research. I’’ve been studying ‘happiness’ and ‘flourishing’ (basically, I’’ve been seeking out happy people and bottling their secrets) and some simple principles were crying out to be shared. I’’m delighted to say that the response has been brilliant. ‘The Art of Being Brilliant’ has reached a global audience and I’m working on book 2

2. What led you to undertaking studies in positive psychology?

I studies ‘Psychology’ at Uni. and it was interesting, but always about ill people. I learned about disorders, anxiety and depression. And then I came across the relatively new field of ‘Positive Psychology’ which was pitched at the opposite end of the spectrum. And, bizarre as it sounds, we’d never really studied happy people. And that piqued my interest. I noticed that too many people were in a default whinge/moan/pessimistic mindset. Why is that? And wouldn’t it be cool to find people who were different? And find out what they were doing?

So I did!

3. You are working on a PhD in “Happiness” – what topic specifically is your PhD looking at?

I’m looking at what I call ‘flourishing’. In a nut shell, I’ve been studying people who are happy and upbeat and (and this is important) whom other people are noticing are more happy and upbeat. In short, those who shine and who impact positively on those around them

And my research is targeted at those who are working in the public sector. I thought this would be particularly challenging, in times of re-structuring, low morale and budget cuts. Yet, some people remain happy and upbeat!

4. If you could change the world in any way you wanted what 3 things would you change?

Just 1 thing. I’d change education. There aren’t enough words in this article that allow me to do justice to the changes I’d make. Suffice to say, I’d pretty much tear up the current model and start again. We’re preparing children for a world that no longer exists!

5.  Who is the most inspiring person you have ever met and why?

Crikey! Good question!

I’ve been fortunate to meet a good selection of awesome people. I’d better go for my colleague and co-author, the fabulous Mr Andy Whittaker (cos he’ll probably read this!). He’s the nicest bloke on the planet and has really inspired me by proving that when you play to your strengths, anything’s possible

6.  How do you spread your message of happiness?

We have a really cool workshop called ‘The Art of Being Brilliant’. Plus various books and CDs. But the best way to spread the message is to take it into schools and train kids to deliver it across their community

7.  Tell me about your 2%ers event?

A ‘2%er’ is my shorthand way of describing the people I’ve been studying. It isn’t actually scientifically correct but is merely meant to imply that happy, positive, upbeat people are a minority group. 2%ers are people who are significantly happier than average

And we have gatherings of 2%ers. Basically we cram 400 happy people into a room and deliver some workshops for them. It gives me a chance to try out some new material on a friendly audience

8. I believe we should all do something every day to make us feel proud. (Cue Heather Small) What are you most proud of?

My family. The biggest results I’ve had with ‘positive psychology’ have been at home

9. What has been you greatest life lesson to date?

The biggest discovery of my PhD (and the most obvious!) is that 2%ers actively and consciously choose to be positive. I describe this as common sense but not common practice. I also describe it as simple but not easy (there’s a very important difference!)

10. Tell me about your involvement with schools and why you choose to work with them?

We delivered ‘The Art of Being Brilliant’ in businesses for a number of years before we twigged that teachers and children need these messages too! So we re-jigged the content and we now deliver what we call our ‘embedded model’, where we take a year group through the messages and task them with designing their own curriculum that they take across school (and the wider community). Young people get such a hard time in the press and this is an attempt to redress the balance by getting teenagers to inspire their communities.

Quite simply, the earlier you can embed positivity and happiness in your life, the better your life chances

And we choose to deliver in schools because it’s absolutely the right thing to do! In fact our business model is set up in such a way that we charge quite hefty fees to deliver in businesses and we use the surplus to subsidise our work in schools.

 

11.  Is it easier to teach happiness to young people or adults? In other words can you teach old dogs new happiness tricks?

Our’s is an incredibly simple message. Adults get it. And younger children (age 9 to 12) get it

Teenagers are more of an issue. Quite often, we find that teens are already indoctrinated into negative mind-sets and some of them can be very difficult to work with. Invariably, these habits have been learned from home. Sadly, if you’re a British teenager, it’s not cool to be your best self. We are working hard to change this culture in the schools that invite us in.

12. Who or what is the greatest source of happiness in your life?

My children

13. Which 3 books would you take to a desert island?

Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (Roal Dahl)

Success Intelligence (Robert Holden)

‘Spy Dog’ (by me…and I’d take this book along just to remind myself that I can write books)

14. Who is the happiest person you have ever met and what have you learned from him/her?

In 2005, I interviewed Britain’s happiest man. Not only did he put his happiness down to a conscious choice. He also made that choice after a terrible tragedy when many people would have given up on life. We hear so much about ‘post traumatic stress disorder’. This guy showed that adversity can make you stronger (which is called ‘post traumatic growth’, btw). You don’t have to dwell on bad stuff.

15. When was the last time you experienced an explosion of joy (controlled or otherwise)?

I was driving home from doing a talk. And the night sky was filled with stars. I pulled the car over, got out and gazed at the sky. I can’t never remember seeing so many stars! And that got me thinking that here am I, a flickering dot of life on a tiny rock in the solar system. How cool is that!

16. Can you remember the happiest moment of your life and what made you happy?

Sounds corny, but I reckon the happiest moment of my life was when my wife and newborn daughter came home from hospital. Sophie was premature so things were a bit dicey for a while. Getting my girls home was a huge relief and an immense source of happiness that has lasted 18 years.

17. Have you tried any of the Happiness Experiments? What was your experience?

We’re just recording a series where we experience a range of ‘happiness remedies’ and report back. So watch this space. We’re experimenting with meditation, getting drunk, being grateful, watching a funny film, walking in the countryside, doing random kindness, etc. It’s meant to be light-hearted reporting but with a serious message

18.  Do you have any Happiness Experiments of your own to recommend? 

I tend to give a ‘top tip’ that I found useful when re-training myself to be more positive. Wake up in the morning being really grateful that you haven’t got toothache. Genuinely appreciate it. It works really well on cold, dark winter mornings. Or, on a bigger scale, appreciate that your kidneys are working and your heart’s still beating. And get out of bed like you mean it! (I think this is a twist on the often-quoted ‘attitude of gratitude’)

19.  The aim of The Happiness Experiment blog is to show people ways to live a happier and more meaningful life.  What brings meaning to your life?

For me, meaning comes from having goals that connect with the world. So to continue to grow ‘The Art of Being Brilliant’ and to get it embedded in the school curriculum, gives me a very strong sense of purpose and meaning. Because it means more and more young people will get to connect with being their best selves. That means I can’t wait to get out of bed in the morning and I have more energy than I’ve ever had in my life

20. If I were to ask you to think about “a life worth living”? What constitutes a life worth living for you?

One in which I feel loved. And one in which I feel I’m adding some value. I rather like this story from our book…

Posted by Shona Lockhart on 15th May 2013

Six Ways to Stop Worrying and Find Work You Love

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How To Find Fulfilling Work

Most of us spend the majority of our day at work so it is crucially important that the work that we do makes us feel happy and fullfilled.  This article by Roman Krznaric from Yes magazine, which was originally published in The Huffington Post, looks at 6 ways to stop worrying about what to do to find a fulfilling job and some simple steps we can take to improve our sense of fulfillment at work.  Romans has also written a book on the subject entitled How to Find Fulfilling Work if you would like to read about this topic more.

 

 

Six Ways to Stop Worrying and Find Work You Love

Quitting work that leaves you unfulfilled requires a lot of courage. Here are six things you can do to get yourself ready to take the plunge.
Potter's hands

Photo by Shutterstock.

 

The idea of fulfilling work—a job that reflects our passions, talents and values—is a modern invention. Open Dr. Johnson’s celebrated Dictionary, published in 1755, and the word “fulfilment” doesn’t even appear. But today our expectations are higher, which helps explain why job satisfaction has declined to a record low of 47 percent in the U.S., and is even lower in Europe.

Instead of thinking then acting, we should act first and reflect later by trying out jobs in the real world.

If you count yourself amongst those who are unhappy in their job, or at least have that occasional niggling feeling that your work and self are out of alignment, how are you supposed to go about finding a meaningful career? What does it take to overcome the fear of change and negotiate the labyrinth of choices, especially in tough economic times?

Here are six pieces of essential wisdom drawn from some of the best brains in the field.

1. Confusion is perfectly normal

First, a consoling thought: being confused about career choice is perfectly normal and utterly understandable. In the pre-industrial period there were around thirty standard trades—you might decide to be a blacksmith or a barrel-maker—but now career websites list over 12,000 different jobs. The result? We can become so anxious about making the wrong choice that we end up making no choice at all, staying in jobs that we have long grown out of. Psychologist Barry Schwartz calls this the “paradox of choice”: too many options can lead to decision paralysis, and we are like rabbits caught in the headlights.

Then add to this our built-in aversion to risk. Human beings tend to exaggerate everything that could possibly go wrong, or as Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman says, “we hate losing twice as much as we love winning,” whether at the casino table or when making career choices. So our brains are not well calibrated for daring to change profession. We need to recognize that confusion is natural, and get ready to move beyond it.

2. Beware of personality tests

Many people are enticed by personality tests, which claim to be able to assess your character, and then point you towards a job that is just right for you. It’s a reassuring idea, but the evidence for their usefulness is flimsy. Take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the world’s most popular psychometric test, which places you in one of sixteen personality types. Despite its ubiquity, the Myers-Briggs has been widely criticised by professional psychologists for over three decades, partly due to its lack of reliability. If you retake the test after five weeks, there is around a 50 percent chance that you will be placed into a different personality category than you were the first time.

Moreover, according to Marshall University psychologist David Pittenger, there is “ no evidence to show a positive relation between [a person’s Myers-Briggs] type and success within an occupation…nor is there any data to suggest that specific types are more satisfied within specific occupations than are other types.” He advises “extreme caution in its application as a counselling tool.”

So don’t let any anyone tell you what you can and can’t be on the basis of a personality pigeon-hole they want to put you in.

3. Aim to be a wide achiever, not a high achiever

For over a century, Western culture has been telling us that the best way to use our talents and be successful is to specialize and become a high achiever, an expert in a narrow field—say a corporate tax accountant or an anesthetist.

But an increasing number of people feel that this approach fails to cultivate the many sides of who they are. For them, it makes more sense to embrace the idea of being a “wide achiever” rather than a high achiever. Take inspiration from Renaissance generalists like Leonardo da Vinci, who would paint one day, then do some mechanical engineering, followed by a few anatomy experiments on the weekend.

Today this is called being a “portfolio worker,” doing several jobs simultaneously and often freelance. Management thinker Charles Handy says this is not just a good way of spreading risk in an insecure job market, but is an extraordinary opportunity made possible by the rise of opportunities for flexible work: “For the first time in the human experience, we have a chance to shape our work to suit the way we live instead of our lives to fit our work. We would be mad to miss the chance.”

Ask yourself this: What would being a wide achiever encompass for me?

4. Find where you values and talents meet

The wisest single piece of career advice was proffered 2,500 years ago when Aristotle declared, “Where the needs of the world and your talents cross, there lies your vocation.” And he would surely endorse contemporary research findings showing that those pursuing money and status are unlikely to feel fulfilled: the Mercer Global Engagement Scale places “base pay” as only number seven out of 12 factors predicting job satisfaction.

The best alternative, says Harvard’s Howard Gardner, is to find an ethical career, focused on values and issues that matter to you, and which also allows you to do what you’re really good at. That might sound like a luxury when there are long lines at job centers. But consider that in the 34 countries of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, the social enterprise sector, in which organizations strive not only to make profits but also to improve social and environmental conditions,is growing 250 percent faster than the rest of the economy.

So imagine yourself in three parallel universes, in each of which you can spend next year trying a job in which your talents meet the needs of the world. What three jobs would you be excited to try?

5. Act first, reflect later

The biggest mistake people make when changing careers is to follow the traditional “plan then implement” model. You draw up lists of personal strengths, weaknesses, and ambitions, then match your profile to particular professions; at that point you start sending out applications. But there’s a problem: it typically doesn’t work. You might find a new job, but despite your expectations, it is unlikely to be fulfilling.

Ask successful career changers how to overcome the fear and most say that in the end you have to stop thinking and just do it.

We need to turn this model on its head. As I explain in thisvideo, instead of thinking then acting, we should act first and reflect later by trying out jobs in the real world, for example by shadowing, interning, or volunteering, testing out careers through experiential learning. Laura van Bouchout gave herself the thirtieth birthday present of spending a whole year trying thirty different jobs—a kind of “radical sabbatical.” She was manager of a cat hotel, then shadowed an Member of the European Parliament, and found that working in advertising was unexpectedly exhilarating.

But don’t think that you have to resign on Monday morning to try this. Rather, you can pursue “branching projects”—what organisational behaviour expert Herminia Ibarra calls “temporary assignments”—on the side of your existing job. Disenchanted with banking? Then try teaching yoga or doing freelance web design on the weekends. Such small experiments can give you the courage to make big—and well-informed—changes.

Challenge yourself: What is your first branching project going to be? And what is the very first step you can take towards making it happen?

6. Discover a little madness

Changing careers is a frightening prospect: of those who want to leave their jobs, around half are too afraid to take the plunge. But ultimately, there is no avoiding the fact that it is a risk.

Ask successful career changers how to overcome the fear and most say the same thing: in the end you have to stop thinking and just do it. That may be why nearly all cultures have recognized that to live a meaningful and vibrant existence, we need to take some chances—or else we might end up looking back on our lives with regret.

“Carpe diem,” advised the Roman poet Horace: seize the day before it is too late. “If not now, when?” said the rabbinical sage Hillel the Elder. Personally, I like the way Zorba the Greek puts it: “A man needs a little madness, or else he never dares to cut the rope and be free.”

It is only by treating our working lives as an ongoing experiment that we will be able to find a job that is big enough for our spirits.

Roman Krznaric speaking at The School of Life

Roman Krznaric is the author of How to Find Fulfilling Work, published by Picador on April 23, and teaches courses on career change at The School of Life. His website is www.romankrznaric.com.

 

Posted by Shona Lockhart on 7th May 2013

Happiness at any age: Jane Fonda – Life’s third act

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The longevity revolution: within this generation, an extra 30 years have been added to our life expectancy — and these years aren’t just a footnote or a pathology. At TEDxWomen, Jane Fonda asks how we can think about this new phase of our lives.  Her TEDx talk looks at the third act of life and asks how can we be happy in the last 30 years of our life.

Happiness at any age: 91 year old water skier

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Happiness is not just for the young – you can be happy and live a fulfilled life at any age.  If you have a passion and devote time and energy to pursuing something you love you can be happy at any age.  Edith McAlllister is a wonderful example of someone who is not prepared to let her age get in the way of following her passion.  She is an inspiration.  Enjoy the video.

 

Posted by Shona Lockhart on 2nd May 2013

Happiness lessons from Karl Marx and John Ruskin: Status Anxiety – Part 9

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In Part 9 of Status Anxiety, Alain de Botton looks at how great thinkers and activists have been able to alter our values in society and to change our perception of status.

Who has high status today?  Who do we all look up to?  Who do the newspapers favour with respectable profiles? Rich people.  People who, through their own efforts and merit, have been successful in business, entertainment and the arts. People who make no secret of their achievements. This can seem shallow and unfair, de Botton argues, but it is made all the worse because we often assume that nothing can be done to alter the ideals of our society.  We tend to think that it is natural that certain groups have high status while others are marginalised. In fact it is not inevitable at all, it is possible to imagine a world in which their has been a radical redistribution of respect.

Karl Marx

The newspapers we buy contain a miriad of subtle and insidious messages about who in the world matters and who doesn’t. Karl Marx first brilliantly analysed the way that our values are being shaped without us realising it and he coined the word to describe this process as “ideology”.  He defined an “ideological” statement as one that sells itself as being naturally true when in fact it is made up to uphold vested interests. Marx thought we are bombarded by such statements all of the time. Acording to Marx, the ruling ideas of every age are always the ideas of the ruling class.

The sociologist Max Weber has said that the ritual of buying the Sunday newspapers has now replaced going to church. He contests that it is now the media which is the main source of ideology rather than priests in pulpits who used to be the main source of ideology.  De Botton argues that reading the papers can leave us feeling dispirited as we are being subtly rebuked for all the ways in which our lives do not conform to the dominant status ideals, all the ways our careers aren’t as stellar, our house aren’t as fashionable and our social diaries aren’t as packed as they might be. We may end up feeling as guilty about our failings as if we had spent the morning being berated by a priest.  Marx argued that ideological ideas are phantoms formed in the human brain which keep prisoners in their cells without the need for bars.

Alain de Botton evaluates the teachings of John Ruskin who fought a passionate campaign to raise the status and conditions of the British working class. He hated the values of his Victorian contemporaries and their obsession with wealth.  He described them as the most wealth obsessed people who have ever existed on this earth. He argued that the ruling goddess of the age was the goddess of “getting on”.  Ruskin demanded free education, decent housing and access to green spaces for everyone.  He challenged the central idea of his age that there was something admirable about being rich. Ruskin too was desperate to be wealthy but he had a very different idea of wealth in mind.  What he wanted was not money, he wanted kindness, intelligence, sensitivity, godliness – a set of virtues which he referred to simply as “life” There is no true wealth but life he wrote.  ”That country is wealthiest” he argues, “which nourishes the greatest number of happy and noble human beings.  Most of the people commonly considered as wealthy are in truth no wealthier than the locks on their strong boxes”  Ruskin made a difference by setting in trend many of the arguments which were to lead to the creation of the Welfare State. He remains an inspiring example of how by making a lot of noise and by acting politically someone can change the values of his world.  Gandhi said that John Ruskin had been the single greatest influence in his life.

Alain de Botton goes on to look at how changes in society’s values have allowed progress for people to whom this would have been previously been denied.

The political response to status, he argues, has been to insist that our contemporary status ideals are not inevitable but are man-made and so they can be changed.  He looks at people who have chosen to live by different ideals.  Watch the video and see what conclusion he comes to.

 

Posted by Shona Lockhart on 28th June 2012

Do we need $75000 a year to be happy?

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Continuing with our theme of looking at whether money can buy you happiness this article, written by Belinda Luscombe, for Time Magazine looks at a study carried out by Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School which demonstrates that money sort of does by us happiness but only up to a point.

Happiness caps at $75K: Kelly Blair for Time

Do we need $75000 a year to be happy?

Article originally published in Time magazine on 6th September 2010
People say money doesn’t buy happiness. Except, according to a new study from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, it sort of does — up to about $75,000 a year. The lower a person’s annual income falls below that benchmark, the unhappier he or she feels. But no matter how much more than $75,000 people make, they don’t report any greater degree of happiness.

Before employers rush to hold — or raise — everyone’s salary to $75,000, the study points out that there are actually two types of happiness. There’s your changeable, day-to-day mood: whether you’re stressed or blue or feeling emotionally sound. Then there’s the deeper satisfaction you feel about the way your life is going — the kind of thing Tony Robbins tries to teach you. While having an income above the magic $75,000 cutoff doesn’t seem to have an impact on the former (emotional well-being), it definitely improves people’s Robbins-like life satisfaction. In other words, the more people make above $75,000, the more they feel their life is working out on the whole. But it doesn’t make them any more jovial in the mornings.

The study, by economist Angus Deaton and psychologist Daniel Kahneman, who has won a Nobel Prize for Economics, analyzed the responses of 450,000 Americans polled by Gallup and Healthways in 2008 and 2009. Participants were asked how they had felt the previous day and whether they were living the best possible life for them. They were also asked about their income.

The authors found that most Americans — 85% — regardless of their annual income, felt happy each day. Almost 40% of respondents also reported feeling stressed (which is not mutually exclusive with happiness) and 24% had feelings of sadness. Most people were also satisfied with the way their life was going.(See TIME’s special issue on the science of happiness.)

So, where does the $75,000 come into play? Researchers found that lower income did not cause sadness itself but made people feel more ground down by the problems they already had. The study found, for example, that among divorced people, about 51% who made less than $1,000 a month reported feeling sad or stressed the previous day, while only 24% of those earning more than $3,000 a month reported similar feelings. Among people with asthma, 41% of low earners reported feeling unhappy, compared with about 22% of the wealthier group. Having money clearly takes the sting out of adversities.

At $75,000, that effect disappears. For people who earn that much or more, individual temperament and life circumstances have much more sway over their lightness of heart than money. The study doesn’t say why $75,000 is the benchmark, but “it does seem to me a plausible number at which people would think money is not an issue,” says Deaton. At that level, people probably have enough expendable cash to do things that make them feel good, like going out with friends. (The federal poverty level for a family of four, by the way, is $22,050.)

But in the bigger view of their lives, people’s evaluations were much more tied to their income. The more they made, the more they felt their life was going well. The survey asked respondents to place themselves on a life-satisfaction ladder, with the first rung meaning their lives were not going well and the 10th rung meaning it was as good as it could be. The higher their income, the higher the rung people chose. “Importantly, the same percentage increase in income has the same effect on evaluation for everyone, rich or poor alike, even though the absolute dollar amounts differ,” the authors write. So every 10% rise in annual income moves people up the satisfaction ladder the same amount, whether they’re making $25,000 or $100,000. “High incomes don’t bring you happiness, but they do bring you a life you think is better,” conclude the authors. Might it be time for Oprah to give these guys their own show?

Past research on money and happiness has also found that it’s not absolute wealth that’s linked with happiness, but relative wealth or status — that is, how much more money you have than your neighbors.

It’s no surprise, then, that when the same polls are done in different countries, Americans come out as a bit of a mixed lot: they’re fifth in terms of happiness, 33rd in terms of smiling and 10th in terms of enjoyment. At the same time, they’re the 89th biggest worriers, the 69th saddest and fifth most stressed people out of the 151 nations studied. Even so, perhaps because of the country’s general wealth, they are in the top 10 citizenries where people feel their lives are going well, beaten out by such eternal optimists as the Canadians, New Zealanders and Scandinavians.

Right. Now that Princeton researchers have untangled that life mystery, maybe someone at MIT can look into the optimal amount of money required to buy us love.

Wish yourself a happy New Year at any time of the year

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Like many people I started the year with many good intentions and quickly found that life got in the way.  I wrote this article at the beginning of 2012 with the aim of featuring it in my brand new blog about positive psychology, which I had great intentions of setting up in January. We are now in May and thanks to my decision to sign up for the Thirty Day Challenge with  http://www.screwworkletsplay.com/  I have finally set up my blog The Happiness Experiment. It is never too late to have a happy New Year and it is never too soon to start your own journey to happiness.  This article shares some insight in to my own personal journey to happiness and future articles will share some more of the lessons I have learned along the way.  I continue to experiment daily with the lessons of positive psychology and would encourage you to try some experiments too. We are all responsible for our own happiness and like me you have the ability to significantly increase your  own well-being and to flourish – as Mahatma Gandhi so rightly said you can “be the change you want to see in the world.”

An experiment in happiness: “Be the change you want to see in the world”

 

January is traditionally the time of year when newspaper and magazine articles abound with New Year, New You features.  Headlines such as “Make 2012 your best year yet”, “10 secrets to living a happier life” make us believe that this will be the year when everything will be different and circumstances will coincide to make 2012 the year when we finally attain the happiness we have been seeking.

This year I was in the fortunate position of being ahead of the curve as I had just completed Tim Le Bon’s 10 week positive psychology course at City University in December.  This meant that in January I could skip the articles and forget the usual New Year resolutions we all beat ourselves up about for having abandoned in February, as I was already armed with everything I needed to carry out my own happiness experiment in 2012.

The positive psychology course could have been subtitled “10 weeks to happiness” as most of the participants had made significant improvements to their happiness levels by the end of the 10 weeks. We left armed with a range of simple tools and interventions which, if mastered and used regularly, can have a very positive impact on your life.  When I began the course in October I was in a similar position to many of the other students in that I had done some reading on the subject of positive psychology but had not put a great deal of what I had read in to practice – the course proved to be the catalyst for change which we all needed.

The course was a great mixture of gaining an academic understanding of the current principles and theories of positive psychology (a relatively new branch of psychology begun in 1998 by Professor Martin Seligman) and of having the opportunity to apply these ideas in our personal and working lives.  I have always been interested in the theories and benefits of optimum nutrition, popularised by Patrick Holford.  This is a way of living a life of optimum physical health by taking personal responsibility for one’s own physical well-being through lifestyle and nutrition choices rather than abdicating responsibility to health practioners.  Positive psychology, in my view, gives us the opportunity to achieve optimum mental health and the resilience to bounce back from life’s challenges without resorting to a medically prescribed “happy pill”.  In the same way as optimum physical health is not merely absence of illness, optimum mental health is not merely the absence of negative emotions or depression.   Both theories aim to help us achieve a similar outcome – a life in which we are positively flourishing and thriving and living life to the full.

We initially looked at the “happiness formula” formulated by Professor Seligman and his team which is:    H = S + C + V

The level of happiness that you experience (H) is determined by your biological set point (S) plus the conditions of your life (C) plus the voluntary activities (V) that you do.

It was a revelation to me to discover that 50% of our happiness is determined by genes (S), 10% by life circumstances (c) and 40% by our intentional voluntary activities.  Like many of the other participants I had always assumed that our happiness levels were due to a combination of our personal circumstances and to having a naturally positive outlook on life. 

I read two books related to this subject which were instrumental in changing my attitude to our ability to determine our own happiness levels.  The first one “The How of Happiness” by Sonja Lyubomirsky, contains 12 practical happiness inducing activities which are simple to implement and demonstrates that having the possibility to influence our happiness levels by 40% is hugely significant.  The pessimists on the course were secretly thinking that if we can only influence our happiness levels by 40% it is not worth trying!

The second book was “Positivity” by Barbara Fredrickson which illustrates that even those who are genetically pre-determined to be die-hard pessimists can improve their positivity ratio by using her broaden and build theory and by focusing on achieving the crucial tipping point of 3 to 1 positive versus negative experiences.  One of the first interventions we were asked to complete on the course was to write a daily gratitude journal of three good things and how your behaviour caused the positive thing.  I have realised that when you appreciate what you have, what you have appreciates in value. I now not only practice this personally every day but have introduced this positive intervention in my workplace as well.

Other topics we covered looked at 3 different routes to happiness; the pleasant life (a hedonistic approach in which temporary pleasures can elate us for a while but as we quickly habituate ourselves to them their effect diminishes), the engaged life (made up of flow experiences which use our signature strengths) and a meaningful life (in which we have a sense of purpose and connectedness and use our signature strengths in the service of something that you believe is larger than you are).

I was in a similar position to many other students in that taking a hedonistic approach to life presented me with no particular problems.  However I had always had a nagging doubt at the back of my mind that there had to be a scientific explanation to the fact that the first cup of coffee in the morning always made me much happier than any subsequent cups.   I have always tried to live a meaningful life and giving back to communities less fortunate than ourselves (particularly the bottom billion in Africa) is hugely important to me and a great source of pleasure.

However I gained 3 important insights from this topic. The first one was that although I was familiar with the concept of “flow”, having read Mihály Csikszentmihály’s book on the subject, I did not choose to put this in to practice in my daily life and did not always live an engaged life.  The second insight was the concept of signature strengths which was a completely new concept to me and which illustrates how we can become significantly happier by focusing on our strengths. Having previously always focused on my weaknesses, this was a revelation.  Once you have taken the easy strengths tests which are available online, you can think of ways to use your signature strengths in different ways and situations. The third insight was the importance of making giving personal.  I became a convert to the idea of acts of kindness practiced at a very personal level (another of our interventions from class) and was inspired to watch the film “Pay it forward”.  I have now set up an Acts of Kindness challenge in my workplace and try to think of little things I can do on a daily basis to “Pay it forward”, such as leaving a surprise bunch of flowers for my dog walker.

We also looked at the concepts of hope, optimism and luck and at the importance of having a positive explanatory style in relation to the situations and events which life throws at us.  We focused on how optimists are capable of seeing good things as permanent, pervasive and personal and bad things as temporary, specific and temporary whereas pessimists do the opposite. Optimism can be learned and your explanatory style can be worked at.

The concept of hope and the importance of perseverance and taking the long view were brought home to me by watching “Shawshank’s Redemption” a film recommended on the course recommended. I also read Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” and learned that if you can survive the horrors of concentration camp life and still be hopeful and optimistic about the human race, then everything is possible.  This quote from the book was really enlightening: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose - one’s own way”.

The concept of luck as a route to happiness was not something I had previously considered, but reading Richard Wiseman’s “The Luck Factor” which demonstrates that there are 12 key principles  which affect our luck and that we are all in control of these 12 principles.  I recently started putting one of the first principles in to practice, “lucky people build and maintain a strong network of luck”. This basically means that the bigger your network, the more opportunities come your way, so it is a great idea to constantly think of new ways to meet people.  It is not about having hundreds of “friends” on Face book but having a network of friends and contacts with whom you are on first name terms.  As a practical example I recently moved house and decided to invite all my new neighbours to a “Pot Luck” party as a way of getting to know people quickly rather than spending years not knowing who lives in the same street.  I am applying one principle of this book each month both in my personal life and at work. The principles can also be found on this website: http://www.theluckfactor.com/

Other aspects of the course which I will be focusing on in 2012 are lessons about savouring, mindfulness and meditation which we practised briefly in class.  This made me aware how little we live in the present and how important it is to master this skill if we want to be happy.  I will be signing up for a course on Mindfulness in the near future and intend putting this in to practice in my daily life.   We also learned about the significant role which positive relationships play in our happiness and of the importance of emotional intelligence in our overall well-being.  These are concepts which I will be studying further now that the course is over.

10 weeks is, of course, only a short period of study and I would not claim to have mastered all the concepts we were taught or indeed to have put everything in to practice yet.  It is now a month since the course finished and I still feel that I derived so much personal benefit from the course that I want to both continue studying this subject and to pass my knowledge (limited though it is at this stage) on to others.  I am implementing the teaching in my personal and work life and am already reaping the benefits.

I have never previously struggled with being hopeful about the future, but I have at times struggled with being optimistic about today.  Above all this is what Tim le Bon’s 10 week positive psychology course has taught me; that if we want to change our happiness levels we have to make that change happen.  To quote Mahatma Gandhi “Be the change you want to see in the world”.  If you would like to learn more, I would recommend you look at the course reading list as a starting point, sign up for the next 10 week course and start to take massive action.  Try out your own happiness experiment and this time next year you could be ahead of the curve too.

My personal top 10 lessons from the course

1. Be grateful and keep a positive attitude

2. Take the long view – post-traumatic growth is possible

3. Be kind and make generosity personal

4. Always stay inspired

5. Focus on strengths and use them creatively

6. Share knowledge about positive psychology

7. Never stop learning but take MASSIVE action

8. Be hopeful about the future and optimistic about today

9. Meet new people, try new experiences, learn new skills and get involved

10. Make a difference and be the change you want to see in the world.

 Article written by Shona Lockhart, 25th January 2012