Before Happiness … and after

I like to have a good time. I’m a believer in work hard, play hard. I know myself and if I’m having a rough day there’s nothing that makes me feel better than getting together with friends and family (and maybe a drink). So when I came across Shawn Achors, “Before Happiness” I was excited to get started reading. I figured, you can never have too much happiness, can you?

In his book, Achor, a Harvard trained researcher, describes why happiness is the precursor to greater success. Before we can be happy and successful, we need to realize that happiness is possible. Once we learn to look at life with more positivity we can use that to reach our goals, be successful and bring others along for the ride.

Five strategies for becoming a “positive genius”

Finding your reality
Learning to look at work/life with new and different vantage points allows us to see more opportunities and new ways of achieving them

Mapping your success
Identify “meaning markers” or what matters most to you and use those meaning markers to achieve your goals. Learn to focus on successful outcomes instead of preparing for failure.

Accelerating your successes
When we know that goals are close, we have more energy to achieve them. Achor suggests accelerants that can help to reach our goals faster.

Eliminate the negative noise
Learn to identify negative noise and find ways to overcome it by changing the way you think.

Positive inception
Share you positive reality with others. There are small changes we can make that can lead to much more positive and successful outcomes.

Read it

This book is worth the read. Whether you’re looking to reach more goals in your personal or professional life, there are some great strategies on how to get there. Since reading, I’m much more aware of my thoughts and actions and hopefully I’ll be able to spread some of those good vibes onto others.

Other happy news

I recently “got to” attend an event where Aaron Sadoff, Superintendent at North Fond du Lac school district, spoke about Happiness – which he nailed. The school district has some really awesome strategies in place to infuse happiness and positive psychology into the staff, students and community. You can listen to Aaron’s TED Talk “Happiness is the greatest technology” and see what kind of positive energy is flowing over in North Fond du Lac.