We all want to do better in life: to build brilliant careers, become independent, thrive on our own, as a couple or as a family. Yet the advice we hear or read often seems complicated or too demanding.
Yet according to the work of Shawn Achor, a researcher at Harvard, it is not success that produces happiness: it is the other way round. Happiness comes first, and it is happiness that opens the way to success.
Shawn Achor's scientific revolution in happiness and success
In his best-seller "The Happiness Advantage", Shawn Achor overturns our beliefs. This Harvard researcher, who has devoted years to studying happiness, reveals a surprising truth: success does not create happiness. Exactly the opposite is true.
In his research, Shawn Achor takes an unusual approach. Instead of discarding the data that lie above the average, he studies them closely. This data represents people whose behaviour or results set them apart from the majority. These very differences place them above the average.
Shawn wants to understand these differences: why do these people fare better than the rest?
Why happiness always comes before success
Here is how to read Shawn Achor's findings. In a sales team, some post far higher figures than their colleagues. In a school in a deprived area, where conditions are hard for the whole student body, exam results are generally poor. Even so, one or two individuals excel. They enjoy no particular privilege, yet they achieve remarkable results.
By looking closely at these outsiders, we are not trying to increase the number of people who fall within the average. Rather, we are trying to raise the results of the average itself.
The myth of success before happiness
We are all convinced that we must first succeed in order to be happy one day. We imagine this comes through landing a promotion, a pay rise or losing weight. In reality, it never works out that way. As soon as we reach a goal, the satisfaction we feel eventually fades and we move very quickly on to the next one.
What Shawn Achor observes is the opposite. As soon as we reverse our order of priority, we end up achieving both outcomes. A person who feels happy is thus more likely to make a success of their life than one who puts success before happiness.
According to Shawn Achor, if a person deepens their level of optimism or nurtures better social relationships, they very quickly obtain better academic or professional results.
The revealing experiment with optimistic salespeople
An experiment carried out in a department store illustrates this theory perfectly. The salespeople who seemed more satisfied with their lives achieved better results than their less fulfilled colleagues. The company then decided to hire new staff on the basis of their optimism, without taking the other usual recruitment criteria into account. Some even lacked the relevant qualifications.
The result was unequivocal and left no room for doubt. Within a year, the sales made by the optimists exceeded those of the pessimists by 19%. By the end of the second year, this gap had widened further, reaching 57%.
The Harvard formula for success: 25% skills, 75% attitude
Shawn Achor explains that people's intelligence, aptitudes and training account for 25% of their success. The rest depends on their optimism, their social relationships and how they manage stress. For the vast majority of people, success therefore rests essentially on attitudes rather than skills.
How to turn difficulties into opportunities for happiness
Shawn studied the behaviour of bankers shortly after the subprime crisis. Most were incredibly stressed. A few remained both optimistic and resigned. They had accepted the idea of going through a period of great difficulty. Even so, they did not worry about it unduly. For them, it was above all a challenge to be met.
Shawn had the disheartened bankers follow a training programme showing them how to manage their stress better and see it as a challenge. He observed them at 3 and 6 weeks. Once the bankers agreed to stop merely enduring stress and to see difficulty as a stage, a challenge to be met, their level of anxiety dropped by 23%. This improved their general mood. Their optimism rose, and a major improvement in their professional engagement could be observed.
The paradox of happiness: the more you work, the more you need your loved ones
Now imagine there is even more to do, even more challenges to meet. Thinking about a work-life balance becomes tricky. Should you sacrifice your outings with friends or family to achieve it? Here too, the answer is no.
If you have to work twice as hard, you will need your loved ones twice as much again.
When he finished his studies, Achor returned to the university he had attended to help newly admitted students adapt to their new environment. He often asked how they organised themselves. Many students told him they lived almost like recluses in the library. They ate in their rooms. They had not a minute to lose and devoted every second to their studies.
Do you think these students outperform the rest? No — quite the reverse. As a rule, these students eventually crack and ask to transfer to other schools.
The people who cope best with stress increase their social interactions during the most intense periods. This is exactly what most of us fail to do. In fact, the more a person cultivates fulfilling social relationships, the greater their chances of success. Harmony in one's social life is an indicator of success.
It also turns out that people who are altruistic or show empathy achieve better results, and faster, than others.
How to cultivate happiness day to day: the method of small wins
The question now is this: how do you become happier when you are not? The answer is simpler than it seems.
It would be wrong to think that happiness stems from outright successes or great achievements. You should not wait until you reach a particular goal to feel good, to like yourself a little more, to accept yourself fully and to be grateful for what life gives you. Happiness is made up of the small things of everyday life.
Shawn Achor thus encourages us not to focus solely on the big occasions. After all, if these occasions are so memorable, it is partly because of their rarity. It then becomes simpler to celebrate the small wins, the small events, even the most trivial ones.
Come to think of it, each of us, without exception, can find good reasons to feel thankful and to express gratitude.
The 21-day rule for transforming your life
Changes in a person's behaviour set in after 21 days. Try, for example, to make a change to your outlook on life and to your social relationships at the same time.
For 21 days, think of someone on your friends list on your favourite social network. Reflect on what you have shared with them. Express your gratitude for the lunch you had together, for the gift they gave you, for the film you watched together, for their patience when you were feeling low, for their unwavering support, for a fit of laughter, for everything, for nothing.
Do not forget the importance of meditation, of keeping a gratitude journal and of physical exercise.
The 20-second rule: the trick to taking action
What, in your view, is holding you back? You know you need to change, to alter certain things, but you do not do it. What is missing? The energy that turns a resolution into action. In all things, the first step is the hardest to take.
If you can shorten the gap between the moment you think about doing something and the moment you actually get down to it, you will already have all but succeeded.
Suppose you are thinking of doing some gentle exercise at home in the morning, when you wake, for ten minutes. If each time you cut the preparation time by 20 seconds, you will eventually get to it. Go to bed earlier, set up your exercise space in advance, wake up earlier, have your clothes ready from the night before.
This also works for getting rid of bad habits. If each time you delay a compulsive habit by 20 seconds, you will end up shedding it more easily than if you go about it drastically.
Happiness, then, is not a consequence of success but its very precondition. This revolution in the way we think opens the way to a more fulfilling and more productive life.
| What Shawn Achor says | What to take away |
|---|---|
| The success formula | 25% skills and training, 75% attitude (optimism, social relationships, stress management) |
| Salespeople hired for their optimism | +19% sales in the 1st year, +57% in the 2nd year, compared with pessimistic salespeople |
| Bankers trained to see stress as a challenge | -23% anxiety after the training |
| The 21-day rule | A new behaviour (gratitude, social connection) sets in after 21 days of repetition |
| The 20-second rule | Cutting 20 seconds off the time needed to get started is enough to create a new habit |
