BOBBY McFerrin’s song, Don’t Worry, Be Happy, needs a remix to make it more accurate. We should sing "be grateful, be happy". Or better yet, "help others be happy". Happiness can be increased — and that has to be worth singing about.
Positive psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar has built a career in making people happier, particularly in the workplace. He has devised training courses, gives lectures, runs workshops and his books have been translated into 25 languages.
He has set up a branch of his company, Potentialife, in SA. It offers courses for companies that want their employees to be happier and more motivated.
The aim of the courses is to boost employees’ leadership potential, but the happiness training is the most intriguing aspect of his work. "I can’t necessarily take someone who has hated their job for 10 years and make them enjoy it, but you can potentially enjoy the job a lot more than you did," he says.
Ben-Shahar has an affinity for SA because when he was nine years old, his family moved here for five years. He learned to speak English and play squash, becoming a Junior Springbok champion.
It was a wrench to be uprooted again as a teenager, but it taught him an important lesson. "We don’t grow when it’s easy, we grow when it’s hard," he says.
His coursework moulds academic studies from universities into easily accessible material. Like most self-help book writers, much of the advice he dispenses is entirely common sense, but he packages it in a very engaging way.
Ben-Shahar studied philosophy and psychology at Harvard, and has a PhD in organisational behaviour. He taught the most popular course in the history of Harvard on positive psychology, or how to be happy. "The biggest course before that was an introduction to economics, so it’s more important for people to be happy than rich," he jokes.
He founded Potentialife with Angus Ridgeway, a senior partner at McKinsey & Company. They spent three years creating a programme that could be taught to large numbers of people by analysing what successful leaders do right.
They condensed it into five distinguishing characteristics: personal strength, turning stress into positive energy; being engaged and absorbed; cultivating healthy relationships and enjoying a deep sense of purpose. The course spans nine months of weekly sessions.
THE core lesson seems to be that happiness comes from within and can be achieved by a shift in attitudes and behaviour. Ben-Shahar cites the example of a bank employee he met when he applied for a mortgage, who was unusually happy and excited about her job. When he asked her what she was on, she told him that every day she helped people fulfil their dreams.
"You have thousands of mortgage officers doing the same work day in and day out and it’s miserable and boring. But she chose to focus on another element of her work and as a result she experiences it in a very different way," Ben-Shahar says.
Any job can be regarded as a chore, a career or a calling.
Potentialife’s training focuses on how people try to quell negative feelings such as anger, envy or anxiety. Since all emotions come through the same channels, suppressing them quells positive emotions as well.
"There’s something wrong with you if you can’t experience those emotions. When we suppress them, they intensify. When we really experience them by crying, talking to someone or writing a journal, it makes a huge difference in our ability to overcome them," Ben-Shahar says.
Giving yourself permission to be human by experiencing the full range of emotions is the foundation of finding happiness.
Regular exercise and expressing gratitude are other essential building blocks. "Regular physical exercise has the same effect on wellbeing as the most powerful psychological medication," he says, advocating three 30-minute sessions a week.
Gratitude is another a huge ingredient for happiness, and people should list a few things they are grateful for each day. Ben-Shahar does it — two decades after he started on the happiness trail.
But the number one predictor of happiness is spending quality time with people we care for, and who care for us. Loneliness is one of the best predictors of depression. "Go out and make friends, people you can talk to and share with. And 1,000 friends on Facebook are no substitute for that one best friend," Ben-Shahar says.
Forget about eliminating stress, he says, because it is not necessarily a bad thing. People go to gym to stress their muscles to get fit and healthy. The problem is when there is no downtime for muscles — or brains — to recover before being stressed again.
"We knew how to deal with stress 5,000 years ago. Then it was running away from a lion. Today it’s handing in a quarterly report. But the difference is we don’t have downtime today. Even at family meals we are always on the phone," Ben-Shahar says.
Downtime doesn’t have to mean two weeks on a beach. It can be as little five minutes of meditation or 30 seconds of deep breathing throughout the day, or a meal with friends twice a week. "It strengthens your psychological immune system so you become better able to deal with stress," he says.
THERE is no quick fix, and there is other bad news. "Happy doesn’t exist," he says, rather surprisingly for a happiness coach. "There is no binary either/or. It’s a continuum. People ask me if I’m happy. I got into this field because I was unhappy. I can certainly say I’m happier than I was 22 years ago, but I hope in five years’ time I’ll be happier than I am now."
Ben-Shahar was unhappy because he followed a false philosophy of believing success would lead to happiness. "I worked very hard in every area, really believing that once I was a national champion at squash and once I got into Harvard I’d be happy. All it led to was frustration."
He expects to be happier in five years because his business will have grown and he will be helping to create more thriving, flourishing leaders at every level of society.
Surely that’s falling into his old trap of believing success will make him happy? Not at all, he argues. He won’t be happier because of the recognition or extra income, but because he will be helping others.
"One of the best ways to increase our own level of happiness is by helping other people. We know when we help someone else we feel better, and there’s research to prove it," Ben-Shahar says.
Tal Ben-Shahar taught the most popular course in the history of Harvard on positive psychology. He lived in SA for five years after his family moved here when he was nine years old. He learned to speak English and became a Junior Springbok in squash. Picture: BLOOMBERG
BOBBY McFerrin’s song, Don’t Worry, Be Happy, needs a remix to make it more accurate. We should sing "be grateful, be happy". Or better yet, "help others be happy". Happiness can be increased — and that has to be worth singing about.
Positive psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar has built a career in making people happier, particularly in the workplace. He has devised training courses, gives lectures, runs workshops and his books have been translated into 25 languages.
He has set up a branch of his company, Potentialife, in SA. It offers courses for companies that want their employees to be happier and more motivated.
The aim of the courses is to boost employees’ leadership potential, but the happiness training is the most intriguing aspect of his work. "I can’t necessarily take someone who has hated their job for 10 years and make them enjoy it, but you can potentially enjoy the job a lot more than you did," he says.
Ben-Shahar has an affinity for SA because when he was nine years old, his family moved here for five years. He learned to speak English and play squash, becoming a Junior Springbok champion.
It was a wrench to be uprooted again as a teenager, but it taught him an important lesson. "We don’t grow when it’s easy, we grow when it’s hard," he says.
His coursework moulds academic studies from universities into easily accessible material. Like most self-help book writers, much of the advice he dispenses is entirely common sense, but he packages it in a very engaging way.
Ben-Shahar studied philosophy and psychology at Harvard, and has a PhD in organisational behaviour. He taught the most popular course in the history of Harvard on positive psychology, or how to be happy. "The biggest course before that was an introduction to economics, so it’s more important for people to be happy than rich," he jokes.
He founded Potentialife with Angus Ridgeway, a senior partner at McKinsey & Company. They spent three years creating a programme that could be taught to large numbers of people by analysing what successful leaders do right.
They condensed it into five distinguishing characteristics: personal strength, turning stress into positive energy; being engaged and absorbed; cultivating healthy relationships and enjoying a deep sense of purpose. The course spans nine months of weekly sessions.
THE core lesson seems to be that happiness comes from within and can be achieved by a shift in attitudes and behaviour. Ben-Shahar cites the example of a bank employee he met when he applied for a mortgage, who was unusually happy and excited about her job. When he asked her what she was on, she told him that every day she helped people fulfil their dreams.
"You have thousands of mortgage officers doing the same work day in and day out and it’s miserable and boring. But she chose to focus on another element of her work and as a result she experiences it in a very different way," Ben-Shahar says.
Any job can be regarded as a chore, a career or a calling.
Potentialife’s training focuses on how people try to quell negative feelings such as anger, envy or anxiety. Since all emotions come through the same channels, suppressing them quells positive emotions as well.
"There’s something wrong with you if you can’t experience those emotions. When we suppress them, they intensify. When we really experience them by crying, talking to someone or writing a journal, it makes a huge difference in our ability to overcome them," Ben-Shahar says.
Giving yourself permission to be human by experiencing the full range of emotions is the foundation of finding happiness.
Regular exercise and expressing gratitude are other essential building blocks. "Regular physical exercise has the same effect on wellbeing as the most powerful psychological medication," he says, advocating three 30-minute sessions a week.
Gratitude is another a huge ingredient for happiness, and people should list a few things they are grateful for each day. Ben-Shahar does it — two decades after he started on the happiness trail.
But the number one predictor of happiness is spending quality time with people we care for, and who care for us. Loneliness is one of the best predictors of depression. "Go out and make friends, people you can talk to and share with. And 1,000 friends on Facebook are no substitute for that one best friend," Ben-Shahar says.
Forget about eliminating stress, he says, because it is not necessarily a bad thing. People go to gym to stress their muscles to get fit and healthy. The problem is when there is no downtime for muscles — or brains — to recover before being stressed again.
"We knew how to deal with stress 5,000 years ago. Then it was running away from a lion. Today it’s handing in a quarterly report. But the difference is we don’t have downtime today. Even at family meals we are always on the phone," Ben-Shahar says.
Downtime doesn’t have to mean two weeks on a beach. It can be as little five minutes of meditation or 30 seconds of deep breathing throughout the day, or a meal with friends twice a week. "It strengthens your psychological immune system so you become better able to deal with stress," he says.
THERE is no quick fix, and there is other bad news. "Happy doesn’t exist," he says, rather surprisingly for a happiness coach. "There is no binary either/or. It’s a continuum. People ask me if I’m happy. I got into this field because I was unhappy. I can certainly say I’m happier than I was 22 years ago, but I hope in five years’ time I’ll be happier than I am now."
Ben-Shahar was unhappy because he followed a false philosophy of believing success would lead to happiness. "I worked very hard in every area, really believing that once I was a national champion at squash and once I got into Harvard I’d be happy. All it led to was frustration."
He expects to be happier in five years because his business will have grown and he will be helping to create more thriving, flourishing leaders at every level of society.
Surely that’s falling into his old trap of believing success will make him happy? Not at all, he argues. He won’t be happier because of the recognition or extra income, but because he will be helping others.
"One of the best ways to increase our own level of happiness is by helping other people. We know when we help someone else we feel better, and there’s research to prove it," Ben-Shahar says.
Post a comment