A happy secret to better work (Shawn Achor X TedTalkBloomington)

We think we have to work hard to be happy, but could we reverse this belief and find a new “happiness formula”? In an innovative and funny talk, positive psychologist Shawn Achor takes a look at our reality and its influence on our happiness. What if happiness could make us more productive? We explain!

Have you ever felt depressed when watching the news? Looking back, there’s plenty to be depressed about! The news is predominantly negative, most of it about murder, corruption, disease and natural disasters. And very quickly, the brain deduces a very simple ratio as to the amount of negative in the world versus the amount of positive. A situation that creates what’s known as the “Medical School Syndrome”: where first-year students, when reading and learning the lists of symptoms of every known disease and syndrome, find themselves in every one of them. The same process takes place when you see negative information, and you deduce that this is reality and that you live in a violent, corrupt, sick and dangerous world. But what if this is not the case? What if this vision is only yours, and above all the fruit of a complex interpretation that can be reoriented?

Shawn Achor and his team found that it wasn’t necessarily reality that influenced us, but rather the “lens” through which our brains saw this famous reality. Let’s never forget that everything we experience is only an interpretation: a reality interpreted through the filter of education, life experience, environment and, above all, our choice to be positive or not.

“If everyone can change their ‘lens’, we’ll not only change our happiness, but also change all education and business outcomes at the same time.”

A time at Harvard.

At Harvard University, Shawn Achor has been a student life advisor and student “psychologist” for eight years (not counting the four he has already spent as a student). In his research, he studied a large number of students every few weeks: no matter how motivated and satisfied they were when they started at Harvard, two weeks later their brains were focused, not on the privilege of being there, nor on their philosophy or physique, but on the competition, the workload, the hassle, the stress, the complaints.

Shawn Achor recounts how his colleagues often asked him why he was wasting his time studying the happiness of Harvard students, what a Harvard student might be unhappy and disappointed about. Precisely, the key to understanding the science of happiness lies in this question. For this question assumes that our external world is predictive of our levels of happiness, when in reality, as Achor points out, if it knew everything about your external world, it could only predict 10% of your long-term happiness.

Because 90% of your long-term happiness is predicted not by the outside world, but by the way your brain processes the world. And if we change this way of seeing the world, if we change our formula for happiness and success, we could change our reality and be happier. Achor & his team found that only 25% of career success is predicted by IQ, and that 75% of that success was actually predicted by levels of optimism, social support and the ability to see stress as a challenge rather than a threat.

The link between happiness, work and education.

Shawn Achor, in his recent travels and conferences, met with the heads of a New England boarding school, probably the most prestigious, and faced with his speech they replied: “We already know all that. Every year, instead of just teaching our students, we organize a wellness week. On Monday evening, we have the world’s leading expert on teenage depression; on Tuesday evening, it’s school violence and bullying. Wednesday night is eating disorders. Thursday night is illicit drug use, and Friday night we’re still waffling between two topics: unsafe sex or happiness.” Shawn Achor humorously reminds us that this isn’t Wellness Week … it’s Worst Week!

“The absence of disease is not health. To encourage health, we need to reverse the formula for happiness and success”.

By pointing out all the negative things that can happen, but not talking about the positive things, the brain will only remember the dangers and the worst that can happen to it. And how will it tend to act on a daily basis afterwards? You’ve got it!

Most companies and schools follow this “happiness formula”: if I work harder, I’ll be more successful, and if I’m more successful, I’ll be happier. This directly influences most of our educational and management styles, and the way we motivate our behavior. According to the speaker, the problem is that this formula remains scientifically obsolete and “backwards” for two reasons.

Two reasons, one wrong formula.

The first is the goal of success. Because every time your brain achieves success, success slips away again. You’ve got good grades? Now you need higher ones. Got a good job? Now you need to get a better one. You’ve reached your sales targets? Great, let’s raise them. And happiness is the opposite of success, and your brain never gets there. All you do is run. Shawn Achor explains this situation by the fact that we have pushed happiness beyond the cognitive horizon. We think we have to succeed to be happier. But our brains work in the opposite direction to this formula.

Secondly, we need to be able toreverse this formula, to see what our brains are really capable of. Because dopamine, which floods into your system when you’re feeling good, has two functions. Not only does it make you happier, it also activates all the learning centers in your brain, enabling you to adapt to the world in a different way.

A shot of positivity, please!

If you could instead increase a person’s level of positivity in the present, then their brain would experience what we now call a “happiness advantage”, meaning that the brain, when positive, functions significantly better than when negative, neutral or stressed.

“Intelligence increases, your creativity increases, your energy level increases.”

Scientifically, Achor & his team have found that when the brain is more positive than negative, neutral or stressed, every business result improves:

The brain is 31% more productive,
People are 37% more successful in achieving their sales targets,
doctors are 19% faster and more accurate in making a correct diagnosis.

This means that we can reverse the “formula for happiness ”. And that if we can find a way to become positive in the present, then our brains work all the better because we’re able to work harder, faster and smarter.

Goal: 21 days of positivity and gratitude.

3 positive elements every day.

Happiness researchers have discovered that there are ways to train your brain to become more positive. In just two minutes and for 21 consecutive days, we can rewire the brain, enabling it to work more optimistically and effectively.

At Totem Conseil & Formation, we’ve implemented these small changes in the companies we’ve worked with. For 21 days in a row, we’ve had them write down three new things they’re grateful for, three new things every day. And it’s true! At the end of this period, their brains begin to retain a habit of scanning the world not for the negative, but for the positive first.

Let’s stop multi-tasking.

Achor explains that recounting and compiling the positive experience(s) you’ve had in the last 24 hours allows your brain to relive them. Let your brain know that your behavior is important. Meditation alone allows your brain to get past this idea of multi-tasking, when our brains perform so much better when they focus on one task at a time.

What you sow outside, you’ll reap inside.

And finally, spontaneous acts of kindness are conscious acts of kindness. Achor asked executives and managers, when opening their inboxes each morning, to write a positive e-mail praising or thanking someone in their support network. And by doing these activities, and training our brains exactly as we try our bodies, we can reverse the formula for happiness and success. And in the end, we won’t just create waves of positivity, but a real revolution.

Sources :

Achor, S. (2011, May). Retrieved August 31, 2020, from https://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work?referrer=playlist-the_most_popular_talks_of_all#t-718296
Achor, S. (2011).The happiness advantage: The seven principles that fuel success and performance at work. London: Virgin.
Achor, S. (2018).Big potential: How transforming the pursuit of success raises our achievement, happiness, and well-being. New York: Currency.

** Use of the masculine singular to lighten the text.