Mindfulness
by Shawn Achor
Does success make you happy?
The usual plan says work hard, succeed, and then you'll be happy. Shawn Achor spent years at Harvard watching bright students grind themselves down following it. His research convinced him the plan runs backwards. A brain that already feels positive works better, so happiness comes first and success follows.
Hear a sample · read by Laura
Achor leans on Barbara Fredrickson's broaden-and-build theory. Stress narrows us towards fight or flight, while positive emotions widen what we notice and the ideas we come up with. He calls the result the Happiness Advantage. People in a good mood think more creatively and solve problems faster.
Play Tetris for hours and you start seeing falling blocks everywhere. Achor says work trains the mind the same way. Tax auditors who hunt for errors all day can start seeing faults everywhere, even at home. You can train the opposite habit, a brain that scans for what's going right.
Under pressure, many of us drop friends to put in more hours. Achor calls this the wrong move. He cites George Vaillant's study of Harvard men followed for decades from the late 1930s, which kept finding that close relationships were what made their lives go well.
Happy first
We expect success to make us happy, but it mostly works the other way round.
The lever
Your mindset is a lever. How you see a task changes how well you do it.
Tetris effect
Write down three good things each day, and your brain starts spotting good things on its own.
Falling up
After a setback, look for the path that leaves you stronger than before.
Zorro circle
When stress swamps you, take charge of one small area first, then widen it.
A story from the book
Achor describes a study in which doctors were handed a small bag of sweets before working through a patient's symptoms. They weren't allowed to eat them, so blood sugar played no part. The mood lift alone helped. They reached the right diagnosis faster and clung less to their first guess.
One thing to try
Before bed each night this week, write down three good things that happened that day, however small. Achor suggests it to make the Tetris Effect work for you. Knowing the list is coming, your brain spends the day looking for things to put on it.
Knotd has the key ideas from 250+ non-fiction books, each in a few minutes, in plain words. The Happiness Advantage comes with a Name That Idea round to make it stick.
Get the whole book on KnotdOpen in the appDoes success make you happy? The usual plan says work hard, succeed, and then you'll be happy. Shawn Achor spent years at Harvard watching bright students grind themselves down following it. His research convinced him the plan runs backwards. A brain that already feels positive works better, so happiness comes first and success follows.
Happiness comes first; The Tetris Effect; Social Investment.
Before bed each night this week, write down three good things that happened that day, however small. Achor suggests it to make the Tetris Effect work for you. Knowing the list is coming, your brain spends the day looking for things to put on it.
Yes. Knotd has the key ideas from The Happiness Advantage in a few minutes, in plain words, plus a Name That Idea round to test them. It's one of 250+ non-fiction books in the app.
