It is not success which begets happiness, its happiness which begets success.

We often tie our happiness to external events. We look at people around us and think that we’ll be much happier if only we get that promotion at work, make more money or lose more weight.

Today, I received an email from a friend. She was sharing some thoughts on optimism and its correlation with success. She couldn’t have any clue when she clicked “send” how closely our thoughts were aligned.  From Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage:

If we can get somebody to raise their levels of optimism or deepen their social connection or raise happiness, turns out every single business and educational outcome we know how to test for improves dramatically. You can increase your success rates for the rest of your life and your happiness levels will flatline, but if you raise your level of happiness and deepen optimism it turns out every single one of your success rates rises dramatically compared to what it would have been at negative, neutral, or stressed.

Instead of focusing on our goals and putting off our happiness, we should consider redirecting our energy to become happier. One way we can do this is by questioning our assumptions. I had been thinking about the best practices for approaching stress and obstacles for many months. Everyone knows that stress is bad, right?

Maybe not. We can view these stressful times as downers or uppers. You know where this is going:

…what we found was if we could move people to view stress as enhancing, a challenge instead of as a threat, we saw a 23% drop in their stress-related symptoms. It produced a significant increase not only in levels of happiness, but a dramatic improvement in their levels of engagement at work as well.

The important thing to note is that this is a skill. Like we train to lift progressively heavier loads at the gym, so too can we strengthen our mental muscle to respond differently. Stress doesn’t have to be evil. In fact, it can sharpen our focus and help us perform. Think about it, when you’re nervous and your heart is racing, with adrenaline pumping through your veins, do you sometimes feel strong?

I truly believe I was a better baseball player on days I was more nervous. I was alert and energized. I tend to see those moments and that anxiety as a positive thing. The night before a big event, if my heart is racing a bit, I know I’ll be at my peak.

Simply by reconceptualizing our views on stress and anxiety, we can make ourselves happier and more successful. In fact, experiencing these “negative” emotions is as important to our health as experiencing the positive ones. A study from Harvard University explored “emodiversity,” that is, experiencing diverse emotional states instead of just positive or negative ones.

Two cross-sectional studies across more than 37,000 respondents demonstrate that emodiversity is an independent predictor of mental and physical health—such as decreased depression and doctor’s visits— over and above mean levels of positive and negative emotion.

I’ve always known that optimistic paradigms could be advantageous for a specific event; I didn’t quite grasp that it is a scientific formula for success. The final piece of the puzzle may be ensuring that we take time out to care for others.

Work altruists were ten times more likely to be engaged than the bottom quartile of that list and the top quartile was significantly happier and 40% more likely to receive a promotion over the next 2-year period of time.

A promotion may not be what you’re after. The definition of success is different for everyone. Hell, so is the definition of happiness. That said, there is little disputing that looking at life’s challenges through a pair of positively charged spectacles feels a whole lot better than the inverse.

Strong mind,

Kap