It's common knowledge that we modern Americans favor short-term gratification over long-term rewards. And, duh, that's usually not a smart move!
A new study demonstrates that, after asking participants to focus on things they are grateful for, they demonstrated more patience and were able to keep those nasty impulses (e.g., emotional eating) in check. Of course this begs that lines are drawn between the dots: gratitude can encourage long-term success as another tool (move over, willpower) to a better life!
Study participants were given the choice between receiving $75 on the spot or choosing to receive a check for $100 in one year. Most of the grateful were also more patient. I'd choose the $100, for sure, but if there were three more zeros in the amount offered, maybe not so much!
“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Showing posts with label gratitude. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gratitude. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Monday, December 9, 2013
Advantage, Happiness
LYou can train your brain for optimism, to watch for things that make you grateful, to scan for positivity. The more you do it, the more you get it. It's available to all of us.
I've decided that in 2014, yes, sure, I'll try to lose weight. But mostly, I will try to train my brain to look for goodness, to engage in activities that make me happy.
What we think will make us happy actually doesn't. This was something I learned last week in a conference session entitled, The Happiness Advantage. Some of what I learned was from the book by the same name, by Shawn Achor.
What we think will make us happy actually doesn't. Happiness doesn't come from success, but rather happiness usually gets us to success. Happy people are more likely to seize opportunities because the brain of the happy is usually more open to trying, more open to scanning for opportunities. The result is the successful you because of the happy you (throw away that "happy because you are successful" notion, whatever that version of "successful").
A lot of us make mistakes, and relative to happiness, here are a few unconscious, negative ones:
1) trying to figure out if we're happy (the self-critic in evaluation mode, again and again);
2) overestimating the benefits of what we'll gain if we're happier;
3) pursuing happiness alone (doing things for others is an amazing antidote);
4) trying to find INTENSE happiness - this, of course, removes you from the present moment.
So are you happy? Do you lose track of time because you are in "the flow"? Doing your thing? That's a sign you're truly happy. Do you inventory your daily positive experiences? That's you, in business for yourself, working on your own happiness. It plays with that very influential cousin, gratitude.
Synthetic happiness is acceptable, take it. You can synthesize it - make it up, find it, decide on it.
Dan Gilbert, Harvard psychologist and author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the common idea that you'll be miserable if you don’t get what you want, if you don't find it. But he contends that you can feel true happiness even when things don't turn out the way you want. For example, his research has shown that paraplegics and lottery winners, about a year after losing their legs and a year after winning the lottery, report about the same level of happiness.
Now if you really want to work on happiness, take a minute, grab an ice cream or lollipop, and watch this (grab a tissue, too):
I've decided that in 2014, yes, sure, I'll try to lose weight. But mostly, I will try to train my brain to look for goodness, to engage in activities that make me happy.
What we think will make us happy actually doesn't. This was something I learned last week in a conference session entitled, The Happiness Advantage. Some of what I learned was from the book by the same name, by Shawn Achor.
What we think will make us happy actually doesn't. Happiness doesn't come from success, but rather happiness usually gets us to success. Happy people are more likely to seize opportunities because the brain of the happy is usually more open to trying, more open to scanning for opportunities. The result is the successful you because of the happy you (throw away that "happy because you are successful" notion, whatever that version of "successful").
A lot of us make mistakes, and relative to happiness, here are a few unconscious, negative ones:
1) trying to figure out if we're happy (the self-critic in evaluation mode, again and again);
2) overestimating the benefits of what we'll gain if we're happier;
3) pursuing happiness alone (doing things for others is an amazing antidote);
4) trying to find INTENSE happiness - this, of course, removes you from the present moment.
So are you happy? Do you lose track of time because you are in "the flow"? Doing your thing? That's a sign you're truly happy. Do you inventory your daily positive experiences? That's you, in business for yourself, working on your own happiness. It plays with that very influential cousin, gratitude.
Synthetic happiness is acceptable, take it. You can synthesize it - make it up, find it, decide on it.
Dan Gilbert, Harvard psychologist and author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the common idea that you'll be miserable if you don’t get what you want, if you don't find it. But he contends that you can feel true happiness even when things don't turn out the way you want. For example, his research has shown that paraplegics and lottery winners, about a year after losing their legs and a year after winning the lottery, report about the same level of happiness.
Now if you really want to work on happiness, take a minute, grab an ice cream or lollipop, and watch this (grab a tissue, too):
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