Happiness and performance!

There is no one universal formula for achieving happiness. It's all up to the individual's wants, needs, and level of contentment with what they have.

Some people may find fulfillment in a committed relationship. While love can mend broken hearts, it also carries the risk of hurt feelings, betrayal, and anxiety. In contrast, for some people, fulfillment comes from being able to experience life to its fullest, rather than just surviving. Participating in activities that make you happy and pursuing your passions are important parts of living a full life. In addition to the freedom and capacity to realize one's full potential.

?It's unfortunate that some people tend to undervalue happiness due to incorrect assumptions about it. There are those who argue that being happy makes one lazy and self-centered when in fact the opposite is true. When some are happy, they have more energy and spread their joy to others.

Shawn Achor an author of The Happiness Advantage in his book indicated seven principles of positive psychology. According to those principles when people are happy their productivity increases. According to Professor Fredrickson when people are happy or positive, they come up with better ideas and more creative.?

Some say that happy people become self-centered. This is a wrong misconception. Happy people are givers. They don’t just help others financially but with emotional support as well.

Many people are pursuing happiness or success. Yet, Viktor Frankl, who wrote, Man’s search for meaning said, “Don't aim at success.” One should prioritize happiness but without persuading it while making happiness enhancing decisions and living a meaningful and fulfilling life.

?Yet, ?some humans only care about reaching their destination/goals. They get so tired up with attaining those goals that they are not fully appreciating or savoring the experiences. They don’t pause to enjoy the fruits of their efforts. Some give more time to their jobs, businesses than to the loved once. At times marriages end because of this. They don’t even take time for leisure. When illness comes or old age find them, they regret about the missed opportunities or not living a life to the fullest or meaningfully.

?According to Professor Czikszentmihalyi people were happiest when they were engaged in the meaningful flow experiences. Those flow moments characterized by certain features such as distorted perception of time, lack of self-consciousness and intense focus on the present time or activity. For example, when I work on my book, I feel relaxed. Yet, my mind fully focused on the plot of my book. It seems as if time passed so fast. If during that time someone asks me question, I will not hear each word because I am deeply immersed into typing my story.

The flow experiences enhance the level of happiness because they make our lives more interesting and fulfilling. According to Csikszentmihalyi the state of flow happens under certain conditions – when there is a challenge that’s tests our skills and capabilities. The challenge and the skills push us to the limit to overcome the obstacles.

?Even though being happy takes a lot more than compassion, I agree with the statement that compassion can make one happy. Every human being has a need for love as well as a need to give. When those needs are met, we feel good. When people can bring something positive into the society, they feel competent, useful and capable. For example, when I show kindness towards others, I feel a lot happier. I have been volunteering at the house for aged people. Seeing their joy because of my presence and kindness towards them was making my day brighter. I knew that I was doing something meaningful and good.

?Michael Norton from Harvard University organized an experiment where money was given to the students. They were asked either to spend money on themselves or others. Those who spent it on themselves felt less happy than those who gave away money.??Another experiment by Kylie Hamlin, Lara Acknin, and Liz Dunn with children also confirmed givers are happier. According to?Adam Grant’s research on the impact of generosity and success the?generous and helpful people are more successful in their professions.

?However, his findings also showed that some givers end up at the bottom of success ladder because they self-sacrificed their own needs for the sake of others. Therefore, one must also attend to one’s own needs/ goals and contain the cost of giving. According to researchers that the most successful givers include themselves in an act of generosity.

?Some people want to have everything under their control including outcomes. However, this lowers the level of happiness and affects our relationship with others. People do not want to be controlled and rebel against it. According to David McClelland being overly controlling causes power stress that leads to anger, frustration when others do not meet our expectations. Being over-controlling affects the quality of the decisions because others are not allowed to brainstorm or take part in a decision-making process. Some get frustrated and even depressed if things don’t go their way.

?Eternal and external control are compensatory forces. It means that when someone has internal control the desire for external control diminishes. However, when people don’t feel good internally, they seek external control that negatively affects the level of happiness.

Those who believe in God have more internal control because they know that God will help them. Studies by Poliner showed that once people learn to regulate their feelings and responses to the outside elements, they don’t have a need for external control. People take personal responsibility for own happiness. Aston and Shapiro did research and quoted ?'I don’t think I have self-control to let go of control.' Gaining external control will compensate for the lack of internal control.

?Doing research professor John Helliwell studied the happiness of countries. He concluded that the more people agree that others can be trusted, the happier they are. Therefore, there is correlation between happiness and trust level.

?The Toronto Star conducted an experiment in relation to trust where 20 wallets were dropped. It was predicted that only 23% of wallets will be returned. However, 80% of wallets returned. The experiment showed that people a lot trustworthy than we expect them to be. Trust is an important tool in building healthy relationship. However, at times people who trust a lot get hurt or used by others. Therefore, the smart thing to do is to trust people little more than we accustomed. One must remember that people are more trustworthy than we think. Think about the benefits of trusting others and lowering the chances to be cheated or hurt.