I find it fascinating that training your brain to be positive at work actually fuels greater success! Training, real training, which implies there is hard work – an intentionality to cultivate it and a propensity we all have towards the slippery-slope of negativism. It's hard work. The default can so easily be to focus on where you're falling short, what you still haven't accomplished, what you could have done better, how you lost the sale, how you compare to so-and-so, etc. Take time to celebrate, be thankful for something each day, encourage and build others up. These are some of the exercises Shawn Achor coaches F500 employees to embrace to increase the happiness advantage. Of course it’s more involved than that, but you get the gist. Very cool. I like it. But, I’m a glass-is-about-to-be-overflowing-shortly kind of girl.
Research shows that when people work with a positive mind-set, performance on nearly every level—productivity, creativity, engagement—improves. Yet happiness is perhaps the most misunderstood driver of performance. For one, most people believe that success precedes happiness. “Once I get a promotion, I’ll be happy,” they think. Or, “Once I hit my sales target, I’ll feel great.” But because success is a moving target—as soon as you hit your target, you raise it again—the happiness that results from success is fleeting. In fact, it works the other way around: People who cultivate a positive mind-set perform better in the face of challenge. I call this the “happiness advantage”—every business outcome shows improvement when the brain is positive. I’ve observed this effect in my role as a researcher and lecturer in 48 countries on the connection between employee happiness and success.