In this episode we’ll take a look at why happiness matters and how we can start to make a shift toward feeling more positive in our lives. For some people, “happiness” is a triggering concept, if it feels elusive or inauthentic, irresponsible in the crazy world we live in. And I don’t advocate toxic positivity, or ignoring the bad situations that come along or putting the lid on the other emotions that we do feel. What research does support, however, is that by putting attention toward consistent, simple positivity-boosting practices, it makes it easier to feel more positive more often.  You can even begin to cultivate happiness as a superpower. 

In this episode we discuss: 

• Why happiness matters, and the benefits of feeling more positive
• If happiness is genetic
• How neuroscience works in our favor, and how I used it myself
• Ways to to shift the habit of worry to feel more hopeful 
• Why it’s so important to celebrate our wins
• Honoring all or our emotions 

Ready to learn more about the Happiness Reset? Email susi@3xlessstress.com to receive your simple how-to and start today.  Research shows that just 3 weeks of a simple daily practice can lead to sustained higher feelings of positivity! 

Want to learn more about Positive Prime?  Visit my info page here to view a sample session and learn about the 30 day free trial. https://3xlessstress.com/prime2thrive

Susi: Welcome back. I’m so happy to have you with me this week for another installment of Happified. And this week, a solo episode, while I talk with you a little bit more about my passion for positivity, if you will, why I think it’s such an important priority to place in our lives and what we do, and coming back to it when there’s so much going on in the world that demands our time, energy and attention…Why this too? 

So, thanks for joining me. If you’ve been listening along the way, you know that this is a particular passion of mine. If the name of this show wasn’t enough to tip you off! And in my previous episode, I shared a conversation with Kim Serafini, the visionary and founder of Positive Prime. And it is one of my favorite tools to get into the dirty work, the daily habits, the shifting of our perspective and cultivating positivity.

But let’s back up a minute and take a closer look at why it matters and how we can start to make this kind of shift happen in our lives. Not everybody is naturally happy. We’ll actually be able to dig into some of those numbers in a few minutes too. And sometimes it’s kind of a triggering concept. When you talk with someone, when I relate to someone, the importance of cultivating more happiness in their lives, if it’s something that doesn’t come naturally to them, it can be really triggering.

It can feel like something that they don’t do right. That they’re not naturally good at, and it can be uncomfortable to be in this space. So please understand. I’m not talking about faking it until you make it. I’m not talking about toxic positivity and ignoring the bad situations that come along or pretending that they don’t exist or putting the lid on emotions.

All of those things are tremendously important. What I am saying, what I offer for you to consider is that in the midst of all of that- in this messy, gritty, struggle of life, that we are all working through- having happiness in your pocket, having that to call on perhaps a little more easily can become your superpower.

So let’s take a little bit of a look at this. First of all, why does happiness even matter? You know, it can feel like a fluffy thing. Must be nice, you know, maybe the icing on the cake, it can also feel false. Particularly if you’re somebody for whom happiness doesn’t come easily. Right? 

Why is that person always in a good mood? What are they drinking or smoking? What are they ignoring? What kind of alternate reality are they existing in? 

Let me give you an idea of some of the benefits of feeling more positive. So this information comes from the field of positive psychology. When about 40 years ago or so some leading thinkers in the field of psychology and in education and research started to take a new perspective on how we can feel better.

And instead of focusing on what’s wrong and how to fix it, they came from a new direction and started taking a look at what’s the secret behind people who feel happier? What are the benefits? How do they differentiate themselves? What do they experience in their lives? Right? 

Because we tend to, as, as humans, focus on what’s wrong and needs fixing so that we can improve our life, our situation, we can maintain health and security.

What if we start getting curious about what’s working and how we can have more of that? 

Totally new perspective, and, you know, I’m a big fan of perspective. It’s so powerful. It’s not always like a light switch, but once you can see a new point of view, it’s a lot easier to call back on that with practice.

So the benefits of positivity as seen in research, and these numbers are actually shared in some of the books written by Shawn Achor. One of the leading thought leaders, he has a tremendously popular Ted Talk called “The Happy Secret to Better Work”. His books are “The Happiness Advantage” and “Before Happiness,” among others, and he relates these numbers. So for my thinkers, my data divers out there, this is where you can find a collection of the research, the studies that contribute to this base of knowledge in Shawn Achor’s books. We find that people who are in a positive frame of mind, different from feeling negative or feeling neutral, people operating from positive, have a 31% higher rate of productivity.

They are 37% stronger in sales. They have 10 times higher engagement levels, being positive, improves your focus because when we are stressed and operating from that more negative state, there’s worry, we are laser focused on what is in front of us, the matter at hand. We lose that capacity to take a look at what’s around us and draw from more creative solutions. So the difference in shifting from a stressed perspective to a more positive and open perspective is profound, definitely helps to promote our creativity, they find that to be three times stronger. People who are generally rating themselves as positive are 40% more likely to receive a promotion. 

You might think that’s just because people enjoy happy people, but that’s not the only thing that we see here. People who are positive work better in teams. They’re more receptive to feedback from those around them. And so therefore it’s easier for them to improve, for them to refine and move forward in whatever it is that they are creating. 

So, 23% lower stress levels and I will dive into in another conversation, why not all stress is bad. I’ve touched on it through many of my conversations with my fantastic guests, but not all stress is bad. We grow and thrive under stress, that’s why our brains are so wired to respond to it. It’s just that we can move the needle and become more sensitive and aware to other triggers in our environment and not respond only to stress. 

So, people experience 34% better social relationships. This is so important because we really are social creatures. Even if you consider yourself an introvert, I had a great conversation with Lorraine Ellen Scott about that topic. People who rate themselves as positive experience 25% greater performance, more success in what they are doing and creating and sharing with the world.

From a health perspective, you might think that happiness and less stress has benefits here. So maybe some of these aren’t a surprise, but again, let’s just put some numbers to it. People who feel more positive, have a 50% lower chance of heart disease. Again, because of the biological reaction in our bodies to stress, it has a very clear and specific function, which is not wrong.

But when we take every trigger in our environment as a stressor, and that is our constant state of reaction, that adds up really fast to weigh down our cardiovascular health, along with a number of other aspects. People who feel more positive are 39% healthier, are 39% more likely to live to the age of 94 and are measured to be 23% more energetic.

And I’ll tell you the, the days are long, but the years are short, is that what they say? When you have a little bit more energy to get from the morning to the evening to carry yourself through the day that in itself can become a superpower. So if you’re a numbers thinker then I hope that these start to help lay the seed or plant a foundation that there’s so much power in positivity.

So how do we get to there when that’s not our natural default? And let’s take a look at, at who that’s for and why? Sonya Lyubomirsky is another terrific researcher and she was able to actually quantify- and she says in her book, “The How of Happiness”, which comes back to kind of clean this up after she initially shared this data, a lot of people got pretty up in arms about it.

So her work is really terrific, but just to, again, give ourselves some numbers and perspective, what she and her research cohorts found in their work was that 40% of our predisposition to feeling positive is genetic. And that is a significant part of it. So genetics lead us to feeling positive, to responding with a more positive mindset or framework, right? Sometimes other things get in the way of simply feeling happy, right? Our dopamine or serotonin levels. We have hormones that control so many processes in our bodies. And if our bodies are not functioning at optimum, then we can struggle or suffer in these aspects. So there are genetic influence that affect about 40% of our predisposition to feeling positive.

That’s not insignificant, but what about the rest? What’s on the table? We tend to think when we get what we’re working for, when we get the job promotion, we go on that amazing vacation, we move into that big house, that’s when we’re gonna be happy. That, according to Sonya’s work accounts for only about 10% of our happiness, our joy, our positivity, because we adjust very quickly. 

And so when we get the thing that we are working for, that tends to be a short lived state of happiness. That brings us happiness initially but is not what brings us the lasting happiness and positivity that we really want to be cultivating in our lives.

And this is really the root of Shawn’s book, “The Happiness Advantage”, because we tend to think, we may have been taught that when you work towards your goals and achieve them, then you will be happy with the results. However, in his work and he lays out some terrific systems and evidence to this, when we put happiness first it makes everything else easier down the line.

Just looking at those numbers that I was sharing, 40% more likely to receive a promotion, 37% higher in sales. These are some great pieces of evidence that illustrate that by feeling happy now it’s gonna be easier to reach the successes that you’re aiming for. 

So we’ve got it up to 50% now, right? 40% genetic predisposition, 10%, the trappings of life, the situation that we find ourselves in. The remaining 50%, according to her research and what they find in positive psychology comes from the practices, the habits, the things that we do for ourselves to create happiness, to foster that positive perspective and to teach ourselves to come back to it. So how can we do that, right? If 50% of that is within our control, let’s get to work. 

Again, as I started out by saying we’re very busy people, there’s a lot of demands on our time, energy and attention. And so you might be thinking, great. One more thing. This is why I’m not happy, cuz I don’t have time to get around to the practice of positivity. 

It can be easy. And that’s part of why I love Positive Prime because it can be a three minute daily practice that has been found in early research to improve mood for up to eight hours afterward. And there’s even more exciting information and research coming out of some deeper studies that are being done right now in Queensland Australia. It’s tremendously exciting. They’re actually looking at the way that our brain fires and lights up as we use Positive Prime. 

But there’s other options as well. So let’s take a look at this because, what is it? You know, when we don’t feel naturally happy, it’s time to put on our thinking caps, if you will. I like to super sleuth things out.

So what is standing in our way? As I already said, we are biologically wired to respond to stress. You’ve probably heard, I might’ve also said many times the quote, but perhaps you’re familiar with the idea that bad experiences are like Velcro and good experiences are like teflon. That’s because stress is a teacher. And when we learn to move away from stress, we continue to thrive. 

So how can we make those good experiences, more like Velcro. This is the power of neuroplasticity. And so here’s a little story about my own experience before I even really understood what I was doing and how I was cultivating my own superpower of positivity.

So 25 years ago, I was in college and working as a theater student on campus, working as a server in a bar and family restaurant in the evenings and weekends, and keeping up with studies. So tremendously busy and very engaged and you know, all the social activities that go along with that college life, and I would feel tired when I’d finally get into work. I’d show up at the restaurant and I would be dragging and I wouldn’t feel great. And I’d have a four to six hour shift ahead of me. And how am I going to show up and be positive to get better tips, to make the most of this time and this work that I’m here to do?

What I quickly recognized is that when I kept my energy up, when I kept my emotions up- so instead of letting myself feel tired, feel overwhelmed, maybe bring some of that stress from the rest of my day to work- 

When I came in with a higher level of energy, when I put a smile on my face and with energy presented happiness, so sometimes you can start to build these neural pathways with, you know, a smidgin of ‘fake it til you make it,’ but it’s certainly not the long term plan. I would put on a smile. I would get my energy up. I would engage with my tables and I was able to come more easily to this more positive, higher energy state.

What we didn’t even understand in the nineties, we didn’t even get that neuroplasticity is what I was calling on. I mean, maybe the very first glimpses in labs. And then they had to go through years of skepticism and doubt, because we thought for a long time that our brain was fixed from maybe the mid-20s on.

So any damage, any setbacks we were just gonna have to learn to work with. It’s very hard to recover and to even grow in our mental capacity. 

Mind blown. When neuroplasticity comes on the table and we recognize we can move past that, we can train our brain to have different responses. That’s exactly what I was doing without recognizing it.

And so the choices that we make every day, the reaction that we have to different situations, this is where it all comes from. So if you’re a person who, you come to a situation and you’re considering the possible outcome, many people tend to go to the worst possible outcome. What’s, you know, terrible thing is likely to happen? Many people have that negative response. 

I jokingly call my husband a ruminator because he does worry about what possible outcome might be coming. And it’s a way of thinking. It’s a pattern. We are very habitual creatures. It’s a pattern of thinking. 

So how can you shift that? If that’s something that you do, if worrying makes you feel prepared, because it is a great preparation, unless you learn how to not stop there, or if you learn that you don’t have to stop there, let me say.

So instead of ruminating, worrying about the worst possible outcome and then seeing all the evidence that that’s exactly what’s coming for you, because you tend to find exactly what you’re looking for. I love to encourage people in a practice that I, that someone shared with me called thought balancing, where after you consider all the worst possible outcomes, you continue to explore the best possible outcomes you balance the worst case with the best case scenarios. 

And then the third step is with all of those options on the table, you find the most likely outcome. What is probably in the middle of the worst case and best case scenarios. And then you move forward feeling prepared because you’ve done the worry stage that can be so important to so many of us, and you’ve moved past it.

So you can see evidence of perhaps that best case scenario, or as you move forward in that most likely outcome. So recognizing that by continuing that practice, by coming back to things, we are wiring our brain to respond differently. And all habits take some time to instill, so keep coming back to this and recognize that this is actually going to change your perception, your process, and in so many cases, your outcome.

So there’s a little bit of a tip for my worriers in the crowd, or those who want to feel prepared. And I hope that you find that helpful. 

I also want to share a really important piece of the puzzle, going back to the genetics or our environment and our predisposition of feeling happy.

I had a terrific conversation in the Thriving Life Summit last fall with Vonda Schafer, a therapist here in California who uses neuronutrient therapy to help her patients feel more positive. Because she gets to the root of where we might not have the building blocks, the amino acids that we are needing to create those happy hormones.

So if people are deficient in serotonin or dopamine or other neurochemicals that lead to us feeling happier, or if we’re overproductive in cortisol or over responsive because we are in that chronic stress state, how can we support our bodies physically, so that it’s easier to take advantage of these happiness cultivating practices, right. 

And so she follows the work and shares and continues in creating and developing the work of Julia Ross who wrote the book, “The Mood Cure”. So if that’s something that intrigues you, you can read that book and I will be sharing in the next couple of weeks Vonda’s interview because I think it really is important to start looking at, you know, where we can support ourselves.

It isn’t all through action and habit and practice. There’s the physical influence of stress, the physical aspects of wellbeing that come from eating quality food, as well as getting the rest we need in moving our bodies. So, there’s another perspective we can take in feeling more positive, if we’re curious about what might be holding us back, if it doesn’t feel like it’s natural for us.

And as I said, you know, referring to Positive Prime, my favorite super quick, super easy daily practice. Shawn Achor in his book, “The Happiness Advantage” shares five different exercises that they used in evaluating people in studies and feeling more positive five practices that successfully helped people over just three weeks kind of raise their happiness set point, start operating from more positive.

And so I have a resource I can share with that. I’ll have that link in the show notes. So you can pick up that Happiness Reset exercise. And it’s not about doing five things every day and then you feel better in three weeks. It’s about one of these five activities and those include mindfulness, meaning simply tuning into your breath and mindful breathing for two minutes every day for 21 days.

Notice, I didn’t say meditate for 40 minutes. No trigger alert here. Just mindful breathing. Two minutes goes remarkably fast. When you slow and focus on your breath. Or another option is 10 minutes of activity. Again, these are minimal daily practices, this isn’t a 30 minute, hour long workout. 10 minutes of physical activity every day is a second option. 

The gratitude practice that we all hear about, the gratitude practice, listing three things that you’re grateful for every day. Again, it goes back to that neuroplasticity and teaching our brain that these emotions and these situations that bring these emotions are very important to us, so that we can call on that, that when we experience these situations, our brain has been trained to say, she likes this. We’re gonna file this in a special category because this brings back that feeling of gratitude. 

So now you’ve got a peek behind the curtain. That’s why so many people swear by their gratitude practice. So that’s the third option. 

You can also participate in random acts of kindness, because we receive joy by sharing happiness. Maybe that’s writing a message, a short note or an email to one person every day, expressing your gratitude for who they are and what they do and how they show up in your lives. Buying coffee for someone, letting someone on the freeway in front of you. Like whatever those little things can be, those random acts of kindness, doing one every day.

Again, they find with their evidence to be a positivity promoting, you know, we’re literally raising our positivity set point. And then, the fifth one is escaping me. So you’re gonna have to get that resource to find out what the fifth one is, cause I’m talking like mile a minute. 

So one other thing that I love to share and I do in my programs and certainly in my work with clients is, I am the self appointed cheerleader. I think it’s so important to recognize how we can share, how we can celebrate our wins, feeling more positive and recognizing our progress.

Because just as I was saying about setting these goals and holding off on happiness until we reach them, sometimes those goals move. Sometimes it’s a moving target. Sometimes somebody completely moves the finish line. Sometimes you never get there, right? Because we live in such a fast changing and evolving world.

So how can you honor the process? Honor your progress along the way, and stay engaged and feel more positive about where you come from and where you’re going? Celebrate your wins. 

So I encourage you to, if you have a goal, take a few minutes and, and think about some milestones. What are some markers along the path that you can observe and objectively say, yes, I have gotten here.

And then how will you celebrate those milestones? So give yourself these markers this benchmarks of success. So that long before you reach that ultimate goal, you’re taking the opportunity to celebrate where you’ve come from and your progress that you’re making. It’s so, so important. 

One other tip that I have, if you’re thinking about embark on this, if you want to really move the needle in this 50% of positivity that is within our own domain, is enlist a friend.

Choose someone who you can share with, you can share your struggles with. You know, “I didn’t do a great job doing a random act of kindness today. I wouldn’t let that car in front of me on the freeway because who do they think they are? Can’t they tell we’re zipping?” See, it’s a daily struggle. You can tell that I come right back into these situations, right? 

You know, every day is a fresh page. And bragging on ourselves a little bit, sharing the highlights, the wins, the struggles along the way is so helpful to get that perspective. So recruit a friend, have a little positivity partner and maybe embark upon that 21 Day Happiness Reset together. Each of you choose a different exercise. Each of you choose the same one. Maybe you get together for 10 minutes or more of walking every day. And see how that starts to move the needle. 

One thing I forgot to share about that Happiness Reset, that 21 day exercise is that coming back four and even six weeks later, people who had participated in that three week exercise had lasting results of higher positivity. Even if they didn’t continue that practice after that initial three week. 

So that neuroplasticity, once we have established these new pathways, these new perspectives and ways of thinking, has lasting benefit, right? As we build these neural pathways, they keep with us. They keep that perspective and they keep that positivity flowing.

So I encourage you to try it. And I’d love to hear from you. If you do, let me know, send me a message, comment on this video or on this blog post. And let me know if this is something you’re choosing to dig into. 

And finally, my last kind of word of support or, perspective or encouragement is, you know, you’ve heard it said I’m sure, for years, in all things humor.

So keeping a sense of humor even if it is a bit of a sarcastic wit, keeping a sense of humor is so helpful as we try to change, because change can be difficult. We are such creatures of habit. We are very much entrenched in the patterns that we’ve created in our lives. So look for opportunities of humor.

It’s okay to have a little bit of a laugh with yourself. When you notice yourself falling back into old patterns or struggling to do these new things or saying, Nope, I don’t have three minutes to listen to watch a video and just pour positivity and happy images and affirmations into my brain without, you know, that limit switch being able to be activated because three minutes of thousands of slides is just such an extraordinary inundation of positivity. Love that Positive Prime trick! 

So in all things, humor. You know, “how cheeky am I? That I don’t have three minutes for myself in the midst of everything that I do every day for everyone else?”

So I encourage you to keep that perspective as you move forward. And I invite you, if you have any questions at all, please reach out to me and let’s schedule a strategy call. I have on my website, 3xlessstress.com you’ll always find up in the corner of the page ‘book a call’. And that’s a free 30 minute conversation about the sneaky stressors in your lives, your path to positivity, how you’re feeling as you move forward. This is something that I make available to you as my schedule allows. And I would love for you to take advantage of this and let’s explore, you know, how I can bring you some fresh perspectives, shine a light on some things that you’re already doing great, some small tweaks that you can make, and how you can move forward to feel more positive and start to reap the rewards of more happiness in your. 

And I want to close by sharing a quote that has always stuck with me. I had trouble finding the exact quote, so if anybody can find it or knows the movie and wants to clarify this, please also share this with me as well.

But the eighties movie “Say Anything,” with John Cusack, John Cusack’s character, Lloyd Dobbler is living with his sister. And, you know, she’s a maxed out mom, and she’s taking care of her younger brother through his high school days. 

And he says to her, “can’t you just choose to be happy? Can’t you just make a choice and choose to be in a good mood?” 

If you know the real quote, I would love to get it because it’s something that I refer to all the time. So I hope you can clarify that, I had a little trouble even finding it online, but let that kind of sit with you, right. You know, this 18 year old’s perspective on the way that his sister moves through life. And, and I think to a point it is. 

Again, as I said, also at the beginning, other emotions have deep value. We respond to the way we feel in our environment. Anger isn’t wrong. Sadness doesn’t need to be shooed away. We don’t need to rush through emotions to get back to putting a happy face on things.

Emotions are there to bring us messages to let us know we’re on track or we’re off track. We need to change the situation. We need to stand up for ourselves. We need to reinforce boundaries. Right? We need to be curious about how we feel, and why we feel that way. And sometimes when we try to avoid an emotion because it’s painful, because it’s inappropriate, that emotion gets it’s claws into us, really. It’s so much harder to move through it. 

So give yourself the space and bring curiosity to all of your emotions and really take note of those situations in which you feel happy, in which you feel peaceful, in which you feel content, in which you feel at ease. Happiness, doesn’t have to be the kind of joy that has you jumping out of your chair to break into dance. Happiness can be content. Happiness can be at peace. 

And so I invite you to explore, you know, how all of these emotions play together, color with all the colors in the crayon box and see how we can start to feel more happy more often. I’d love to answer any questions for you. 

So thank you for joining me and listening on this little wandering soliloquy, and I wish you a marvelous day. Take good care.