07 May You might be much happier than you realise!
via Inc.com by Jeff Haden
Sometimes comparisons are useful — but not where feelings of happiness and fulfillment are concerned. Look hard enough and you can always find someone who seems happier, especially if your yardstick is other people’s carefully curated social media lives.
That’s the problem with comparisons. No matter how happy you might feel, there will be someone who seems happier. There will always be someone who seemsmore fulfilled, more satisfied, more content …
So stop comparing. Just focus on you. Then look for these signs that you are happier than you might think — and that you can leverage to be even happier:
1. You often get to do what you do best.
You know the old cliché regarding the starving, yet happy, artist? Turns out it’s true: Artists are considerably more satisfied with their work than non-artists, even though the pay tends to be considerably lower than in other skilled fields.
Which means the more you enjoy what you do, and the more fulfilled you feel by what you do, the happier you will be.
In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor writes that when volunteers picked “one of their signature strengths and used it in a new way each day for a week, they became significantly happier and less depressed.”ADVERTISING
Of course it’s unreasonable to think you can chuck it all and simply do what you love. But you can find ways to do more of what you excel at. Delegate. Outsource. Start to shift the products and services you provide into areas that allow you to bring more of your strengths to bear. If you’re a great trainer, find ways to train more people. If you’re a great salesperson, find ways to streamline your administrative tasks and get in front of more customers.
Everyone has at least a few things they do incredibly well. Find ways to do those things more often. You’ll be a lot happier.
And probably a lot more successful.
2. You have a few really good friends.
It’s easy to focus on building a professional network of partners, customers, employees, and connections, because there is (hopefully) a payoff.
But there’s a definite payoff to making real (not just professional or social media) friends. Increasing your number of friends correlates to higher subjective well-being. In fact, doubling your number of friends is like increasing your income by 50 percent in terms of how happy you feel.
And if that’s not enough, people who don’t have strong social relationships are 50 percent more likely to die at any given time than those who do. (For relative loners like me, that’s a scary thought.)
Make friends outside of work. Make friends at work. Make friends everywhere.
Above all, make real friends. You’ll live a longer and happier life…
…keep reading the full & original article HERE