New Harvard Research Reveals A Fun Way To Be More Successful

September 28, 2014

by Eric Barker

We all want to be more successful.             

Books like Talent is Overrated and Outliers suggest that 10,000 hours of really hard work practicing something will help you master it.  But that sounds very daunting and unpleasant. There is, however, a scientifically proven method that’s much more fun: 

Shawn Achor is the bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage and for years at Harvard he studied happiness. He gave a popular and funny TED talk.  Oprah Winfrey, interviewed him.

Shawn’s research shows that success doesn’t bring happiness — happiness brings success.

Shawn's research shows that:

1- you can do things to be happier, and 

2- being happier will make you more successful:

1) Success Brings Happiness? No. Happiness Brings Success.

We chase success hoping it will make us happy:

1. I’ll be happy when I get a promotion.

2. I’ll be happy when I get a raise.

3. I’ll be happy when I lose 15 pounds.

The research shows that isn’t true. When you achieve a goal, you’re momentarily happier… but then you’re looking toward the next big thing.

When you flip the formula and focus on increasing happiness, you end up increasing success.

If we can get somebody to:

1- raise their levels of optimism or 

2- deepen their social connection or 

3- raise happiness, 

turns out every single business and educational outcome we know how to test for improves dramatically.

You can increase your success rates for the rest of your life and your happiness levels will flatline, but if you raise your level of happiness and deepen optimism it turns out every single one of your success rates rises dramatically compared to what it would have been at negative, neutral, or stressed.        

MET Life saw such great results among happy salespeople that they tried an experiment: they started hiring people based on optimism.

In his research, Shawn found that intelligence and technical skills only predict 25% of success:

If we know the intelligence and technical skills of an employee, we can actually only predict about 25% of their job success. 75% of long term job success is predicted not by intelligence and technical skills, which is normally how we hire, educate and train, but it’s predicted by three other umbrella categories:

1. Optimism(which is the belief that your behavior matters in the midst of challenge), 

2. your social connection(whether or not you have depth and breadth in your social relationships), and 

3. how you perceive stress.

The people who survive stress the best are the ones who actually increase their social investments in the middle of stress, which is the opposite of what most of us do.

Some of you might be thinking, “Alright already, happiness makes you more successful. I get it. But how do I get happier?”

It’s simpler than you think.

You might think happiness only comes from big wins or big achievements. You’re wrong. Research shows little things are more important.

What little daily happiness habits does Shawn recommend?

1. List the things you’re grateful for.

2. Meditate.

3. Exercise.

Sum Up

1. Success doesn’t bring happiness. Happiness brings success.

2. See problems as challenges, not threats.

3. More work means you need more social support. And giving support is better than receiving.

4. Send a 2-minute “thank you” email every morning.

5. Use the 20-second rule to build the habit.

This study is published by Harvard University.