Formula To Happiness? Study Discovers Secret To Thriving
September 15, 2017
by Daniel Steingold
The secret to success may vary from person to person, but it’s also more formulaic than you think. A new study that sought to find whether thriving individuals share specific traits resulted in what it claims is the “first definitive catch-all” on the subject. Researchers at the University of Portsmouth in the UK conducted an inquiry into the factors that allow anyone to thrive, and were able to find a number of previous studies that validated the most critical variables.
Want the secret to success?
A new study has found two sets of characteristics that define what it means for a person to be “thriving.”
“Science hasn’t really managed to consistently classify and describe” the term “thriving,” argues researcher Dr. Daniel Brown.
Researchers’ provided their own definition: “feeling good about life and yourself and being good at something.”
Given this definition, Dr. Brown and his colleagues found that thriving individuals usually possess many, but not all qualities from two separate lists.
The personal characteristics provided in the first list include internal characteristics that would be unique to an individual. A thriving individual is:
optimistic
spiritual or religious
motivated
proactive
enjoys learning (curious)
flexible
adaptable
socially competent
has self-esteem (believes in themselves)
The second list focuses more so on environmental variables. Brown says a thriving individual has:
opportunity
employer/family/other support
challenges and difficulties are at manageable level
a calm environment
is given a high degree of autonomy
is trusted as competent
Despite the inability of many researchers to precisely define the concept of “thriving,” previous studies have shown it is distinct from related terms, such as resilience, prospering, or growth.
In the search for thriving populations, numerous demographics have been previously examined, from children to servicemen.
“Since the end of the 20th century, there has been a quest in science to better understand human fulfillment and thriving, there’s been a shift towards wanting to understand how humans can function as highly as possible,” explains Dr. Brown in a university news release. Yet, rarely has there been a consensus on what a universal idea of thriving would look like, leading Dr. Brown to conduct his inquiry.
Dr. Brown hopes that future research can further examine the factors enabling thriving, while also looking at the lasting or long-term effects of sustaining such a level of performance.
The study’s findings were published online this month in the journal European Psychologist.
