When determining how to create the success that will fuel happiness in your life, you may be faced with many questions. The million dollar question being: ultimately does success cause happiness? I believe this is debatable because we all know someone (either personally or through the media) who is uber successful and kinda miserable at the same time. Am I right? Yet, most people who never really savored the sweet smell of success believe that being successful will somehow solve all of their problems and put them on the path of eternal bliss.
Let’s look closer.
You might be surprised to find that according to scientific studies, the exact opposite is true: Happiness actually leads to success.
It’s easy to simplify happiness by assuming that successful people are happy. However, if you really interviewed 100 successful people, you may be surprised that a large percentage of them are not as happy as you think they ought to be. The fact is, you can be a millionaire, have a wonderful spouse, great kids, and everything you think you want and still not be happy. The truth is happiness fuels success.
Here’s a few reasons why:
Happiness Leads to More Productivity – When people are happy with their work, they tend to be willing to do a lot more of it, even for free. Assuming all basic other needs (food, shelter, health) are met a happy person can find joy doing the most mundane things because they can focus on outcomes instead of just what they are doing to make ends meet.
Happiness Leads to Higher Profits – In companies that keep their employees happy by offering a living wage, benefits, and a flexible schedule the profits tend to be a lot higher. One reason is that when a person feels respected in their job even if the work is hard, they are happier about doing it.
Happiness Leads to Stability – When people are happy, they tend to be a lot more stable, stick to tasks longer, and are more likely to complete an assignment. In addition, they tend to job hop a lot less. This is one reason smart employers know that by making work a happy place they can reduce turn over.
Happiness Leads to a Higher Work Ethic – Most people think of work ethic as something you must suffer to experience, but for happy people, they tend to stick to their jobs longer and work even harder. The main reason is that they have the energy to do it and can envision the outcomes more positively.
Happiness Is Not About Wealth – Everyone knows someone who has plenty of money but is not happy and maybe even hateful. They seem to have everything but happiness. Because of this fact, it’s clear that being happy doesn’t always directly correlate to the circumstances you find yourself in regarding your bank account balance.
Happiness Colors the Lens by Which You See Life – The surprising truth about happiness is that if you practice happiness it will begin to affect how you see everything in the world. You’ll be able to pick out the most positive things no matter the situation.
Happiness is About Today – Happiness is really all about today. If you’re happy today, you’re more likely to eat right, move more, get your work done, and do everything well. These actions will more than likely lead to more happiness. Naturally, that is going to affect the future too.
Happiness is a Mindset – It’s hard to imagine it is true, but it is. Happiness is very much about your mindset. Thankfully, with work, you can train your mindset to be happier and more positive despite your current circumstances.
So it turns out that worker harder, longer hours might not necessarily make you more successful but according to science being truly happy might just do the trick.
As you can see, if success is truly your goal, then try to focus on ways to increase your happiness. Your success may actually end up being a by product of your happiness. Not the other way around. Once you get your mindset right, then you can begin to focus creating the happiness that will fuel your success in every important area of your life.
To your happiness and your success!!!
All the best,
Elaine