Neil at Citizen of the Month started The Great Interview Experiment on Jan. 18, 2008, after deciding, ”We all should be interviewed, at least once.” So I signed up and interviewed the next person to comment after I did. I was interviewed by Becky at Deep Muck big Rake and in her opening about me she said "Reading through her blog, I was struck by how happy she is. Turns out one meaning of her name is “great happiness.” It fits.
Then last week I was at the dentist for a check-up and was reading an article in a magazine called "Let the Joy Shine Through". It was written by the best-selling author of "happy for no reason", Marci Shimoff. The writer starts the article telling us how after decades of hard work, her book became a number one New York Times bestseller, she married her prince charming and they bought a lovely home. She had every reason to be happy...but she wasn't really happy inside. She noticed that most of the people who were really happy didn't "have it all". She was determined to find out what their secret was. She found 100 people who's happiness was not dependent on external circumstances - she calls them the happy 100. She says that they are not always euphoric - they might have anger, fear, pain or sadness. But they still experience the underlying peace and well-being that's the essence of true happiness, where you bring happiness to your experiences, rather than trying to extract happiness from them. She learned that these people weren't born happy, the learned to be happy by thinking and living in a particular way. Habitual thoughts and behaviors create specific neural pathways in the wiring of our brains, the way water flowing downhill creates a groove in the earth. When we think or behave a certain way over and over, the neural pathway is strengthened and the groove becomes deeper. Unhappy people tend to have more negative neural pathways - their minds are literally stuck in a rut. Research shows that when you repeatedly think, fell and act in a different way, the brain actually rewires itself. This means you can change your happiness set point. Here are 5 key things she learned from the happy 100.
#1 - Don't believe everything you think. Oh boy, can I relate to this one. Your brain is so powerful and can trick you into thinking your thoughts are correct, but they are not correct 100% of the time, especially if they are negative thoughts. We have an average of 60,000 thoughts per day - about one thought per second during every waking hour. And of those 60,000 thoughts, 95% are the same thoughts we had yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. How crazy is that! And for the average person, the majority of these habitual thoughts are negative. We are hardwired for negativity: If you get 10 compliments and one criticism, what do you remember? But you can change the wiring. Best way to do this is to nip it in the bud. I have done this trick and it works. If you have a negative thought, stop and write it down, then counter it with a positive thought. Use words like "your silly....or that's so untrue, or are you kidding"...and then counter it with the positive. You will train your brain to think positive and you'll be focusing on the positive and not the negative. Don't let negative thoughts paralyze you.
#2 - Notice the happy things in your life - no matter how small. Stop and notice everything good that happens to you: any positive thought you have, anything you see, fell, taste, hear or smell that brings you please. Once you notice something positive, take a few moments to savor it - making a habit of feeding happiness.
#3 - Choose the happier thought. Be a glass-half-full person. The next time you are faced with a challenge that gives rise to negative thoughts and bad feelings, find an equally true thought about the situation that makes you feel better and lean into it. You don't have to deny the negative thought - just pay more attention to the positive part of the truth.
#4 - Tend to your relationships. Having good social relationships is one of the strongest predictors of happiness. That doesn't mean you need to have 100's of friends, you could have just 2 friends, but these friends are healthy and support your happiness. My grandmother "Oofie"...we called her "Oofie" because her name was Ruth and my cousin couldn't say "ruthie", it came out Oofie and stuck. Anyway, she was a wonderful woman, she passed away 4 years ago at the rip old age of 106. She passed in her sleep. She lived on her own until she was 103 and had many close friends that she did many things with. She was a widow for 25 years and was so active with the Jr. League, volunteering, traveling with friends, socializing and playing bridge. I think it kept her young. Then she remarried at 82 and had a lovely 2nd marriage with a man that made her very happy. She lost him 10 years later, but that never stopped her, she always kept going, doing things, being with people, laughing and being happy.
#5 - Find a passion and a purpose. Sometimes we have to do things that are not so fun. Like us cleaning out the garage or the house getting ready to move. But the Happy 100 bring a sense of purpose to any activity. Don't find all the negative things about the project, make it positive. "we are cleaning out this garage because we are moving to france". This will boost your happiness. My passion when I was younger was gymnastics, I loved it for 10 long years, that's all I wanted to do. I didn't find another "true" passion until I took up pottery 7 years ago and I totally noticed that it changed me.
I am a happy person - I have some down moments, like last week! But it came and I dealt with it and worked through it. Sometimes negative thoughts can blow you over, but don't let them. Counter with a positive, look at each day as a new day, a new 24 hours to be on this earth, stop and notice things during the day, don't just let the day go by in a flash. When I get to france I am going to keep a journal (something I have never done) and I am going to focus on all the positive, beautiful things that I see and do each day in France. Maybe I'll blog about them too.
So....dites-moi, are you a happy person?
