I venture to share that there are relatively few human beings on this planet that have not heard the Pharell William’s song, Happy.
Go ahead, whether anyone is listening or not, and sing or hum a chorus to this very popular tune.
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Because I’m happy
The last segment of the chorus is the theme for this month’s newsletter “ What does happiness mean for you? “
Happiness is an essential ingredient for leaders to achieve and optimize their self-satisfaction and have the desired impact on others. Clearly without happiness, it is extremely challenging to positively function in our negative and frenetic world. Without happiness much or all of what we do to achieve success will make us feel incomplete, disengaged and un-appreciated.
As readers will recall from past articles on emotional intelligence and our brain, humans are hard-wired to be negative. Recognizing this and finding a way to overcome negativity is critical to finding a state of happiness.
Recently I read the book Hardwiring Happiness. The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm and Confidence by Rick Hanson. The provocative introduction to this book is summed up with the question “… when is the last time you stopped for ten seconds to feel and take in one of the positive moments that happen in even the most hectic day? “
Hanson’s book provides a tasty recipe to helping humans to rewire the brain and find a doorway to happiness. He calls his model H – E – A – L.
H = Have (notice) a positive experience.
E = Enrich the experience.
A = Absorb the experience.
L = Link the experience to positive and negative material
Step 1 activates a positive mental state. Steps 2, 3 and 4 install this positivity in your brain.
Step 1 (Have a positive experience) is the stepping-stone for deliberately pausing and noticing something that is happening around us in the foreground or background. You also have the option of creating your very own positive experience.
Step 2 (Enrich it) is where we stay with the positive experience for 5, 10 seconds or more. Be open to the feelings and try to bring this into your body. Enjoy the experience.
Step 3 (Absorb it) noticing that the experience is being absorbed as you sink into it. Allow it to really land in your mind.
Step 4 (Link positive and negative material) is optional. While having a vivid sense of a positive experience in the foreground, be aware of something negative in the background. As soon as you can, let go of the negative material.
Here’s my brief example of HEAL. I am sitting on the dock in front of our cottage on a lake on a beautiful summer morning. The early mist is dissipating and sun is rapidly rising and heating up the air temperature. The lake is calm and so inviting for a swim or a paddle in a canoe or kayak. I breathe in as much of the experience as I can. Through my sight and other senses I capture a vivid panoramic picture of Mother Nature’s stunning combination of water, deep blue sky and fat, fluffy clouds. The sound of the water lapping on the shoreline behind me is also blended into the frame to be frozen in time.
When I am experiencing the stress of work, I pause to pull my hands away from the keyboard, sit back in my chair and access the scene described above.
Try it. Capture an experience and practice accessing the experience. Find your way to slow down to extend your few moments into a longer experience that you can recreate in your mind and help transport you to a place that is richly positive and rewarding for you. Use it to help you relive the happy moments when you need to shift to a place of happiness.