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Saturday 2 March 2013

The Happiness Advantage - Shawn Achor

While a bit skewed towards business leadership, this book is still worth the read.  It makes some interesting points regarding achieving goals, being satisfied in life.  I particularly the idea of studying the outliers in successful, happy lives as opposed the norm of studying the outliers of unhappiness, disturbance and sickness.  This is part of a general movement in psychology referred to as the 'Positive Psychology' movement - it would be worth checking out their presence on the internet.

He has seven principles in creating the happiness advantage:

- happiness advantage:  retraining the brain to focus more on positive experiences in life

- fulcrum and lever:  adjusting expectations, way of looking at things to more positive, achievement        oriented set

- tetris effect:  changing the patterns we perceive in the world to focus on opportunities and possibilities

- falling up:  using failures, stressful situtions as learning opportunities

- zorro circle:  learning to divide large goals and difficult tasks into manageable bits that can be completed successfully one step at a time

- 20 second rule:  changing patterns and habits by making it as easy as possible to follow the new path you want to set for yourself - limit the amount of choice so it's easier to get started on the new habit or activity you want to set

- social investment:  the importance of establishing relationships and using them as support when experiencing difficulties

Each chapter has some techniques to help develop each mindset or skill, though many of them apply to a business environment more than a personal environment

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