Project Creative Vision

Biochemistry of Happiness

"Happiness is what we feel when our biochemicals of emotion, the neuropeptides and their receptors, are open and flowing freely throughout the psychosomatic network, integrating and coordinating our systems, organs, and cells in a smooth and rhythmic movement. Physiology and emotions are inseparable." - Candace Pert, Ph.D., "Molecules of Emotion."

(Can you tell I'm rereading "Molecules of Emotions"?  One of the most brilliant books on the biochemistry of emotions by the brilliant Candace Pert.)

Richard Leider: Meaning Trumps Money in Living the Good Life

I've been a long-term fan of Richard Leider's, the well-known coach extraordinaire and "Purpose Guru," who has long postulated that meaning is one of our fundamental human needs.  (See my book recommendations on the left.)

In Richard's view, living the Good Life is about "living in the place you belong, with the people you love, while doing the right work on purpose."

Now the MetLife Mature Market Institute (MMI) has conducted a study, based on Richard's work, which concluded that meaning does, after all, trump money when it comes to living the Good Life. 

The study, titled Discovering What Matters:  Balancing Money, Medicine, and Meaning, was released last month, and you can download it from MMI's website with a companion workbook, which is based on Richard's bestselling book Repacking Your Bags:  Lighten Your Load for the Rest of Your Life.

Key conclusions of the study:

• Respondents tended to describe the Good Life in terms of being healthy, having financial freedom, and having the time to do what is important to them

• Regardless of age, gender, financial status, or life stage, the majority of people assign the most importance to Meaning-related activities and, above all else, spending time with friends and family.

• People with a sense of purpose in their lives were more likely to report being happy and describe themselves as living the Good Life

• Having a sense of purpose relates to possessing both "focus" on essential things and "vision" of the future they want to enjoy.

According to Richard, "purpose is the glue that holds the Good Life together": "It is the reason we get up in the morning.  Knowing one's purpose helps to create and maintain a sense of balance in life."

The study was groundbreaking in that, for the first time, it proposed a model of purpose and an analytical approach for testing and measuring that model.

What made this even more significant was that MMI partnered with Chadwick Martin Bailey, a global custom market research and consulting firm, lending the results significant credibility. 

So go ahead and read the study (it's only 28 pages) and then do the workbook to figure out whether you're living the Good Life - and, if not, what you could do to change that.  And please come back and share your thoughts here.

Finding Antidotes to Perfectionism in Joy, Delight, Faith and Surrender

Every summer I go to Vermont for a yoga retreat with my wonderful teacher Peentz Dubble. It has become a time of renewal for me and a place to reconnect with old friends and fellow yoga practitioners.  It has also become something of a touchstone for me, as I carry the energy of the retreat and the intention I set for myself there throughout the rest of the year.

This year, though, as I was preparing for my pilgrimage to Vermont, I realized that, in a strange way, the retreats have also, in the past, been somewhat stressful for me.

I practice the Iyengar style of yoga, which is a style that's characterized by precision and extreme attention to alignment.  Because of that, I can become so focused on technicalities that I lose the playfulness and joy that is inherent in every pose and the practice generally. 

But I knew, of course, that the real reason for the stress was my particular attitude toward my practice.  I myself had made it stressful by allowing the practice to bring out the perfectionist in me.  For a perfectionist, an Iyengar retreat, with 7 hours of yoga a day, can be at once, well, perfect, because there is no end to perfecting each pose, and a challenge, because there really isn't such a thing as a perfectly-executed yoga pose.

But if you fail to challenge your perfectionist tendencies, you’re in for a boot camp, rather than relaxation and renewal.  In a concentrated form, done from the ego-mind, yoga can lead to sore muscles and mental tumult, rather than peace and equanimity.  You can end up having very little enjoyment and a whole lot of stress.

So this year, I set myself an intention to go only so far with my technical dedication and to focus instead on enjoying the beauty of each pose just as it was, with all of the imperfections I would bring to it. I decided to challenge and surrender my perfectionist tendencies (which tend to get exacerbated when I'm surrounded by other students) and find joy and delight in whatever form my pose assumed.

Dan Pink Live on Smart Career Moves

I've written about Dan Pink so often on this blog, I might as well start a whole new category just for him.  His "A Whole New Mind" is on my list of recommended reading, and "Adventures of Johnny Bunko" - "the last career guide you'll ever need" - offers fun and strategic career advice for generation Y.

Given how much I adore what Dan has to say just about anything, I couldn't, of course, miss the opportunity to see him in person tonight, when he spoke at the Washington, DC's YesCircle.

Dan is an entertaining writer, but he's an even better speaker.  And career geek that I am, there were moments when I felt like I just wanted to take every word he said and channel it right into this blog. 

I felt this way especially when Dan was talking about two ways in which people make decisions about their careers: instrumental reasoning and fundamental reasoning. (I know it sounds heavy, but read on - it's worth it.) 

An instrumental approach, according to Dan, is when you make your career decisions based on a plan you've devised that's supposed to lead you somewhere.  When you think that way, you may choose a major that you don't actually like but that you believe will help you get a well-paying, even if dull and unfulfilling, job after college.  That job, you believe, would then set you up for a graduate school, which, once you've paid your dues, would help you get the job that you really want.

Does Money Actually Follow When You Do What You Love?

I'm traveling today and don't have time for a lengthy post, but wanted to pass this on.  Thanks to Marci Alboher, I've discovered a great discussion of whether or not money follows passion.  The Art of Nonconformity blog, which has hosted the discussion, looks like a great one to follow, as well as those of the folks who weighted in on the post.  I'll be checking those blogs out in the coming days and will report anything interesting I discover there.  The one blog that I already know I will definitely be exploring is Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project.  Seems like a required read, given our own recent discussions of career happiness.  Enjoy!

Feed the Positive Dog

Since this week has been about how our state of mind affects our lives, here's a little fable to round out the previous post:

A man goes to the village to visit the wise man, and he says to the wise man, "I feel like there are two dogs inside me.  One dog is this positive, loving, kind, and gentle dog, and then I have this angry, mean-spirited, and negative dog, and they fight all the time.  I don't know which is going to win."  The wise man thinks for a moment and he says, "I know which is going to win.  The one you feed the most, so feed the positive dog. (From The Energy Bus, by Jon Gordon)

The truth is, that to which we give most of our attention will grow.  We are so conditioned to focus on our mistakes and on those areas where we are lacking, it's no wonder so many of us are feeling angry, inadequate, and dissatisfied.  Focusing on what went right during the day seems counterintuitive, and when it comes to internal work, it's among the hardest switches to make.  But it's one that produces some of the most amazing results in terms of well-being and, yes, happiness. 

So what if for the next few days you focused on your strengths and forgot all about your so-called weaknesses?  What if you chose to talk - and, most important, think - only about those things that are going well?  Doesn't it make sense that those areas of your life are going to expand?  Give it a shot, and let me know what happens.

Labor of Love or the Daily Grind?

Roget's Thesaurus offers some 50 synonyms for the word "work," of which most are overwhelmingly negative.  We as a society, apparently, abhor work and consider it to be a punishment.  We live for vacations, and we are obsessed with saving enough money for retirement so that we can spend our golden years, if not playing golf, then, at least, not working.

With all of this, it's hard to remember that work can be something else altogether - that it can be an expression of our essential self and a way for us to feel that we are making a contribution to the world.  We may believe that we'd rather not work, but the actual truth is that we still want to work - just not at the jobs we're at. When I ask my career-transition clients what it is that they are looking for in their new careers, the answer I hear most often is that they want to feel that they are making a difference, that their work is personally meaningful to them. 

And the truth is, those who say that their work gives them a sense of meaning report far greater sense of on-the-job satisfaction than those who don't.  In fact, the greatest levels in work satisfaction are achieved by those who view their work as a calling, rather than just a job or a career.

Tal Ben-Shahar Answers Questions on Happiness at Work, Right vs. Wrong Expectations, and Idealism as the Purest Form of Realism

My recent posts on happiness have turned out among the most popular on this blog. (See here and here.)  So I thought I'd drop Tal Ben-Shahar, author of Happier, a note and probe a little deeper into what makes for a happier work experience.  Tal was kind enough to answer my questions.

Question: You describe how Western society is deeply conditioned to think of work as a burden or punishment.  How can we overcome this conditioning and learn to view work, instead, as a potential source of happiness?

Tal Ben-Shahar: Often, all it takes to make that shift, is an awareness.  There is much research in psychology on the importance of focus and interpretation.  Two people can look at the same phenomenon, and interpret it in radically different ways—for instance, work as a chore or work as a privilege.  One of the exercises that I introduce in HAPPIER is rewriting your “job description” as a “job calling”.   This exercise can help us focus on the meaningful and pleasurable aspects of what we’re doing. 

Measuring Success by the Amount of Happiness in Your Life

I wrote in an earlier post about my growing interest in positive psychology and one of its key conclusions that we are happiest when our lives have both pleasure and meaning.  I've now had a chance to read Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar.  I loved the book so much that I'm adding it to my list of all-time-favorites. 

Happier is one of those subversive little books that's so easy to read, it's only after the fact that you realize that the seemingly obvious insights it contains have burrowed themselves deep into your brain and are doing a trick on you.  Days after you've finished the book, the ideas still percolate, challenging your perceptions and basically forcing you to rethink the entire way you live your life.  And then you find yourself opening the book to look back over those quotes that you can't get out of your mind and give up and just start re-reading the book all over again.

Here's one of those insights that I'm still mulling over. In pointing out the absurdity of our willingness to stay in jobs that keep us miserable, Ben-Shahar says:

"Had we found ourselves in a job that did not afford us our basic material needs, we would do everything in our power to change our predicament.  So why do we set lower standards for ourselves when the ultimate currency - when our own happiness - is at stake?"

Happiness Found at Intersection of Pleasure and Meaning

Positive psychology has been on my radar screen for a while, and with my focus on purposeful careers it was probably only a matter of time before I finally delved into it.

Until now, I tended to lose interest in positive psychology because so many of its conclusions seemed like science catching up to something that spiritual traditions the world over have known for thousands of years. Its prescriptions sound like a mix of Buddhist and yogic philosophy, suggesting self-awareness and mindful action as the first steps toward happiness and fulfillment. 

On the other hand, not everyone is willing to take spiritual teachers at their word, and in the meantime, we as a society are getting increasingly more unhappy.  So any help in convincing people that happiness is in their own hands can only be welcome.  (One of positive psych's recent findings, reported in Sonja Lubomirsky's The How of Happines, is that, while 50 percent of our happiness depends on our individual
"happiness set-point" and 10 percent can be attributed to circumstances outside our control, we individually are responsible for 40 percent of our sense of well-being.)