Achieving happiness by enhancing inner you
Character strengths can make people happy
Stress for Success
June 5, 2007

Happiness is that elusive American birthright enshrined in our Declaration of Independence and can be difficult to achieve.

According to psychologist Dr. Martin Seligman, founding director of the Positive Psychology Center, University of PA, and author of “Authentic Happiness”, there are three major ways to achieve it. Live a life that’s:
§ full of pleasure, passion and joy
§ full of “flow”, as psychologist and author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it, where you lose yourself in your passions
§ meaningful, full of purpose
He found the key to happiness comes from our internal qualities and character strengths and by enhancing these we make ourselves happier.

In recent years Seligman and his colleagues have identified 24 character-strengths that make people happy, including creativity, bravery, and kindness. They discovered that happiness was most strongly associated with what they labeled “heart- strengths”: the ability to love and be loved, gratitude, curiosity, and hope.

Not surprisingly love was at the top of the list. Because humans are a social group, being enjoyably occupied with others, including at work makes us the happiest. And it doesn’t have to be romantic love, as anyone with close friends knows.

Expressing gratitude is also very rewarding because you’re focusing on what’s good in your life. The person you’re thanking feels appreciated, which encourages him to strive to improve. The relationship is strengthened leaving you both feeling happier. What goes around comes around. Expressing gratitude infrequently, however, doesn’t impact your happiness significantly. Expressing it frequently does.

Another heart-strength is curiosity. Following your curiosities puts you into a circle of people who share them. It’s the best way to make new friends. It’s what brought my own large and embracing circle of girl friends together. Our mutual curiosities attracted us to work in the same community organizations 25 years ago and here we are still best friends and still sharing new ideas.

Regularly appreciating what has gone well in your day also boosts happiness by changing your focus from what’s wrong to what’s right. Life is good. Nightly before bed time list what went well during your day. Doing this for a couple of months you may notice a lightening of your moods and increased happiness.

The wonderful thing about living your life with more love, gratitude and curiosity is that it creates greater hope. You look forward to more tomorrows.

If you don’t think you possess any of these heart-strengths you can still find greater happiness by living your life by one of your character-strengths. In research participants identified their top five strengths and then used one of them in a new way every day for a week. For example, an adventurous person watched a TV travel show of a place she’d love to visit someday. Another day she challenged herself to learn a new sport, etc., creating more happiness.

Don’t assume happiness is beyond your grasp; pursue it. Start with easy changes: every morning upon awakening list what you’re grateful for and each night at bedtime review what went well that day.

For more information on this fascinating and important research go to http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com with your questions or for information about her workshops on this and other topics and to invite her to speak to your organization.