Want a Key to Success? Practice Happiness

If you’re someone who wants a key to success, practicing happiness is an excellent habit with real benefits. People that cultivate a positive mindset perform better, and teams that breed positivity generate results. There is a body of evidence showing a direct relationship between satisfaction with life and success in business. Get more from your efforts, build a better business, cultivate a strong team, and choose happiness.

We sometimes feel our DNA and our environment are direct influences on our happiness. If only we could overcome that one challenge or circumstance, we could genuinely be happy and productive! Research shows this to be a myth. We never really achieve success, after all. It’s a moving target. We succeed at this, and when we succeed at that. The triumph is fleeting, and life is in the pursuit rather than the achievement. When we train ourselves to be positive, every measure of result improves.

Depression, hormones, brain chemistry, and body health all play a role in our lives and moods, but we are not at their whims or mercy. When we work to be positive and find happiness, our bodies and brains become trained to respond differently to challenges and crises. This doesn’t mean those of us who practice happiness never feel bad or don’t experience periods of sadness. We are human, after all. The practice allows us to overcome those experiences more quickly, with a less negative effect on our overall outcomes.

Here are three simple steps to practice happiness:

1. Choose happiness, consciously. Every event, circumstance, or challenge allows us to see it as negative or positive. The room wasn’t quite what we expected? Wow, look at the view! A lot of lemons are coming our way; let’s add some sugar and make lemonade. We are always in control of our response when we choose to be.
2. Practice new habits. We all benefit from evaluating and changing our destructive habits, and there is no reason to continue behaviors that don’t motivate us or lead to the results we desire.  Gratitude, meditation, exercise, and journaling are all practices that lead to positive mindsets and more happiness.
3. Enjoy the journey and worry less about the destination, as the goal continuously varies.  When we appreciate each day as it comes without worry about the past or fear of the future, we can find potential happiness in each moment.

How do you translate this practice to your business and team? Choosing a positive attitude, practicing gratitude, and building solid connections are skills developed within the business framework. Many years ago, at one of my many retail jobs, we were trained to warmly welcome every person who walked through the door and thank them genuinely for every purchase.  No matter how hard the day was, those simple acts kept our attitudes positive and built a friendly and productive work environment.  

Happy workplaces attract outstanding employees who produce real value for their customers and growth in their businesses.  People prefer to do business with people and companies that give them a good feeling and spread their contagious positive attitudes. Let’s put our happiness plan into place and then roll it out to those around us to build more opportunities for us all.

We can take this concept one step further by applying something I learned from Mike Dooley. “It’s more important to love life than to be happy.” When we learn to love life, we find happiness in every moment without its pursuit. Loving life requires engaging, nurturing, and growing, and those are all secrets of RADical success!

We’re here to help others get better so they can live freely without regret Believing we’ve each got one life, it’s better to live it well and the time to start is now If you’re someone who believes change begins with you, you’re one of us We’re working to inspire action, enable completion, knowing that, as Thoreau so perfectly put it “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” Let us help you invest in yourself and bring it all together.

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