Tis the season to be jolly! And to get us into the spirit, the next few posts will be all about happiness.
So if your happiness levels could do with a boost, and you want go into 2016 brimming with joie de vivre, read on!
“How can I enjoy my life more?”
It’s a simple question, but huge! And one that many people ask themselves. Their lives may be full of all kinds of gifts; they’re financially wealthy in comparison to most; their work is quite rewarding. Yet they’re unhappy and don’t know why or what to do about it.
So what’s going on here?
Why are so many people unhappy?
How can we be happier?
There’s a lot of talk about happiness nowadays, and rightly so…our happiness levels have been shown to affect every part of our lives, from our health, our finances, our personal relationships, through to our level of engagement and performance at work.
And, research also shows that lack of happiness is a growing problem, that depression is now the leading cause of disability, affecting 350 million people worldwide, and that suicide rates have increased 60% in the past 45 years.
A lack of happiness
has profound consequences for everyone
In the upcoming series of weekly posts I’m going to share an approach to happiness-building that brings soft skills into the mix, and proposes that these skills are key to happiness.
I put this approach into practice every day, through change programmes for all kinds of individuals and organisations, and it’s seeing its life-changing impact that gives me my passion for this work.
But I also live by these concepts myself, and found them to be nothing short of live-saving when I was ploughing my way through the aftermath of some deeply traumatic life events. I believe it’s thanks to this approach that I not only survived, but today I’m one of the happiest people I come across!
“Happiness is a deep sense of flourishing,
not a mere pleasurable feeling or fleeting emotion
but an optimal state of being”
Matthieu Ricard
Although this series isn’t intended for people who are going through a time of trauma or crisis, the ideas will help build your resilience, so when those times of crisis arrive – as they do in different ways in everyone’s life – then you’ll be far better prepared to cope with them, and to maintain your happiness level.
Each post will:
- focus on one area of soft skills
- show you how to dissolve the barrier that blocks those skills
- highlight the impact this will have on your happiness
- give you ideas for building happiness-habits
You’ll also have the option to spend the following week working with the principles, and applying them in your life.
My goal for you is that by the end of the six week series your happiness levels will have risen, you’ll be building happiness-habits, and when you go back to work in the New Year there’ll be a new spring in your step!
If you like this post, join our newsletter for regular soft skills insights.