Sunday, January 15, 2012

Positive mindsets help you perform better when challenged

The January/February Harvard Business Review explores the value of happiness. Lots of interesting information in this edition. Just wanted to share one study that gave me hope. This is from the article entitled "Positive Intelligence" by Shawn Achor. He shows a direct causality between life satisfaction and business results. Here is one example, in 2008, they worked with tax managers during tax season to see if they could make them happier. The tax managers could chose between one of five activites:

-jot 3 things they were grateful for
-write a positive message to someone in their support group
-meditate at their desk for 2 minutes
-exercise for 10 minutes
-take 10 minutes to write in their journal the most meaningful experience of the last day

They were do to their chosen exercise daily for 3 weeks. It made a significant difference in their life satisfaction - a measure that has a strong correlation with productivity. The effect was still measurable after 4 months.

I love this because it shows it doesn't take much to make a big difference!

1 comment:

  1. Love these stats and would like to borrow the journal when you return. It appears that things are going well on your retreat, however reading that that you never saw you Mom very happy made me so sad. Be well and enjoy.

    ReplyDelete