“To know that you have enough is to be rich.”
- Unknown origin

“To be satisfied with what you have is to have happiness.”
- Dr. Happy

“He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still”

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
- both Lao Tzu

As many of you would know, at The Happiness Institute we believe happiness is something you CHOOSE. As far as we’re concerned, choose is both a philosophy of taking responsibility but also an acronym…one that represents 6 key happiness strategies:

C = Clarity (of life goals and purpose)
H = Healthy Living
O = Optimistic thinking
O = Other people
S = Strengths (upon which we should try to build)
E = Enjoying the moment

At another level, the happiness of our nations might also be due to freedom of choice. A recent survey of the happiest countries in the world seemed to confirm that those at the top are strong and stable democracies in which freedom and freedom to choose how we live our lives is paramount.

To read a succinct summary of this happiness survey and its results - click here

Three Indiana University researchers recently published their findings on mood and happiness in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, according to an IU news release.

In three studies, the researchers found that people who consider themselves happy choose more creative activities, have more power to transform unpleasant experiences into pleasant ones and are more likely to choose creative things to do when they believe their mood can change, according to the news release.

To read more about happiness and this research - click here

Yet another article on Positive Psychology News Daily has touched on the subject of money and happiness…

The argument about whether or not money makes you happy rumbles on (see these PPND articles about Money and Happiness by Sherri Fisher, A Rich Man’s World by Bridget Grenville-Cleave, and Positive Psychology and Social Entrepreneurship by Giselle Nicholson). On Monday, the UK’s Guardian newspaper reported that Professor Richard Layard, Labour peer and eminent economist turned Happiness Tsar, got his wake-up call when he realized that over a certain point (quoted as being $20,000 per year), money does not make you very much happier. Of course we now know that the argument is a bit more complicated than that.

To read more, including some happiness type tips…click here

Here’s yet another international survey ranking various countries on happiness.

The simplest interpretation of the results, which rank Denmark as having the most happiness and Zimbabwe as having the least happiness, is that democracy and freedom are highly correlated with happiness and positive emotion.

There are of course more complex interpretations but…

Click here to read more

Companies are waking up to the benefits of a happy workforce
The Telegraph 01/07/2008

Satisfied staff are good for business, but Britain lags far behind Denmark in the cheerfulness stakes, says Tracy Corrigan

‘Why aren’t there happiness league tables for schools?” my 13-year-old daughter asked the other day.

It was a pertinent question, because she has endured a pretty wretched time at hers. To me, finding a new school where she will feel comfortable and secure seems immensely more important than checking its position in academic league tables.

It’s not just that I care more about her wellbeing than about a grade here or there at GCSE; I also think she’ll perform better at a less academic school where she’s happy than at an academically driven school where she’s miserable.

Recent research in the business world suggests I’m right. Alex Edmans, a finance professor at Wharton business school, has found that companies cited as good places to work consistently outperform the market.

In a recent paper on employee satisfaction, he showed that Fortune magazine’s 100 best companies to work for in America earned a 14 per cent annual return for investors between 1998 and 2005, compared with 6 per cent for the overall market.

To read more about happiness at work and the benefits of happy employees - click here

To find out more about The Happiness Institute’s “Happiness @ Work” programs (including consulting, Executive Coaching, Workshops and seminars) email info@thehappinessinstitute.com.

Bringing more happiness into your life doesn’t always require hours and hours of hard work. Sometimes it does, but there are also lots of things you can do that will increase your happiness very quickly.

My new book, “100 Ways to Happiness: a guide for busy people”, outlines many quick tips but until that comes out in a few weeks you might like to check out Gretchen Rubin’s suggestions at The Happiness Project where she’s posted her 8 tips for making you happier in the next hour.

To read Gretchen’s 8 tips for more happiness now - click here

I’ve written several times about the powerful positive relationship between happiness and gratitude. I’ve probably also referred to the fact that the practice of gratitude makes up an important part of our positive psychology coaching here at The Happiness Institute.

But you can never be too grateful and we all need reminders of the good things in life, especially if/when they lead to more happiness.

So here’s another good article about gratitude and happiness from a prolific writer in all things positive psychology, David Pollay - click here to read more

‘Happy enough’ couples fall prey to infidelity, too
By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY

Relationship researchers are finding evidence that may be unsettling to many married couples: Sexual affairs aren’t limited to those in unhappy unions.
Among findings:

•Couples who report “pretty happy” marriages are twice as likely to have had an affair as those who have “very happy” marriages, says a study in May’s Journal of Marriage and Family. Those who report “not too happy” marriages are three times more likely than the “very happy” to report an affair, says David Atkins, associate professor of psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.

•Couples who said that either they or their spouse had an affair reported no signs of unhappiness, such as hostility, and had more positive than negative interactions, according to a study published in the June issue of the journal Family Process by Beth Allen, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Colorado-Denver.

•Only a quarter of men in a third study, also by Allen and reported this year in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, said they had “lots of marital problems” before an affair.

So, how happy is happy enough to ward off extramarital temptation? If someone who reports being happy still cheats, is it boredom or something deeper?

To read more about what Ed Deiner refers to as the search for ultra-happiness…click here

I came across this article yesterday (click here) about a plan to test the health of our pre-schoolers (e.g. can they hear and see OK) and I thought it sounded like a great idea. There are, no doubt, children whose visual and auditory problems go undetected and who, as a result, may not flourish academically as well as they otherwise might.

But then I thought about it a bit more and concluded that we might not be going far enough.

Imagine if we also tested children for psychological strength and resilience. This might not be feasible for pre-schoolers but it would certainly be possible for young children in primary school; and imagine then if we were able to help those in whom we identified areas of concern.

Well, we don’t need to imagine what might happen because we know; what we know is that if we were able to do this more thoroughly and more widely we’d significantly reduce depression, anxiety and other forms of psychopathology (along with behavioural and conduct problems) and signfiicantly increase happiness, health and wellbeing.

Surely the happiness of our children is just as important as other aspects of their health; surely the happiness of our children would contribute to positive learning and to flourishing; surely we could be doing more about this!