What we truly need to enjoy life

Do you sometimes feel bored with the expensive gifts and toys you just bought a month ago?
What do we really need to be happy? This is the theme of this week’s blog: a simple story to make us think and reflect upon who we are, what we have and what we truly need to live a good life.

A rich father, motivated to teach his son what poverty is, encouraged him to spend a few days in the countryside, in a very modest family. The child spent three days and three nights, living in the nature. Back to the city, the father asked him 2 simple questions.

“What do you think of your experience?
- It was good, replied the son, a little distant.
- Did you learn something, insisted the father?
- Yes, ‘replied the child.

• We have a dog, they have four.
• We have a pool with treated water, they have the whole river, clear water, and fish.
• We have an electrical installation and lights in our garden, they have the stars and the moon for light.
• Our garden reaches the wall, theirs stretched to the horizon.
• We buy ready meals, they cook their own food.
• We listen to ipod and radio, they listen to a symphony of birds, crickets and flowing water from the nearby stream.
• We live surrounded by walls, protecting our belongings with alarms, they live in the open, protected by the friendship of their neighbors.

The father was impressed with the observations of his son. The son concludes: “Thank you for allowing me to learn that we actually are poor.” End of story and simple conclusion: we do not need much to be truly happy, friendship and life experiences are more valuable that what money can buy.

Intuitively, we sort of knew that but let’s think again: let’s reflect upon about the day ahead of us. How do we reconnect with nature, appreciate its simple beauty? How do we care for our family and friends? How do we look up from our laptop and TV to engage in meaningful activities?
The voice of this boy should stay in the back of our mind and remind us to simply lead a good life.

Clara
www.Authentic-Happiness.com

Manifesto for Living a Good Life

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Does exercising make us happier?

Does exercising make us happier? Really? Let’s check the facts hidden behind this common wisdom.

An article from James Vlahos published in the New York Times on 12 Apr 2011, reported that, over a lifetime, the unhealthful effects of sitting add up. Alpa Patel, an epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society, tracked the health of 123,000 Americans between 1992 and 2006. The men in the study who spent six hours or more per day of their leisure time sitting had an overall death rate that was about 20 percent higher than the men who sat for three hours or less. The death rate for women who sat for more than six hours a day was about 40 percent higher. So fat for the negative effects of the lack of exercising. What about the positive impact of a balanced fitness program?

The Daily Mail published on 16 Dec 2008 the following study outcome from the University of Bristol in the UK. Evaluating a group of 200 employees, they found out that:

• 72% of the employees exercising regularly reported improvements in time management on exercise days compared to non-exercise days;
• 79% of the same group said mental and interpersonal performance was better on days they exercised;
• 74% said they managed their workload better.

This represents a statistically significant difference, confirming our initial presumption. One of the main cause and effect mechanisms behind the numbers is known and simple: exercising stimulates the production of endorphin, these chemicals that are able to cross through the gaps between neurons in order to pass along a message from one to the next. When endorphins lock into special receptor cells, they block the transmission of pain signals and also produce a euphoric feeling. In simple term, increasing your  endorphin level is like receiving a blast of happiness through your body. Too much will lead to euphoria, also known as the “runner’s high” feeling.
What do you think? Let us know your personal experience.

Do you want to find out more? Check wikipedia, science.howstuffworks.com, … and have fun shaping your active lifestyle.

PS: and don’t forget to check your happiness score on www.Authentic-Happiness.com

The Ideal Week, Your Personal Plan For 7 Days Full Of Authentic Happiness

"There are seven days in the week and someday isn’t one of them."

A nice quote from www marcandangel com to start this blog.
We all came accross the same recommendations from time management gurus, book and theories from famous authors: they are telling us to plan your day, list your activities, prioritize them, reserve time slots to complete them and successfully track your progress.... And there is a myriad of apps and other tools to keep us on track.

Unfortunately, the majority of us experience a different reality: indeed, 41% of us do not believe that we complete our daily todo list very well (source: authentic-happiness.com, free online happiness score, question 14). What does this tell us?

While the approach of listing, prioritizing and scheduling our tasks is fundamentally a good discipline (more on GTD and Eisenhower method in the "Manage Your Time" learning module from authentic-happiness.com), trying to complete our daily t=often turns into a new source of stress, the exact opposite of the original intent. For 59% of us, not completing our tasks means more frustration and a weaker self esteem. Add to this, procrastinating what we could not complete adds up to the pressure of the following day, and so on...

So, the lack of planning is not good, but daily action plans does not really for most of us, a true Greek tragedy! Well, maybe not, let's challenge some assumptions and try again: let's plan for the entire week ahead of us and let's do this on Friday afternoon before the week starts:

• Apply proven GTD or Eisenhower approaches or any other effective task management methodology you prefer. list all your activities for the following week, prioritize them into 4 boxes:
     * top left, the most important work projects/tasks that you want to accomplish at work
     * below left, other professional tasks,
     * on the top right, your most important personal goals, to include exercising, taking care of yourself and your family, eating healthy food, meeting  with friends, pursuing your passion, anything not business related, ...
     * below right, other personal activities
• Schedule the most important activities but do not exceed 70% for each. Plan for a lunch break, schedule time for a walk or fitness, etc...
• During the week, as you think about new ideas and activities to be completed, ask yourself first the question: "Is it critically important to complete those this week?"
     * If yes, schedule them in the remaining 30% time
     * If not, write them down starting with a N for Next week: you will take care of them during your next planning session on Friday.
• At the bottom of the page, I found it very useful to add the 5 authentic happiness dimensions:
     1. H&S: Health and Sport
     2. PE&G: Positive Emotions and Gratitude
     3. P&F: Productivity and Flow
     4.  S&A: Social and Adventure
     5. M&L: Meaning & Leadership
  I use these as a self-check that my activities and schedule ahead are well balanced.

Want to try??? Visit Authentic-Happiness.com, download the free "The Ideal Week" template and get started.
Please let us know what you think, your successes, your challenges, what worked for you, etc.

Have a productive, meaningful week,
Clara for the Authentic-Happiness.com team

Do Happier People Live Longer?

The response is Yes if we believe the study compiled by worldlifeexpectancy.com about the happiness level versus the life expectancy in 193 countries around the world.

Let’s look at the graph below, there is a clear statistical trend from:
* less happy countries with a score of 160 and life expectancy of 50-60 years
* to very happy countries with an average life expectancy around 80 years
What is our take-away? Live happier, live longer.

Do you know your own Authentic Happiness score? Find out on Authentic-Happiness.com and get free customized recommendation to shape your life and improve your personal happiness score.
Cheers to a long life !!!
www.Authentic-Happiness.com

The Best Tricks To Keep Our Annual Resolutions ?

Ah the good resolutions, great ideas, even better plans, too often lost in a sea of good intentions! How often can you keep them longer than a month? 2 months maybe? 4 at best? If you are able to stick to them for the whole 12 months ahead of us, this article is probably not for you. You likely have your own secret, and you know how to make it work.

If not, read the next 3 paragraphs.

1. Looking for more happiness in your life, start with a short questionnaire to evaluate your Authentic Happiness score. With 15 questions, it will give you a first indication of how well you lead your life, shape your habits and design a lifestyle to maximize happiness. For each of your sub-optimal areas, you will get customized recommendations to find out more about these specific areas and if required, take a more thorough test.

2. What comes next is to define what makes a good annual resolution:

• Distinguish between what is important -and less important-, versus urgent -and less urgent. This is the essence of the Eisenhower method (see the “Manage you time” learning module in www.Authentic-Happiness.com)
• Use words to visualize your objectives: the Vision Board is a very effective tool to sort out your thoughts (find out more with the "Develop Your Life Vision" or "Get Active" learning modules).
• Make sure that your resolutions are meaningful connected to your personal vision and objectives. Check out the “Life Meaningfully” learning module.

3. Finally, now that you are done with developing your annual resolutions, how do you make sure that you will stay on track?

A sure way to stay involved is to use mobile technology. Some examples:

• Mobile application such as fitbit counts your daily steps to keep you in check. Competing with yourself month after month will help you stay fit & healthy.
• Another example is the “Way of Life” app: by investing less than a minute daily to track, identify and change your habits with Way of Life's unique red/green colour system, you will get daily help to reshape your “good” habits and forget the “bad” ones.
• Other applications like Lift makes you feel as if you have a personal coach in your phone: 24x7 and for 365 days. This will give you free guidance, motivation, and tracking for 100,000 different goals.
• Do you want to discover more apps to track your resolustions, visit www.Authentic-Happiness.com, “Track Your Progress” page.

In summary: To give long life to your resolutions, make sure that they will fully contribute to shaping a better life and that they are meaningfully connected to your goals and vision. Finally, search for the right apps, test them and select the ones that will help you stay on track for “the whole nine yards”.

What Is Your Authentic-Happiness Score?

Is Your score? 15 / 15 Congratulations, you must be a very happy person ! If not, you will receive customized recommendations to shape your life. Apply them, develop new habits and behaviors and take the test again. The Authentic Happiness score reflects how well you shape your lifestyle, habits and behaviors to maximize happiness. Try it, it is free on www.Authentic-Happiness.com Wishing you a healthy, productive and meaningful New Year in 2014, The Authentic-Happiness.com Team

Is Positive Psychology the new secret recipe for a long and happy life?

It is true that a meta-analysis of 35 studies conducted by Yoichi Chida and Andrew Steptoe concluded that “Positive Psychology well being was associated with reduced mortality in both healthy and disease population (Psychomatic Medicine, Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine, July-August 2013). This being said, the key learning from positive psychology practice are often advertised as a “secret recipe” instead of what they really are, a set of science-based observations, models, techniques and tools to make our life more fulfilling.

Personal development studies over the past decades  and centuries have already analyzed and reanalyzed this same subject.

What do they have in common with the more recent field of Positive Psychology? There are five recurrent themes at the intersection of these theories and models: let’s called them the “five pillars of happiness”:

• 

  www.authentic-happiness.com

  PILLAR #1 STAY FIT & HEALTHY: sleep well, switch to a healthy lifestyle and nutrition, boost your immune system, …
• PILLAR #2 EXPERIENCE POSITIVE EMOTIONS: monitor your stress level, meditate, build up your self esteem, unleash the power of gratitude, …
• PILLAR #3 DEVELOP YOUR TALENTS & STRENGTHS: manage your time effectively, "Flow" through the week, mentor your peers, …
• PILLAR #4 IMPROVE YOUR SOCIAL & COMMUNICATION SKILLS: tell your story, develop your personal brand, communicate with style
• PILLAR #5 LEAD A PASSIONATE & MEANINGFUL LIFE: learn from positive psychology and improve your well-being?, define your vision of a meaningful life

This all makes sense and seems so easy, but where to start? Life is an adventure, get at it one step at a time. Start by clicking on www.authentic-happiness.com, evaluate your strengths in each pillar (free questionnaire), learn every day from the free 10 minute modules and build your personal action plan to fill your life with authentic happiness, one step at a time. Yes, it is that simple!

Clara Novy is a active blog contributor and founder of the non-for-profit web platform www.authentic-happiness.com.

www.authentic-happiness.com is a free learning and personal development platform dedicated to help you fill your life with Authentic Happiness by discovering your strengths & exploring how to 1. Stay healthy & in shape, 2. Live a positive life, 3. Develop your talents, 4. Improve your social skills and 5. Lead a meaningful life.