How a jar tells us to simplify our life

Have you heard the story about how to capture a monkey?
High in the mountain in a small village, a wise man devised a simple solution to catch a monkey: a jar with a fat bottom and a narrow opening.

How does it work? Put an juicy orange or some peanuts at the bottom of the jar, and wait. The monkey will come, attracted by the smell of food. As he grabs into the jar, his closed hand with the food remains trapped inside the jar, unaware of his embarrassing situation until the end of the day.

Simple zen story and a bit of a fairy tale, isn’t it? Literary yes, so what about our world dictated by “busyness”, power and money. Aren’t we the prisoners of our life with our hands stucked in the jar of materialism, monthly expenses & house credit? Unaware of our situation until the dawn of our life?

According to the Happiness Score, only 28% of 2,100 respondents actually believed that they spend enough time doing what they are most passionate about. What is your score?

How do we free ourselves? By letting go of unnecessary burden and refocusing our life on meaningful goals.
This sounds nice, should I quit my job and stop paying my mortgage? Certainly not, but consider the following:

1. Simplify your life, donate what you have not been using for years, this is more space in your life and will make people in need happier.

2. Take a small bag, leave all your “stuff” behind and go out on vacation. Discover the world with the people close to you, you will discover them as well.

3. Live your dream, find out what your passions are, this is often what you loved doing as a kid. Become an expert of it and share your passion.

Thoughts, feedback? What is your personal experience?
Does it work for you?

Have a fun and meaningful Sunday,

Clara

PS: more like this, visit www.Authentic-Happiness.com, check your happiness score and get a free personal Life Satisfaction report.

Rethinking learning

The fourth and last blog of our Authentic-Happines AH@Work Miniseries!

The world of corporate Learning is looking for a new answer: more innovation, focus on learning transfer, traditional models need modernizing. What has changed in the 21st century? Big data & technology are reshaping by turning data into knowledge, information, intelligence and ultimately new transformative solutions

Still, in the end, learning remain “the people”: and a large majority of us do not rate our job as very meaningful nor do we find sufficient time to spend for our true passion. This blog introduces the AD3 Model, a simple but powerful framework to structure the transformation of “brute-force” learning into data-driven, integrated, agile solutions focused on generating immediate results for the Employees and the Enterprise

So where do we start? With people data and the 5 dimensions of Authentic Happiness:

1. Health & Fitness. Life is fun, make it last2. Positive Emotions & Gratitude.Emotions are beautiful, embrace them everyday3. Productivity & Flow: Your talent is a gift, make use of it, become an expert4. Social & Discovery: Life is an adventure, go out & discover the world
5. Leadership & Meaning: This is your life, life your dream now

By turning these data into knowledge, and knowledge into intelligence, we open up new opportunities to design transformative solutions, as depicted in the following model:

The AD3 stands for Analytics, Diagnostics, Design, Deployment.

Do you want to find more about the details of each step and how the AD3 can be applied to develop powerful transformative solutions with immediate and sustainable impact?
Visit www.Authentic-Happiness.com and go to the resource section to open the latest ISPI presentation.

AH-Greetings

AH@Work: About Meaning and Passion

Miniseries Blog 3The world of corporate Learning is looking for a new answer: new innovative approaches to learning are shattering the traditional instructor and online learning approach, challenging the inability of the current models to produce measurable outcome (more in our first blog AH@Work from May 8, 2014).

What has changed in the 21st century? Big data & technology are reshaping our life by turning Data into knowledge, information, intelligence and ultimately new transformative solutions (our second AH@Work blog from May 12, 2014).

Still, in the end, learning remain “the people”: what is meaningful for us, how we enjoy our daily life and spend time doing what we are passionate about, key dimensions of our Authentic Happiness. Authentic-Happiness.com has opened up a free survey and collected over 1,300 responses from internet users around the world. In the following are 2 interesting insights from this survey:

• 40% rate their job as meaningful. Sounds like a good score ? Maybe, sort of but let’s look at the 60% who believe that their job could be more meaningful, or not at all. How truly motivated and engaged are they when performing their daily jobs?
  
  

• Only 27% believe that they spend enough time rate doing what they are passionate about. What if we could ignite some new passions and reconnect those with our daily work? What if learning and leadership was so engaging that employees would become over time true passionate experts in their field of work:
  
  

This sounds like Utopia Inc. ! Maybe, but there is no doubt that getting closer to this goal would result in significant performance gains. Isn’t this the ultimate goal of the learning department???

In our next blog, we will introduce the AD3 Model, a simple but powerful framework to structure the transformation of “brute-force” learning into data-driven, integrated, agile solutions focused on generating immediate results for the Employees and the Enterprise. One step at the time, we will walk through this framework in order to come some steps closer to our vision: high performing employees who love what they do and generate outstanding business results.

AH-Greetings

Manifesto for Living a Good Life

www.Authentic-Happiness.com

Download .png in the Resource Section and Reuse for Free. No Restriction.

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

Happiness is ...

WHEN YOU ARE AWARE of your good and bad habits, and when you make progress in streamline your weekly agenda to maximize what you enjoy doing (check out your Happiness Score on www.authentic-happiness.com)

WHEN YOU KNOW your strengths, home them, apply them to realize something great and memorable

WHEN YOU FIGURE OUT out how to ignite a true passion inside yourself and massively invest your time to reach a state of flow

WHEN YOU EXPERIENCE positive emotions, have fun with friends and family, enjoy simple things like a good movie at home, a colorful sun rise at 7:00am in the morning, ...

WHEN YOU PRACTICE gratitude, or when somebody gives you a true and honest “thank you” for the help you gave them a long time ago and which made a difference in their life!

Please reply to this post band let us know what are your moments of happiness?

Clara
www.Authentic-Happiness.com

Can You Measure Happiness? Really.

Are you 90% happy today?

Does it make you feel better than being 60% happy?

In a world where data and analytics are king, we are all confronted with articles, blogs and daily examples of the "quantified self": the knowledge of ourselves through quantified numbers.

How do we quantify happiness? Is there an ultimate "Happiness Score" which can accurately reflect our state of mind about how happy we feel:
- Would this score reflect our "instant happiness" at this precise point of time or over a specified period of time?
- Which dimensions of happiness should it measure? Our happiness to enjoy life and experience positive emotions, our feeling of satisfaction when we create something in a state of flow while applying our best strengths and expertise, our relentless passion to give our time to a truly meaningful cause, ...

Many questions which deserve multiple answers and take us back to our original question: is the attempt of establishing a common measure of happiness truly meaningful? Well, maybe it can be, let's explore the how and what: the true answer is not only in the actual value of the happiness score: 90%, 60% or 10 out of 15, ... Let's see why:

1. Our happiness score becomes an indicator worth watching when we benchmark it against our friends, family, peers or role-models. Behind sheer jealousy, differences in score should be challenging and energizing us to understand what others are doing better, what we could improve. Check you score today, get your free Life Satisfaction report.

2. Like for data, new information are revealed when we analyzing trends and compare data points: how do we score on Friday versus Sunday evening? Does our score change in autumn versus spring? How is it impacted by our activities and relationships?

3. The real value, though, is the details, hidden behind one number: which questions and facets of our life fills our life with authentic happiness, which ones make us sad, disappointed and fill us with negative emotions? Understanding this is the first step, or descriptive analysis.

The next step is the diagnosis: what are the root-causes for our low and high happiness moments? What are the cause-effect mechanisms? How can we identify daily stressors, which, for instance, do not allow to reach a state of flow and focus on our work?
The third and final step is to prescriptively target the areas of our life where we need to adjust our lifestyle and weekly habits, such as:
- expressing daily gratitude to our co-workers and family
- standing up early on Saturday and enjoy a walk in the nature while the sun is rising
- dedicating part of our time, every week, to a Good Cause like a charity organization

"OK, nice theory, good thoughts and 3 logical steps: where do we start?"

• Step 1: Start with a survey such as the Authentic-Happiness score (www.authentic-happiness.com)
• Step 2: behind the score, you will also get personalized feedback and recommendations on the specific areas you need to focus on.
• Step 3: educate yourself, find out about your weak areas, analyze them, identify best practices, proven tools and processes (www.authentic-happiness.com has over 50 free learning modules).
• Step 4: adjust your habits and lifestyle, design your Ideal Week ( see www-authentic-happiness.com free template). 

In the end, implement your newly defined weekly activities and habits, check your weekly progress and re-evaluate your Happiness Score. Did it increase?? Please click on https://amzn.to/2MFO6Iy to discover more interesting facts and data-driven insights to balance your life and find your own happiness: 5 star rating, free with Kindle Unlimited, also available as Paperback. 

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

What Makes Us Happy? Simply put.

We are happy because we feel well in our body. Partly true, studies show that illness and physical appearances are not long term predictors of our happiness level (see the studies from Prof Seligman from PenU). Rather, we are happy because we take care of ourselves: when we practice sports, go to the fitness club, take a long hot bath after running through the cold morning mist, or enjoy a healthy breakfast, …

We actually feel happier when we express positive feelings, express gratitude, laugh out loud, … But like a good movie, this instant happiness does not necessarily last.

Lasting happiness is achieved when we contemplate with pride the outcome of our past work. These successes and achievements make up who we are. We not only feel great when we look back at them, but also when we apply our skills and expertise, and achieve a state of flow to craft these personal accomplishments.

Lasting happiness is also reinforced by the people around us, our family and friends: we all need quiet moments for ourselves, but try it, living completely alone over a longer period is no fun.

And finally, what is it that creates the strongest and longer lasting feeling of happiness? Meaning. This is about the leadership of our life, about having a passion and putting in massive energy to live it fully, about articulating our vision and implementing our plan to get there, one step at a time. There are tools and templates like the vision board to help us define this meaningfully, but in the end, it is up to us individually to design our own way and enjoy every step of the journey!

All the best for the upcoming holiday, the time to enjoy, to reunite and to think. Meaningfully.
www.authentic-happiness.com

What You Need To Shape Your Life?

Traveling around the world, I meet with executives and leaders who ask themselves the question : does it really make sense? Why working so hard this year to get a tougher goal next year? What is left in the end ?
Really good questions one should ask himself. Even more important is to follow a structured path to find the right answer. From living an enjoyable life, healthy and productive, with friends and family around you , to defining meaningful goals as the leader of your own life.
Shape your life is a 5 week template taking you through what it takes to define your goals and reshape your life to achieve them.
Try it, if is free, will take you about 10 minutes per day, 4 days per week. And what if it actually transforms your life for ever?
At least, this will bring you the basic answers you need to stay motivated in your job and not feel like a rat in a cage !
www.authentic-happiness.com

25 Days To Shape Your Life

LIVE, ENJOY, CREATE, EXPLORE

& SHAPE YOUR LIFE

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• Check your happiness score and receive a free personal Life Satisfaction report
• Learn from world best practices and techniques
• Make use of proven tools, apps and questionnaires
• Discover your strengths and personality
• Create your "Ideal Week Agenda"
• Develop your action board towards your life dreams

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START HERE & NOW...

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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.