HAPPINESS AND SUCCESS
Success is to get what you want. Happiness is to want what you get. Dale Carnegie
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. Albert Schweitzer
How do you feel about these statements? I think Carnegie is actually
quite accurate. However, is it really so simple? Or is there more to it? Think
about it.
Albert Schweitzer’s saying on the other hand is debateable. In my work I have met many people who really enjoyed
what they were doing and could not wish for anything that suited them more. But
they were not successful and struggled to make ends meet. However, some of them
were quite happy even though they were not successful; others said that they
needed the ever elusive success to be happy. Schweitzer suggests that in order
to be successful one needs to be happy. Wrong again; I have met numerous
individuals who were very successful in many facets of their life, but they
were desperately unhappy for a variety of reasons.
Schweitzer simplifies the happiness – success correlation, and it is not
that simple. Surely there is a correlation between happiness and success. But
before we go into it, let us first look at the following five reasons most
happy individuals gave as their source of happiness.
Meaningful romantic relationship / Excellent family life
Successful social life
Health
Financial security
Purposeful work or activity
Typically happy individuals enjoy a very active and successful social
life. They have warm and close relationships with friends, acquaintances and
family members, and very often they are in a satisfying love relationship.
Happy people seem to be more successful at work or in their business.
Typically they have higher income, higher social and occupational status, and
they have the skilful and competent personality that allows them to achieve their
goals easily.
Happy people are full of energy and vitality, full of life and
enthusiasm for life, and they tend to live longer and healthier lives.
Therefore, yes there is a correlation between happiness and success,
which may lead us to believe that happiness is a prerequisite for success.
However, it is not a prerequisite, but only greatly assists in your pursuit of
success.
This, of course, leads to the conclusion that also unhappy people can
become successful. They may find it somewhat more difficult than a happy
person, but they can do it. The added benefit could be that this success will
lead them to happiness. I saw it happen, and have indeed guided many people to
both success and subsequent happiness.
SUCCESS AND HAPPINESS CREATION
I always say that
there are three groups of people: those who make things happen, those who let
things happen, and thirdly the group that wonders what’s happening. To turn
unhappy and unsuccessful people into happy and successful ones, they need to
belong to the first group. They need to set goals, and they need to be
self-confident, certain in their belief that they can achieve their goals and
that they can make ‘it’ happen.
Typically unhappy and
unsuccessful persons are incapable of setting goals; well, they may be able to
set them, but they cannot achieve them. They are also not confident and lack
belief in themselves. Typically they have developed a negative outlook on life,
they are pessimists, and they have not found meaning, importance and
significance in their life. This needs to be changed.
They need to change the way they think in order
to change their life.
This is easier said
than done; but it is doable.
The most important
requirement to change the way you think is your self-confidence. As I said
above, self-confidence is the key to your self-belief and that you can make
things happen. Once you have boosted your confidence to the utmost limit,
things are going to get much easier.
The second step is to
change your thinking habits. Research shows that usually we think an average of
60’000 to 80’000 independent thoughts every day. This seems to be quite a large
number, but you will be quite disappointed to hear that most of these thoughts
you have thought already yesterday and every day before yesterday, and most
certainly will think again tomorrow and every day thereafter. All of a sudden
the large number of 60’000 to 80’000 is no longer so significant. The way you
think guides your actions; because of your constantly repeated pattern of
thoughts your actions become quite predictable. Unfortunately this is a great
recipe for getting stuck in a rut, repeating your actions and reactions over
and over again and not moving on to greater and better things.
You want to think
creatively. You want to increase your capacity of programmed thinking as well
as lateral thinking. Programmed thinking
relies on logical and structured ways to create new products, or new services. Lateral thinking recognizes that our brains
are pattern recognition systems. Unfortunately we get stuck in our patterns; we
tend to think within them. Solutions to
problems, new strategies are based on previous solutions, previous strategies.
It does not occur to us to find solutions that belong to different patterns.
We use lateral
thinking techniques to break out of this patterned way of thinking. And we will
find brilliant, startling and original solutions to problems and we learn to
see opportunities. Lateral thinking can generate completely new concepts and
ideas, or brilliant improvements to existing systems.
Logical, disciplined
thinking comes into it to make the new ideas or concepts work.
Often the only
difference between creative and uncreative people is self-perception. If you
see yourself as being creative you give yourself
the freedom to create. If you see yourself as being an uncreative person, you
don’t even think about creativity, and you don’t give yourself the opportunity
to create something new.
Once you think
creatively you will find it quite easy to change the meaning of experiences you
have or of the events in your life. Whereas before a negative experience or
event was an obstacle for you and you reacted with pessimism, you can now
change the meaning of this experience or event and turn it into a challenge, an
opportunity with a positive outcome.
There is no question
in my mind that these new ways of thinking can and will greatly contribute to
your success. They can and will also greatly contribute to your potential for
happiness.
Copyright 2011 Udo Stadtsbcuhler
