Make realistic resolutions that you can achieve.
Photograph by: Photos.com, canada.com
Here we go again! Do you keep doing the same things over and over and expect different results? Joanne Laucius cuts to the chase and offers these realistic goals for 2011.
1. Save yourself the trouble. Money won’t make you happy
As one wag put it: If money can’t buy you happiness, then you don’t know where to shop. But aside from providing food, shelter security and the other necessities of life, more money truly won’t make you happy in the long run.
Sure, more money results in a happiness “bump” but it doesn’t last. Princeton researchers found that high-status white collar workers were only slightly more happy with life than low-status blue-collar workers, says happiness guru Dan Baker in What Happy People Know. Lottery winners are ecstatically happy at first, but after they get over the initial rush, they’re no more happy than ordinary people.
The same is true of entire nations. Economists call it the “Easterlin Paradox” after Richard Easterlin, who just this month published a paper on long-haul happiness in 37 countries. Over the long term, countries with higher economic growth did not show a greater increase in happiness, he found. Chile, China and South Korea have doubled per capita income in less than 20 years. But over that time, life satisfaction either increased only mildly or actually declined.
So, how to get happier without getting a raise? Try committing five conscious acts of kindness in a day, suggests Shawn Anchor in The Happiness Advantage.
Pick one day a week and commit five small selfless acts for both strangers and people you know -- little things like holding a door open for someone. (In order for this to work, you have to perform your acts of kindness deliberately, says Anchor, who taught a popular happiness course at Harvard University. His favourite act of kindness is paying the toll of the motorist behind him on the turnpike.) The feel-good effects usually last for several days afterwards, he reports.
2. Cut yourself some slack
When things go wrong, it helps if you give yourself a little compassion. York University researchers found that writing yourself a series of feel-good letters results in a long-term emotional boost that lasts at least six months.
The researchers asked more than 200 people to log onto a website for seven nights in a row. Some were asked to write themselves compassionately, addressing something upsetting and comforting themselves as they would a friend. Others were asked to write an optimistic letter, imagining a problem that is resolved in the future, then advise themselves on how to get there.
Psychologist Myriam Mongrain, who has studied depression for 25 years, says people who are self-critical or dependent are prone to depression. Those who wrote compassionate or optimistic letters were less depressed up to three months later, and still had an overall increase in happiness six months later.
Self-compassion worked for almost everyone in the study, except those who were very needy. Self-critical people benefited the most from optimistic letters, while dependent people, who are already accustomed to comforting others, benefited from compassionate letters.
“I think the reason it worked for them is because they’re good at this with others,” says Mongrain.
Can you do this at home? Sure, she says. A “letter” needs to be only a paragraph long. After awhile, dispense with the pen and paper and just “write” the letter in your head.
“Self-compassion is important because there isn’t always a friend present. You start talking to yourself and you help yourself.”
There’s a biological reason for why this exercise works. Compassion sparks the release of feel-good chemicals in the brain, says Mongrain. “It makes you more resilient.”
For more information about how to conduct this exercise, contact Leah Shapira at: lshapira@yorku.ca
3. Get your beauty rest
Science tells us that getting a good night’s sleep will prevent car accidents and improve job performance, mental alertness and even your sex life. But here’s one reason why you should get some zzzzs. Sleep deprivation makes you look bad.
A Swedish study published this month on bmj.com, the online arm of the British Medical Journal, had 23 people between the ages of 18 and 31 photographed twice between 2 p.m., and 3 p.m., warts and all, with loose hair, no makeup and neutral facial expressions.
In one photograph, the subjects were sleep-deprived. In the other, they were rested. Then photos were shown to 65 volunteers and asked to rate the photos. The sleep-deprived were rated as less attractive and healthy and, of course, more tired.
In case you were wondering, there were no smokers in the study and no alcohol was allowed for two days before the experiment.
4. One magic word, two letters.
Compromise is the secret to successful negotiating, we’re told. Nonsense, says Jim Camp, author of No: the Only Negotiating Strategy You Need For Work and Home.
Camp argues that when you are being pushed, appeasement just means you’ll be pushed more in the future. And when you are doing the pushing, a forced compromise leads to bad feelings.
“Barriers will come down when you give the option of saying no,” says Camp, a negotiating coach who has worked with individuals, corporations and governments.
For example, if your boss approaches overloaded you with a request to take on another project, you can say no by pointing out: “It would be impossible for me to do all of that and do it well. Which project is the least important to you?” The boss now has the choice of which project to drop.
Offering the “no” option to the other person right up front also works well if you are the one making a proposal, says Camp.
Try starting your proposal with: “You can say no to this, but I have an idea ... “ That invites the other person to be open to your idea because the option of no has already been offered, he says. The other person won’t feel threatened. “They are not being pushed to get to yes.”
Now, Camp is not advising that you have to start with the actual word no. There are ways to say no without saying no.
Here’s one to try: “If I did that, I wouldn’t like myself.”
5. Ask yourself: Why?
OK, so you can’t refrain from making a New Year’s resolution. Here’s the way to go about making it a successful one, says Dr. Nathalie Beauchamp, an Ottawa chiropractor and wellness consultant.
First, you have to ask yourself why you want to achieve the goal.
The goal is not losing 20 pounds, it’s looking better so you feel more attractive and ready to get out on the dating scene. The goal is not the stop smoking. Sure, it would be good to avoid early death and a host of smoking-related illnesses. But that’s abstract. The more tangible goal is to run in that 5km fundraising event next May with your 15-old-daughter without wheezing.
“If you don’t have a large enough Ôwhy’ then you won’t succeed,” says Beauchamp, who is also, among other things, a certified personal fitness trainer and professional bodybuilder. “People have to commit. If they don’t commit, they don’t know where they are going.”
Make a plan. Here’s how:
1. Decide what you want. Have a clear vision.
2. Create a detailed plan to get there. “If you’re going to Paris, you’ll need an itinerary,” says Beauchamp. “We plan our holidays more than we plan our lives.”
Visit Beauchamp’s online coaching program, Roadmap to Wellness Destination: A Healthier You in 90 Days or Less at: www.roadmaptowellness.com.
Ottawa Citizen
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