I have been following research on positive psychology for years and find this field of study fascinating. The fundamental idea of positive psychology is that people aspire to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, which makes them sustainably happy.
Positive psychology is the pathway to achieve that objective. However, experiencing happiness does not happen overnight. Training your brain to adopt virtuous behaviors takes time and effort until they become ingrained as lifestyle habits. This leads to more happiness, optimism, and resilience.
If you are determined to embark on the journey toward sustained happiness, here are two fundamental starting points to help you get there.
1. Practice generosity
You don’t need to be a neuroscientist to know that being generous and doing things for others can make you feel happy. However, recent studies have discovered that simply thinking about doing something generous can also boost your brain’s happiness levels.
In a study published in Nature Communications, 50 participants were told they’d receive about $100 over a few weeks. Half of the people were asked to commit to spending that money on themselves, and half were asked to spend it on someone they knew.
The researchers conducted a study to examine whether committing to generosity can increase happiness. First, they invited the participants to the lab and asked them to imagine a friend they would like to gift something to and how much they would hypothetically spend. Then, they conducted functional MRI scans to measure activity in three regions of the brain linked to social behavior, generosity, happiness, and decision-making.
Brain scans revealed that even the intent to be generous was linked to activity in the ventral striatum, an area important in the feeling of happiness.
Dr. Philippe Tobler, one of the study’s authors, said, “It is remarkable that intent alone generates a neural change before the action is actually implemented. Promising to behave generously could be used as a strategy to reinforce the desired behavior, on the one hand, and to feel happier, on the other. You don’t need to become a self-sacrificing martyr to feel happier. Just being a little more generous will suffice.”
2. Have a ‘pay it forward’ mentality
Has this ever happened to you? You’re waiting to pick up your order at the drive-thru of your local fast-food joint, and the cashier says, “The car in front of you took care of your order.” When it happened to me, I was surprised at first, followed by immense gratitude. This act of kindness rubbed off, and a few days later, I paid it forward.
A refreshing study published in the journal Emotion, found both givers and receivers of kindness in the workplace enjoyed positive benefits. The researchers from the University of California, headed by Joseph Chancellor, studied workers from Coca-Cola’s Madrid site.
They found that, while receivers of kindness reported 10 times more prosocial behaviors than the controls, the givers’ one-month follow-up measures were even more impressive: They enjoyed higher levels of life satisfaction and job satisfaction and fewer depressive symptoms. This suggests that giving had a more durable effect than receiving.
The best part? Receivers didn’t just enjoy acts of kindness — they paid them forward, much like I did in my own example. As a result, at the conclusion of the study, the receivers reported engaging in nearly three times more pro-social behaviors than did the controls.
The bottom line? Encouraging acts of kindness in the workplace can create a virtuous cycle within teams that benefits everyone involved, especially the organization. When corporate values promote uninhibited kindness, it can lead to better work and positive outcomes. By starting with one random act of kindness, its effects can spread outwardly and have a significant impact.