This week's article summary is 9 Simple Habits for a Happy Life, and it’s about The Harvard Happiness Study I referenced a number of times during preplanning.
For almost all of us the key to finding happiness is the quality and frequency of our relationships.
As we begin new school year, remember to keep relationships—those with your students, with your colleagues, with your students’ parents—at the forefront.
As you’ll see in the habits below, developing strong relationships takes active intentionality. To further strengthen our relationships, we need to cultivate them.
A new school year is a great time to set goals. Let’s strive every school day to further strengthen our existing relationships and to reach out to someone to start a new one!
Thank you for such a positive start to the school year! The positive, collegial energy we created during preplanning has palpably extended into the first days of school. Enjoy the weekend!
Joe
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This is a story about simple habits to improve your happiness and fulfillment in life. It's inspired by the key findings of a huge Harvard University study of happiness that's gone on for more than 80 years. It's the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has followed more than 700 people from the late 1930s until today. The study's current leaders have a new book out: The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness.
Here’s the bottom line: Good relationships keep us healthier and happier.
Here are some simple habits that can help you improve the quality of your relationships, based on the Harvard Study, other research, and additional sources.
Take stock of your relationships: We can't improve things if we don't measure them. So, as unromantic as it might seem, it makes sense to assess which relationships are important to you, which ones have proven less so, and which ones you wish were better.
Nurture casual relationships: We'll get into some of the things that you can do to improve the truly high-impact, nurturing relationships in you life. But, our lives are largely made up of very casual bonds. Think of all the simple relationships you have with people -- maybe even people whose names you don't know. For example, the crossing guard I say hello to while taking my daughter to school. Sometimes these relationships evolve. Other times they remain constant. But, in both cases, they're important.
Make time for conversations: This is a fantastic habit, and as it happens we have brand new academic support for it. A study out of the University of Kansas suggests that the simple act of reaching out to a friend for conversation -- at least once a day I you can manage it -- increases people's happiness and lowers their stress. “The more that you listened to your friends, the more that you showed care, the more that you took time to value others' opinions, the better you felt at the end of the day.”
Cultivate kindness: Researchers at Michigan State University combed through data on 2,500 long-term married couples (20 or more years) to determine their aptitude in five dimensions: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience. Those who reported higher levels of agreeableness and emotional stability also reported greater relationship happiness. "People invest a lot in finding someone who's compatible, but our research says that may not be the 'end-all, be-all. Instead, people may want to ask, 'Are they a nice person?' 'Do they have a lot of anxiety?' Those things matter way more." Be kind to the people you care about.
Volunteer: To develop better relationships, make time to volunteer. Studies showed that men and women who took time to volunteer, even just a few hours a week, met more people, formed relationships with more people, and took pride and satisfaction in the volunteer work they were doing.
Learn to apologize: Sometimes, nurturing relationships means repairing relationships. And repairing relationships often means making apologies and making amends. There's a whole theory attached to how to apologize and when -- whether to use language that centers your apology on you or gives power to the other person ("I'm sorry" versus "Please forgive me," for example). All else being equal, however, the more other-centered your apology, the more powerful and effective it can be.
Ask questions: We all like to talk about ourselves. Even the introverts among us, given the right circumstances, have things they'd love to expound on. If you want to improve a relationship with someone, therefore, ask questions. If someone is looking for advice don't tell them what you think they should do; ask them questions that can help guide them to the right answer.
Express your love: I don't necessarily mean go around telling everyone you love them. Instead, there are many ways to love, and many ways to express it. Maybe it's the friend you volunteer to pick up at the airport, or to fix something broken at their house. Maybe it's the person you know who is working hard to achieve something, and you go out of your way to tell them you respect what they're doing. Maybe it's the person who doesn't know how much of an impact she's had, and you take the time to express gratitude.
Be willing to be vulnerable: Relationships involve risks, especially at the beginning. So, be willing to take them. As a practical example, if you want to make friends and develop great relationships, use the rule of three overturns -- meaning, be willing to try to start conversations or set up plans and be rejected three times before giving up. Once for the possibility that they didn't get or understand the message. Once for the possibility that they simply forgot or didn't have time to reply. Once for the possibility that it's their ego or fear getting in the way. The more people you try to make plans with, the more attempts you make, and the more opportunities you'll have to build good relationships. And, the sooner you can inoculate your ego against rejection -- recognizing that in big things and small, it's probably "them, not you" -- the happier you'll likely be.
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