“If only I could get that promotion/find my ideal partner/reach that lofty goal, finally I’ll be happy!” I’m sure this thought has crossed your mind before and you’d be forgiven for thinking that success precedes happiness, as you certainly wouldn’t be the first one to make that assumption. “The Happiness Advantage” by Shawn Achor aims to turn that belief on its head by advocating that the opposite is true: to be successful, you first need to be happy.
Keep reading to find out why embracing this counterintuitive perspective could transform your life and unlock levels of success you never thought possible. We’ll go through the definition and principles of the happiness advantage, and then we’ll explore a few daily practices you can adopt right now to get on the path towards a more joyful and accomplished life.
What is the happiness advantage according to Shawn Achor? A definition
“The Happiness Advantage” is a term in positive psychology which was coined by Harvard researcher Shawn Achor to describe the idea that happiness is a precursor to success and not merely the result of it. Achor argues that cultivating well-being through positive habits such as mindfulness, gratitude and social connection can prime the brain for achievement by allowing it to recognize opportunity more easily.
The premise of his book - as he explains in his TED talk - is that if we want to learn how to be the most successful, happiest versions of ourselves, we should study the outliers of humanity, rather than focusing on average behavior. He argues that the social sciences are so obsessed with the so-called “cult of the average” that they miss the signals that could point us in the right direction when it comes to creating better outcomes for individuals. In the author’s own words:
“You can eliminate depression without making someone happy. You can cure anxiety without teaching someone optimism. You can return someone to work without improving their job performance. If all you strive for is diminishing the bad, you’ll only attain the average, and you’ll miss out entirely on the opportunity to exceed the average. You can study gravity forever, without learning how to fly.” – Shawn Achor
This idea might be unconventional, but it has great merit.
To understand why, picture your friends and acquaintances: they all have a similar lifestyle, work a 9-to-5 job then eat takeout while watching Netflix until they fall asleep on the couch and then go do the same thing over again the next day. Genetic differences aside, they end up looking the same and complaining about the same things too. Their unremarkable outcomes shouldn’t surprise anybody: average behavior will lead to average results.
Even if there are no remarkable outliers in your immediate circle, the good news is that if you’re after uncommon levels of accomplishment, “The Happiness Advantage” has done the research to understand what the outliers are doing differently so that you can steal a page from their playbook and attain higher levels of success.
But why should you do that?
What Do You Stand to Gain If You Unlock the Happiness Advantage?
Aside from the obvious benefit of eliciting positive emotions, happiness has been shown to correlate with better physical health, increased workplace satisfaction and higher levels of achievement. It can strengthen your immune system, improve your sleep and even extend your lifespan. (If you’re curious, I’ve written more about the link between the health benefits of being happy in this post.)
So just force yourself to be happy - that’s the answer to everything! Not so fast.
To be clear, neither me, nor the author of the book are advocating for toxic positivity; we do not encourage you to ignore your problems by telling yourself that everything will be OK even if you never take action to improve your situation. That’s not what positive psychology is about; it’s about maintaining a positive enough outlook that you can hold the upper hand no matter what life throws at you.
This begs the question …
Why Does Happiness Give You an Edge?
Evolution has shaped our cognitive processes to prioritize negative experiences for the sake of our ancestors' survival. Simply put, we have a “negativity bias”, which means that we are wired to spot threats everywhere we look because by reacting quickly and efficiently to address them, early humans were better equipped to avoid predators, secure resources, and navigate social hierarchies.
(In case you were wondering, this phenomenon was first analyzed by Rozin & Royzman in their 2001 article entitled "Negativity Bias, Negativity Dominance, and Contagion", which was published in the Personality and Social Psychology Review.)
In the contemporary context, where many of the challenges faced by our ancestors have been mitigated or eliminated, this predisposition to focus on negative stimuli can lead to maladaptive behaviors and thought patterns, such as anxiety, rumination, and an exaggerated perception of risk.
This is where the happiness advantage comes from: since average brains are so used to only seeing the negative, they easily miss opportunities and solutions hiding in plain sight. This means that even the smallest inclination towards positivity and optimism can give you an edge over your peers.
This leaves us with one problem: what if we feel like we simply do not have the capacity for happiness, given our current circumstances and the general state of the world?
It's crucial to understand that our perspective on happiness can profoundly impact our ability to cultivate it. Or as Shawn Achor puts it, “Happiness is not a belief that we don’t need to change. It is the realization that we can.” Your brain simply does what it has been taught to do; that doesn’t mean you can’t retrain it to behave in the way you want it to. While getting rid of this negative programming is not as simple as hitting “factory reset” on an electronic device, there are several techniques you can adopt to make it easier.
It’s also worth clarifying the word ‘happiness’. I’ll let the author explain it in his own words:
"Perhaps the most accurate term for happiness, then, is the one Aristotle used: eudaimonia which translates not directly to “happiness”, but to “human flourishing”. This definition really resonates with me because it acknowledges that happiness is not all about yellow smiley faces and rainbows." – Shawn Achor
The 7 Principles of The Happiness Advantage
If you’re wondering 'How do you apply the happiness advantage?' the 7 principles provide a blueprint for doing just that. Let’s explore them in detail and uncover the practical steps needed to unlock greater success and fulfillment.
While all of these principles are valuable, if you’re short on time, I recommend jumping directly to the Zorro circle and the 20-second rule. Falling up is also not to be missed!
1. The Happiness Advantage
… no need to dwell on this one, as I’ve already explained it previously. Upwards and onwards!
2. The Fulcrum & the Lever
Achor borrows the terms fulcrum and lever from physics to explain how our habits and mindset impact our happiness. On one hand, the fulcrum represents the point on which a lever pivots, so it is a metaphor for our perspective on life. Just as adjusting the fulcrum can increase the movement range of the lever, our mindset can influence our perception of reality and our ability to find happiness in any situation.
On the other hand, the lever stands for the power we have to create lasting change in our lives. The longer the lever, the higher it can reach. In the context of happiness, our habits, behaviors and actions determine the length of our lever. By cultivating positive habits, we can extend our lever and change our existence for the better.
To live a more fulfilling life, make small daily improvements to your attitude to adjust your fulcrum and extend your lever.
3. The Tetris Effect
If you’ve spent enough time playing Tetris, you’ll empathize with people who find themselves looking for the familiar patterns in the real world, imagining how shapes would fit together. Achor calls this unconscious search “the Tetris effect” and uses it as a shorthand to describe the way our brains can become wired to recognize patterns and focus on specific aspects of our experiences, depending on what we consistently expose ourselves to or practice. This concept can have both positive and negative implications.
On the negative side, being constantly exposed to stress, negativity and criticism may cause us to see more of the same in all aspects of our lives and can prevent us from recognizing the good. We can, however, harness the Tetris effect to be happier and more successful by consciously training our brains to focus on the positive. This will increase the likelihood of recognizing opportunities when they arise, as well as our ability of finding the silver lining when faced with adversity.
4. Falling Up
The idea behind falling up is that failures and setbacks are inevitable in life, but how we respond to them makes all the difference. To lead more fulfilled lives, we should use adversity as an opportunity to learn and grow instead of getting discouraged. (The obstacle is the way, anyone?)
Falling up involves recognizing the setback, understanding why it is in our way, identifying the hidden opportunity to improve and taking action to make positive changes based on the lessons we have learned.
You may have heard about a similar idea from Carol Dweck. She calls it adopting a “growth mindset”: an attitude of continuous personal improvement and the belief that we can develop our abilities through hard work and practice, which has been linked with increased success and well-being.
5. The Zorro Circle
The Zorro Circle is a concept borrowed from the story of the masked hero, whose mentor helped him hone his skills by encouraging him to draw a small circle in the ground and instructing him to focus on his abilities within that circle before moving on to bigger challenges.
Achor encourages us to follow the example of Zorro and break the task at hand into more manageable pieces whenever we feel overwhelmed, then slowly proceed to expanding our area of control and influence. This allows us to build confidence in our abilities and helps our brains think clearly and creatively, which would be impossible in a state of overwhelm.
So next time you feel you’re out of your depth, remember to ask yourself what is the smallest thing you could do that would point you in the right direction.
6. The 20-Second Rule
Closely linked to the previous principle, in that it encourages us to focus on small, incremental improvements is the 20-second rule. Achor posits that if we want to create a good habit, we should aim to reduce the barriers to performing that action by 20 seconds. For example, if your goal is to go to the gym every morning, you could pack your gym bag the night before to reduce the friction the next day. The reverse applies to bad habits: if you want to stop doing something, increase the difficulty of engaging in the action by 20 seconds.
The 20-second rule relies on the fact that willpower is in finite supply, so removing any barriers between you and the desired outcome ensures that you have more mental strength left to actually pursue your goal, rather than wasting most of it getting yourself to start.
If you’re skeptical that 20 seconds can actually make a difference, I have the perfect example of how I’ve managed to harness this principle to get more sleep. I installed an automatic plug on my router that turns off at 22:30. Sure, I could get out of bed, plug it back in and keep scrolling instead of sleeping, but am I really going to do that?
7. Social Investment
The next principle might be more difficult to implement in times of trouble than the others, but its impact is enormous.
Research has shown a positive correlation between increased happiness, better physical and mental health and strong social connections, which is why Achor advocates for consistently investing in social relationships, especially during challenging times.
Social investment can take many forms, such as spending quality time with loved ones, actively listening and engaging in conversations, offering support and encouragement, or showing appreciation and gratitude towards others. A strong social network ultimately leads to increased resilience and greater happiness, so it’s definitely worth dragging yourself out of the house to meet your friends for a drink even if it’s the last thing you feel like doing on a bad day.
Those were the 7 principles of the happiness advantage. Kudos to you for getting this far!
If you’re still not convinced this works, just go back to the TED talk and look at Achor’s face. He’s glowing! And he is successful by every conceivable measure, so he must be doing something worth paying attention to.
Now let’s dive into even more practical tips for unlocking extraordinary levels of success and contentment.
5 Daily Habits to Pick Up to Make the Happiness Advantage Work for You
Here are 5 things you can incorporate into your daily routine to reap the benefits of the happiness advantage. They will strengthen your positivity muscle and help move your brain away from its natural negative bias.
Practice self-compassion when you don’t rise to the level of your ambitions and remind yourself that dwelling on negative emotions will hinder your goals even more than the current setback can.
Embrace failure as an opportunity to learn, by reminding yourself that failure is not a reflection of your character, but information about what works and what doesn’t to achieve a certain goal.
Practice gratitude by writing down 3 things that enrich your life which you shouldn’t take for granted.
Engage in small acts of kindness towards your fellow humans. Give a compliment to your coworker, smile to the cashier as they check out your groceries or pay it forward by buying a coffee for a stranger.
Expand your comfort zone gradually by trying out new things, sitting with difficult emotions longer than you’re used to or having a deeper than usual conversation with someone you know.
Embracing happiness might sound easy in principle, but did you know that most people suffer from an innate fear of success and satisfaction? I’ve explored this theme in the post about “The Big Leap” by Gay Hendricks, so be sure to check it out next. It might just be the advice you were missing which will help you get unstuck from the negative cycle of stress and anxiety.
For a curated list of quotes from “The Happiness Advantage”, click here.
If you're curious how Stoicism fares against positive thinking, check out this post.
