Well-being is not just a matter of luck: it can also, to some extent, be an attitude. If we can find ways to be open, friendly, giving, optimistic, and calm, we may tap into a mood that makes success more achievable.
Success, according to one convincing perspective on the subject, is not a finishing line we cross, but a way of living. We cannot usefully separate success from the rest of our lives, as it connects in complex ways with our happiness, our self-image, and the people we care about. In fact, it’s healthy to treat success as a process, so that we’re not so much reaching a pinnacle as walking a path. When working on our ambitions, it’s good to think of our lives as a whole. Focusing on our well-being, as well as on our individual goals, can enlarge us as individuals and make success both more meaningful to us and more reachable.
Which comes first?
Successes make us happy, we might think, but the research suggests that in fact happiness tends to precede success. In one study, American psychologists Julia K. Boehm and Sonja Lyubomirsky found that people who regularly experienced positive emotions—the “P” in positive psychology’s PERMA scheme of well-being—were more likely to do well in life. These emotions didn’t have to be dramatic: in fact, the best predictor of happiness was low-level but regular experiences of positive feeling. For these people, happiness, either by nature or by cultivated mental practice, was a habit. The result? They met with more success. People assessed as happy were found to be more likely to earn bigger salaries a few years after the assessement. Their careers were demonstrated to be measurably more successful, as the following indicators suggest:
- If interviewed, they were more likely to get a callback
- They were less likely to lose their jobs or become unemployed
- If they did find themselves out of work, they were more likely to find another job
- Their colleagues were more supportive toward them.
The reason for their success was, basically, that happiness made these people engage in success-attracting behaviors. They had more energy and were friendlier. They cooperated better with others and were less confrontational. Their problem-solving was more creative, and they set themselves higher goals, persisted longer, and were more optimistic. Happiness naturally inclines us to behave in ways that make other people more willing to work with us and that improve our own performance. Taking care of well-being is, in fact, one of the soundest investments for your future that you’re likely to be able to make.
steps to well-being
According to American psychologists Lisa Mainiero and Sherry Sullivan, as we develop we go through specific stages. How we handle each stage impacts our well-being and what we deem to be important.
- Challenge—the key factor at the beginning of our career
- Balance—our priority in midlife
- Authenticity—the driving force in our late career
Lifelong well-being
What’s the basis for long-term well-being? It’s partly what American psychologists Sonja Lyubomirsky and Kennon M. Sheldon call our “chronic happiness” capacity. This is created by a mix of factors:
- Our genetically determined setpoint, which may be relatively happy or relatively sad
- Our life circumstances
- The activities we engage in.
While we may not be able to do much about our genes, the pursuit of success is very much about changing our circumstances and activities for the better. As we do this, it’s wise to remember that well-being is a lifelong project. When planning our success, we can help ourselves by building the resources that we anticipate may satisfy our future needs. You can’t anticipate everything, of course, but if you treat success as a lifelong process, you can look beyond narrow forms of achievement and truly experience a successful and fulfilling life.
Why happier people are more effective
American psychologists Julia K. Boehm and Sonja Lyubomirsky, in an article entitled “The Promise of Sustainable Happiness,” have summarized some of the reasons why happy people tend to be more effective in pursuit of their goals. Below are four chains of cause and effect based on these findings, showing how happiness tends to lead to enhanced effectiveness. Unhappy people, conversely, follow negative chains, leading to diminished effectiveness.
