Past Newsletters

Can happiness be a habit? When we think of habits we usually think of the bad ones, like watching TV or smoking………… but what is a habit? Isn’t it just something that we do so repetitively we start doing it without thinking? And if this is true then why can’t we develop good habits? I know good habits are not a new thing but are we aware of it and can we make it work for us rather than against us.

I got thinking about this because, without being aware of it at the time, I developed a habit of being happy when I came to work. It all started when I realized as a boss and leader of a team of people in the workplace, how much my mood could effect the rest of the employees, how they performed and how they related to each other. As a result I decided that no matter what sort of morning I started with or how I was feeling that day, I would walk through that door and be happy AND SHOW IT when I got to work!!! The results where amazing, as it not only impacted on the staff for that day, it started to define the culture of the team. It was expected that your were happy and if you weren’t then you needed to do something about it like talk to someone or share with the team your are having a bad day rather than everyone just accepting it and bearing it on your own and brining everyone else down with it.

There were two things I didn’t expect to come from this when I started doing it. One was how much happier I felt by being …….. happier! I was in control most of the time (I accept we are not robots) of how I felt. I was choosing my attitude. The second was because I was doing it every day over the months and years (literally) I was doing it without even thinking about it. When I got out of my car to go through the doors at work and walk through the door I had a compulsion to say hello to everyone and ask them how they were and be energetic and happy, and I felt happy even if I had a crappy morning!! Powerful stuff!!

Then I began to think, if I can do it there, then why not at home or with my friends and with everything I do? And if I can make a habit of being happy so I “program” myself to do it without thinking, why does it have to be just happiness I am in the habit of doing? Why not exercise, walking around the block every day or anything you’ve always wanted to do?

The reason we mostly associate habits with bad things is because usually the bad ones are the one’s that develop without any effort. The good one’s are the one’s that take a bit of work to get started but once you have made that effort the benefits are yours.