Dr Martin Seligman (photo), a clinical psychiatrist known as “The Doctor of Happiness”, with his breakthrough studies in the late 1990s helped us understand the source and the mechanism of human happiness.
After a huge amount of research, using correlation analysis upon the data from thousands of people whose behavior and impact have been observed for many years, he concluded that there are 3 undisputed, key elements of happiness! This means that a human being may have -or have not- any other element in his/her life (including health, youth, money, education, romance or companionship, status etc.) but without practicing and earning the following 3 elements he/she can never be happy!
The 3 ‘secrets’ of Drs Seligman’s Happiness are the following:
1) Pleasure in the moment: The ability to live in the present moment & take pleasure out of it, no matter the circumstances.
2) Engagement: The ability to be really engaged in whatever task or activity you do, no matter how important or trivial, to be really ‘lost in it’ like the way you are in the activities you really love.
3) Purpose: To find a life purpose and live by it.
The bad news is that so far most of the people were seeking happiness elsewhere, without taking account the above fundamentals.
The good news is that neuroscience proved that all the 3 ‘secrets’ are actually skills that can be learned with practice. Learn how to activate your Q-Mind and you learn how to be happy, if this is really one of your goals.
Exercise:
Right before you go to sleep write down the times within the day in which you implemented the ‘3 keys of happiness’ and rate the degree of successful implementation each time (from 1 to 5). Repeat the process for the next 3-4 days.
What is this process helping you become aware of ?
What is the ONE thing that you commit to change ?
