Are you happy in your business or career?
Doing what you were meant to do and love, can stimulate a state of being where you can be in the moment. You can experience “flow” when you are so focused on what you are doing that everything in the background just fades away and time flies by.
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi calls "flow" complete absorption in a task. Entrepreneurs must craft a workload that's challenging but not too tough. Its demands should fully use an entrepreneur's abilities, the same way endurance athletes train just at their physical limit. "In the athletic domain, everyone can see it," she says. Psychologically, too, "self-regulation is a muscle you can train over time." She assigns her clients a small, daily exercise challenge each week, based on research that says if you accustom your body to pushing just past its comfort zone toward ever-retreating goals, "you can do the exact same thing in your company". Push past your comfort zone and achieve goals once thought to be out of reach.
Coaches specializing in positive psychology are selling entrepreneurs a twofold promise. One is that optimism and cheerfulness have a measurable effect on the bottom line. The other is that happiness is a muscle you can strengthen. Also, having clear vision will enhance your current lifestyle and career. If you haven’t already, discover your true values, and character strengths. Spend time in the development of those strengths and be true to your values. Know yourself by looking into your own heart. (Find character strength test at authetichappiness.org)
In 2004, Aliota, the owner of Carolina Seal, an 11 employee company, learned that a competitor had pounced on one of his key segments. Worse, the rival had hooked a customer that had eluded Aliota. Rather than hole up in anger or fume, he followed a central tenet of positive psychology: capitalize on your fundamental character strengths, especially when things get bleak. Aliota's strengths included extroversion, optimism, and generosity. He had in the past referred business to his rival and toured its plant. Now he concentrated on cementing the relationship. Not long after, he got a call from his competitor asking for a special part. Four years later, he and the onetime rival were as closely allied as you can get without a legal alliance. "We're capable of thinking in more positive ways, but we need help to learn how," Aliota says. The fact that we have posted three years of double-digit growth is a lot due to the awareness we've gained."
Aliota begins and ends meetings with praise rather than criticism. And he has changed how he frames his mission. "We're a personal- and career-development company," he says. "It turns out the by-product...” Aliota at Carolina Seal says happiness science has led him to make lasting changes. For one, he regularly recalls and dissects his moments of entrepreneurial triumph, "times when I was truly in the zone, utilizing my natural strengths and having fun" as a sort of happiness fuel. One such moment came during a visit by representatives of a maker of giant water purification systems. Escorting the visitors on a tour of his newly renovated industrial facility, he introduced the whole staff by name. He shared the story of building the business up from two plastic shelves in his garage. He queried his prospects about their needs. During lunch, they connected over family and community matters. When Aliota and his prospects shook hands in the parking lot, the guests said they were ready to sign a deal-during a break.
Hundreds of happiness-and-business researchers have taken on assignments at companies like Toyota Motor, Ann Taylor Stores, Castrol Marine, and Standard Chartered Bank. But a few are taking the discipline to entrepreneurs. Their argument is simple. A decade of research suggests that happiness at work, defined as pleasure, engagement, and a sense of meaning, can improve revenue, profitability, staff retention, customer loyalty, and workplace safety. Many of the studies are preliminary. They aren't cross-cultural or long-term but they strongly suggest that positive emotion increases creativity, problem-solving, and aids in fighting stress.
Aliota's coach, David J. Pollay, ran a daylong seminar to get CargoWise's top U.S. employees to appreciate their individual strengths and find common purpose. The boost to morale was palpable. Cargo Wise brought Pollay back the next year to train the rest of the North American team. Now he's using the same techniques at HarneTech, his new green-building certification company.
Criticisms of Positive Psychology:
1. Harvard University's Jerome Kagan, who has studied temperament for 50 years, cautions that the psychology and biology of happiness are little understood and vary dramatically across time, cultures, and individuals. "A suicide bomber who's really committed to the cause feels very happy the moment before he blows himself up," Kagan says.
2. Causality: Does being cooperative, engaged, and generous make an entrepreneur happy, or are naturally happy people just more cooperative, engaged, and generous?
3. People's general baseline temperament, or set point, is between 50% and 80% inherited, making it very difficult to change.
But:
1- This much seems certain: People can take control of certain actions that will make them happier for a time, such as setting appropriate goals. They can add gratitude, hope, and a dose of self-control to each working day. And it's clear that happy bosses perform measurably better, building productive teams and inspiring loyalty. Thirty years of Gallup surveys have found that the most successful companies are ones whose employees believe they get to do what they do best every day.
2- Melanie Morlan, owner of FirstBreathe.com wanted to re-enter the workforce by building a larger consulting practice than she'd once had, offering nutrition counselling, coaching in weight loss and stress reduction, and building a Web site and blog. But she couldn't get started. "I'd get scared and set up roadblocks," she says, “telling myself I’d never succeed and ignoring my to-do list. She eventually called on Senia Maymin, a coach and, like Pollay, a graduate of Seligman's program. *See end of report”.
3- Barbara L. Fredrickson, a psychology professor at University of North Carolina, is studying the flip side of the adrenaline-fuelled fight-or-flight response, the happy chemical fuelled "broaden-and-build" state of mind. At work, that same reaction should make staffers more resilient in crises and more likely to be receptive to new ideas, while deepening collegial relationships and mutual respect. Despite the heavy theory involved, building stronger ties with those you work with can be as simple as offering abundant praise and recognition when appropriate; giving staff tailor-made rewards for performance; and letting them be themselves-maybe in the way they mark special occasions, maybe in the way they decorate their workspace
4- If all this sounds too fuzzy for you, just speak with Juan Humberto Young, the founder of seven-person consulting firm Positive Decision Analysis, in Zürich Young recognizes the importance of statistics. Every one of his clients measures his or her progress against customized metrics. An eight-store retail chain tracked its revenues-up 10% after three months. A bank watched its deposits rise 20%. And a hospital, long plagued by interpersonal conflicts, slow response times, and a backlog in the emergency room, saw the number of operations completed rise 8%. Young ties some of his firm's compensation to these results.
What percentage of your time do you spend on personal growth?
Do you believe that business success is largely determined by personal growth?
My suggestion to you is to continually seek help to develop your personal skills and abilities, whether it’s workshops, seminars, or individual counselling or coaching. You need to set both short and long term goals. Work out a step by step process. Stick to a reasonable schedule having a clear picture in your mind, and/or on your wall, of what you want to achieve. What you think about will create your future.
One thing that is extremely important in this process is accountability. You can get this from a friend, relative or teammate. Better still, hire a coach, who will not only keep you accountable, but will also keep you motivated and help get you over those roadblocks in your mind that may be holding you back from reaching those visionary goals.
A positive psychology coach can determine if you are ready to change and what stage you are at. There are six stages of change. The first two require awareness and readiness. The next two are preparation and action, while the last two are maintenance and termination. All stages are important, but we are not ready to begin until we reach the preparation stage. We also tend to spiral towards success; we do not go in a straight line. That means we may go from one stage to the next and then go back before going forward again. A coach will help you to understand what’s happening and get you back on track, before you give up!
Martin Seligman’s book, “Authentic Happiness” was taught in my Life Coaching Training.
Beverly Wallin, BA Honours Psychology, MA Counselling Psychology, Life Coach Grad.
Seligman’s Six Stages of Change
1. Are you in the first stage, the pre-contemplation stage? Are you in denial of a problem that is obvious to others? Almost everyone has one or more behaviours that they are unaware. Some of us may be aware of the behaviour, but chose to stay the same. We can change if given the right tools, when we have made a choice to change.
2. The second step is contemplation. A typical comment at this stage would be: “I want to stop feeling so stuck”. We either need more information or are not ready to make a change, for fear of failure, or for some other reason. Bottom line, we are not ready to change. Our problem may even get worse before it gets better. This explains why some recent research showed that making positive affirmations caused people with low self esteem to feel even worse. At this stage people just don’t believe in themselves yet and can’t get themselves unstuck without help.
3. The third step is preparation, and it’s vital to the success of making a change that is long-lasting and even permanent. From making a decision to change, to actually setting specific goals is a big leap. A lot of emotional arousal, self-re-evaluation and learning will take place. The biggest process is to commit to working on these goals. This commitment must continue until the behaviour has become a part of our lifestyle. Not only must we be willing to act, but also to believe in our ability to change. All of these processes will bring us closer to the next step, which is taking action.
4. The Action State includes:
a. Taking baby steps toward our goals. If we go too fast we won’t be able to keep up the pace. Going too fast sets us up for failure.
b. Constant reward for reaching even a small goal is so important.
c. Countering is doing something different to substitute for the problem behaviour. Going for a walk or to the gym, for example, could replace watching television.
d. Environment Control is the restructuring of your associations and places you like to go. You need to change the environment around yourself so that you don’t have to rely on willpower alone. Keep temptations out of sight and out of reach.
e. Lastly, supportive relationships are crucial to avoid relapse. You need to tell the important people in your life about your goal(s) during the contemplation stage.
5. The Maintenance Stage requires all the work that has been done in the previous stages to keep you in place. You need to watch out for danger signs like social pressure from your friends. There may be internal challenges from overconfidence or wrong thinking. Or special circumstances may arise to cause intense temptation.
6. Termination is finally reached when there is no temptation to return to your old behaviour in any situation. You have a new self-image, new confidence in yourself, and a new lifestyle, which includes all parts of your life, not just a change in one or two particular behaviours. At this stage you still have to watch out for those red flags that could drag you back. Relapse can occur in any stage.
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