How To Find Happiness
"To change one's life, start immediately, do it flamboyantly, no exceptions." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Happiness consists in activity. It is a running stream, not a stagnant pool." - John Mason Good
" When we 'follow our bliss', we not only enjoy the journey, we are also more successful." - Joseph Campbell
We seek happiness in all areas of our personal and working life. It's very important that you get proper education and/or training so you will give yourself a wide variety of choices. Otherwise, you can wind up having to take what's left. You would also give yourself the opportunity to make more money during your working life and in retirement. Financial stability can be a vital contributor to one's level of happiness.
This segment also addresses "Getting A Job", whether it's a recent college graduate searching for one or someone who is currently unemployed. Further suggestions are offered for how to hold on in the meantime. No general goes into battle alone. You shouldn't either
Follow your bliss...
The How of Happiness - Sonya Lybomirsky
A universal thread in mankind is that everyone seeks happiness.
Based on research, 50% of happiness is genetically determined. It is a "set point" that cannot be changed. 10% is determined by life circumstances: whether someone is healthy or unhealthy, rich or poor, beautiful or plain, married or divorced, etc. The remaining 40% is affected by our daily intentional activities. It is on this 40% that Dr. Lybormirsky says we need to focus our efforts. Although our set point can't be changed, it doesn't mean that the happiness level can't be changed. It can be dramatically changed by our behavior.
The Big Fallacy: "If only something about the circumstances of our lives would change, we would be happy." Life changes, such as getting married or winning the lottery, produce only transient changes in happiness levels. People ultimately return to their baseline level of happiness. This is due to "hedonic adaptation." Positive changes may make you happier for a while, but only for a short time. The same applies to negative things: deaths, blindness, paralysis. People generally show a great deal of adaptation. Some cannot, and will not, adapt to everything.
Happiness can be found in how you behave, what you think, and what goals you set every day of your life. There is no happiness without action. (Don't just sit around waiting for lightning to strike. It isn't going to.) The fountain of happiness is in what you do, what you think and what goals you set for yourself every day.
Happy people don't sit around being contented. They make things happen. They pursue new understandings, seek new achievements, and control their thoughts and feelings. Our intentional, effortful activities have a powerful effect on how happy we are.
Happiness Activities and Strategies
· Keep gratitude fresh by varying it and not over-practicing it
· Identify your long term goals and break them down into sub-goals
· Avoid Overthinking:
" Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered by your old nonsense." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
· To stop overthinking: distract, distract, distract
· Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize that they were the big things
· Transport yourself through positive reminiscence: "We will always have Paris."
· Luxuriate and indulge the senses: tastes, aromas, nature, the sun and the sea
· People who strive for something personally significant are far happier than those who don't have strong dreams. Find a happy person and you will find a project and goals. They provide us a sense of purpose and a feeling of control over our lives. Following your dreams is a critical ingredient of happiness.
· "There is one thing that gives radiance to everything. It is the idea of something around the corner."- G.K. Chesterton
Flow
· Accomplish something different, novel or worthwhile. Escalate goals and struggle to keep flow going.
· There is only so much attention to go around. How you invest it is critical. Be open to different experiences. Learn until the day you die.
· Transform routine tasks into microflow activities: draw cartoons, tap melodies to favorite songs, draw intricate designs, write with your opposite hand, compose limericks. etc.
Happy people make things happen. They pursue new understandings, seek new achievements, and control their thoughts and feelings, including positive dealing with stress. Effortful activities have a powerful effect on how happy we are.
The Hows Behind Sustainable Happiness
Benjamin Franklin: "Happiness consists more in small conveniences and pleasures that occur every day, than in the great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom."
· Knowing what to do is an important step, but you also need to know precisely how to do it
· People are more successful when counting their blessings every Sunday night than when they did it three days a week
· Alternate attention to different projects and change your routes for going places, or time of day, and the speed of your regular regimen
· Vary acts of kindness
Work and Happiness
In Happiness: Unlocking The Mysteries of Psychological Wealth, Ed Diener, a renowned positive psychologist, and his son Robert Biswas-Diener, provide some excellent thoughts on dealing with this important part of our happiness picture. People spend lots of time at work. It's only natural that it would be an important component in how happy we are.
" Find a job that is the right fit for you. This means work that is appropriately challenging, suited to your personality, meaningful, and interesting to you. Don't make the mistake of looking for income only, ignoring the match to your abilities. (I can still remember very well getting near the end of college, and joined by many of my fellow graduates, using the usual guide as to which job to accept - who's going to pay the most! With age and wisdom, people realize that the Dieners are right. Look for a job where you can do what you do best on a daily basis.)
It is better to work for a company that promotes happiness on the job. This means having a happy supervisor, decent compensation, clear expectations on the job, status, and respect. In both cases, having good work, and a good workplace, can enhance your sense of meaning and satisfaction...Challenge and motivation can be beneficial for enjoyable work...Aristotle defined happiness as, "activities in pursuit of excellence." (Excellence is something most people want to pursue. It is the employer's responsibility that it's made clear what is expected.)
Research also shows that positive feelings are related to a variety of desirable outcomes on the job. On average, happy workers make more money, receive more promotions and better supervisor ratings, and are the best citizens at work...Also, happy people have more energy and enthusiasm, and are more likely to work hard and confidently." And if you're an employer, by providing for a happier workplace, you're far more likely to have more productive workers.
What is your part in all this?:
1. It is critically important to ensure that you have the proper level of education/and or training to qualify for a more challenging occupation. The more of that you have, the more choices you get. Otherwise, you can wind up having to take what's left over. There is a clear correlation between having the proper educational and skill levels, having more choices, and making more money.
2. Be careful when selecting jobs. Try to find something more suitable, if possible, although when jobs are hard to find, that can become more difficult. I wrote an extensive article on getting a job that may be helpful to you. "Getting A Job" is found in Appendix B near the end of the topical list.
3. When you have a job that is not satisfying, try to find another job. Sometimes this may not be practical or possible for a variety of reasons. In that case both the Dieners, and The Dalai Lama in his The Art of Happiness at Work, suggest trying to change your own attitudes and behavior, which can sometimes be some, or all of the problem, and also to try to re-fashion or re-design your job to make it more acceptable. They, and others, suggest trying to turn "your job" into "a calling", so you can derive more value from it.
"Look for meaning in yourself, not your job"...Happiness comes from living the way you want to live, not from spending a lot of money." - Cashing in on The American Dream - Paul Terhorst
Important Factors in Happiness - The Huffington Post
This suggests some other practical steps we can take:
1. Health - (Good nutrition, exercise, 7-8 hours of rest per night)
2. Relationships
3. Pleasure
· Enjoying natural beauty
· Having someone doing something nice for you
· Practicing religion or spirituality
· Making progress on personal goal
· Being absorbed in a hobby or interest
4. Accomplishment - (Accomplishing things that are meaningful to you, not to someone else.)
5. Meaning and Engagement
6. Money - Beyond $75,000, psychologist Daniel Kahneman says that there are no increases in happiness. Buying experiences makes people happier than buying things.
7. Pets - (Pets are nice and fluffy, and can be excellent companions, but it takes a long term commitment.)
8. A Sense of Control Over Happiness -The feeling that your actions are self-chosen and self-endorsed (You had a choice about what you are doing and it's something you want to be doing.)
This is where your education and training come in. The more of it you have, the more choices you get to make. When you neglect education and training, you can wind up with what's left - and you probably won't like it very much, but might get stuck doing it anyway, and find it difficult to do anything about it later. If you are younger, discuss this with older people. They can offer valuable insights to help you. Many times they won't want you to make some of the mistakes and misjudgments they made. Dr. Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness says that your experience isn't so unique that you can't get a good idea of what's ahead by asking others who are already there, or who have been there.
Krishnamurti
This wise Indian philosopher offers advice on proper thinking and finding peace:
- Have no cravings for anything.
- The primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another.
- If you try to study yourself through another you will always remain a secondhand human being. Don't imitate.
- Meet the fresh day, as if it were your only day.
- Be free from the past completely. Focus on the present. Give your whole attention to it. Open the door with daily awareness and attention to how we speak, what we say, how we walk, what we think. It's like cleaning a room and keeping it in order. Don't oppose, agree, justify, condemn, compare or judge. Just keep the window open for a fresh breeze.
- A mind that is not crippled by memory has real freedom. (Famed actress Greta Garbo said; "The secret to happiness is a bad memory.")
- What will bring peace is inward transformation which will lead to outward action. Inward transformation is not isolation, and is not a withdrawal from outward action. On the contrary, there can be right action only when there is right thinking, and there is no right thinking when there is no self-knowledge. Without knowing yourself, there is no peace.
- We have separated ideas from action because ideas are always of the past, and action is always the present.
- When you are in a state of complete attention, the "me" comes to an end and thought begins to wither away. If you want to see something very clearly, your mind must be very quiet.
The Dalai Lama's Little Book of Inner Peace
Mind is the creator of our world in every moment.
Rely only on yourself.
The enemy is: ignorance, anger, attachment, and pride.
The six perfections:
- Generosity
- Discipline
- Patience
- Effort
- Meditative Concentration
- Wisdom
Whatever makes you feel worthless is wrong. You are deceiving yourself. We all have the power of thought, so what could be lacking? If you have willpower, you can do anything.
Compassion is the basis and supreme support of humankind.
Anyone who feels overwhelmed has no power over reality. Knowing how to accept the blows dealt by fate means never giving up.
Act well and things will go well. Act wrong and things will go wrong.
It is more useful to be aware of a single weakness in oneself than a thousand weaknesses in someone else.
Anger is a sign of weakness.
The tyrants that dominate us and bind us to them at the same time are desire and hatred.
There is an enormous difference between the way things are and the way they are in reality.
Excessive desire is not only impossible to satisfy, it?s also the source of torment.
It?s best not to be possessive about your belongings.
Meditation is like finding yourself beyond your thoughts and resting there.
If a situation cannot be changed, there is no sense worrying about. If it can be changed, there is no sense in worrying about it either, we should simply go about changing it.
Tell yourself, ?I am doing this work with the intention of helping others.?
Nothing that we think of as real is actually permanent.
Our present happiness, or our present unhappiness, is nothing other than the result of past actions.
Gratitude - Oliver Sacks
Many positive psychologists and happiness writers have identified both gratitude and extending kindness as important elements to finding happiness. As incongruous as it might seem, this suggests that to be happier, we need to get outside of ourselves and ego-driven behaviors and focus on the good that we have in our lives already and work on things that are greater than ourselves.
Dr. Oliver Sacks spent almost fifty years working as a neurologist and wrote many books. The New York Times referred to him as " the poet laureate of medicine." In his pithy book Gratitude, he shares four essays he wrote in the final stages of his life when he succumbed to cancer at eighty-eight. He said he was grateful for what he had been given by others and also grateful that he had been able to give something back.
He said he was sorry that he had wasted so much time in his life. I've certainly have many regrets for that too. We can't do much about "spilt milk", but we can learn from it and try to be better time managers by not wasting as much time in the future. How well are you using your time? Even the ability to use 25% more of it well could help us get closer to our goals faster.
There's no age limit for this. Dr. Sacks mentioned his father, who lived to be ninety-four. He said that his eighties had been one of the most enjoyable decades of his life. He felt "not a shrinking of life, but an enlargement of mental perspective". It's useful to ask why, so we can bring that kind of energy to our lives far earlier and reach our current and future goals sooner.
Sacks said that, as he was facing death, he couldn't pretend that he was without fear. But his predominant feeling was one of gratitude: "I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and have given something in return. I have traveled and written. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful plant, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure." Does this describe some of the things in your life? Or perhaps other things that you can look back on with pleasure and satisfaction? It's worth thinking about to help us find increased happiness and contentment now, that he found at the end of his very productive life.
Some of What I'm Grateful For - Lawrence J. Danks
Oliver Sacks was a highly honored neurologist and writer. He wrote Gratitude after learning he had terminal cancer. It's a small book with some powerful thoughts. I've been a reader of positive psychology, the study of happiness and related concepts, for a number of years. One consistent theme is that one of the pivotal elements of happiness is gratitude. As Dr. Sacks noted, he had "gratitude for what had been given by others, gratitude too that he had been able to give something back." (In his superior book, The Happiness Curve, Jonthan Rauch noted the excellent thought of another: we should always compare down, not up.)
Dr. Sack's book made me think about all I have to be grateful for, similar to probably some of the things you're grateful for too: grateful for my wife, for my first wife and our children, for my caring partners, my parents, for my caring, health care chaplain sister, for grandparents, aunts and uncles and the Dominican nuns I had throughout my first twelve years of school, the many good priests I've known, including those who were my next door neighbors when I was growing up, and at Gloucester Catholic. I'm grateful for the very dear friends I've had, some of whom have sadly gone ahead. For all of them, I like to think of the line that says that, "You're never really dead as long as someone is alive who still remembers you." Whatever I've become, I surely stand on the shoulders of all these good people, especially my friends of sixty years, Tom Heim and Tom Worrell, who have always been there for me.
Winston Churchill said that, "All of a man's fortune is wrapped up in seemingly insignificant events." It's only in retrospect that we can see how what seemed to be next to nothing at the time has really made a lot of difference down the road. What have turning points like that been for you? What are you grateful for?
For me, going to Gloucester Catholic High School is an always fondly remembered part of my life. As my now octogenarian friend and funeral director Jack Marinella told me when he was in his twenties and I was getting ready to go into high school, "Lar, high school is the best four years of your life." It was a superior four years and virtually all the close friends I have today, are wonderful friends that I still have the good fortune to see several times a year.
I'm grateful for the lateTom Goldschmidt, my high school English teacher and for the late Robert Eksterowicz, an English professor at Seton Hall, who both helped me write better. I never dreamed that I would have written well over a million words by now, all typed with two fingers. (Yes, I should have taken typing in high school, but didn't. One of many omissions I wish I hadn't made.)
I'm grateful for the late Dick Haven, Don Haven and the late Mel Funk, my real estate teachers, who unknowingly prepared me to later teach over 5000 real estate students in my state approved real estate school. I'm grateful I was able to teach them and to help some of them build a career and earn income for their families.
I had a gravitation toward college teaching and was an adjunct instructor at five different colleges. That eventually led me to full time teaching at Atlantic Community College. In an unexpected turn of events, an advertising instructor at Atlantic sadly passed away and they needed someone in short order who could teach advertising. I could teach real estate too, so that helped me to get the position. Then an opportunity was available at Stockton State College. Not only was I able to teach business administration subjects there, but they had a General Studies Program where each faculty member had to offer a course outside her/his field. Having been a student of the American Presidency, I taught a course in the Presidency there for nine semesters. A unique opportunity I was grateful for.
I applied to Camden County College and was one of two finalists for the position, but I didn't get the job. I was very disappointed at the time and even though I was told that there would be other openings the following semester, I said that I thought I wouldn't apply. Very fortunately for me, I was encouraged to do so by our late former Dean of Business John TenBrooke. Based upon his encouragement, I applied again and have been at Camden County College for the past 28 years. I'll always be grateful for his encouragement, and to Professors Maria Aria and Ray Zumoff who recommended me, and to Mike Donahue and Bill Wilhelm who hired me. All of them made wonderful contributions to the College. John's seemingly small act of encouragement made a major difference in my life.
Dr. Sacks expressed a thought about himself that I've had too: "I am sorry to have wasted - and still waste- so much time...I am sorry that I speak no other languages but my mother tongue (with my love of France, I dearly wish I had learned French instead of Latin and German, but then again, who knew?), and that I have not traveled or experienced other cultures as widely as I should have done. I'm truly grateful for the traveling I've done, especially to France and Canada. My father was right: "Traveling is the best education."
I feel I should be trying to complete my life, whatever 'completing a life' means. How do you intend to complete yours? In the meantime, I'm going to try to be grateful for it all and to try focusing on the doughnut and not the hole!
A Dying Reporter Says What Really Matters in Life
"Journalist With Brain Cancer Thanks Those Who Made Her Life Rich and Beautiful" in Final Column
JOI-MARIE MCKENZIE, Good Morning America
"What does it mean when the rest of your life may be measured in weeks?" That's the start of Alison Piepmeier's last column for the Charleston City Paper.
Piepmeier has been battling a brain tumor for seven years, but last month she wrote that her tumor had gotten progressively bigger and she no longer had treatment options. She's currently in hospice care.
But Piepmeier's cancer hasn't stopped her from doing what she loves: writing.
Piepmeier continues to file stories using voice recognition software and help from her mother and husband of two months, Brian McGee.
Piepmeier told ABC News via email that she really wanted to write one last column.
"This column was especially hard to write," she explained. "I've spent years writing about cancer, but also about children, disability, abortion, Down syndrome, homophobia, and other challenging topics. I wanted to finish by writing about things that always matter, but especially those things that matter at the end: love, family, friendship, gratitude, and forgiveness."
"As I feel myself slipping away," she added, "I wanted to say goodbye while I still could."
And Piepmeier, 43, did. She not only mentioned the "many acts of kindness" from family and friends, but also noted "brothers, parents, friends, teachers, students, co-workers, lovers, and readers" and even her editor, Chris Haire. In her goodbye, she also wrote about her daughter Maybelle's "first princess party."
"I am happy, so happy, to have experienced a princess party," she wrote. "I am so sorry there won't be more of them for me, if only because I would never turn down the chance to experience the pure joy of my daughter singing 'Let It Go' over and over."
Even in her final weeks, Piepmeier said she is still looking forward to many of life's joys.
"For the time I have left, I want to be with people I love and who love me," she said. "Because I have so little time left, unfortunately there are more people to see than I can realistically manage. I am sad -- tears are an everyday experience -- but I love being with people who have cared so much for me, who have made my life rich, beautiful, and rewarding."
She added: "I don't presume to know what a next life would be like. I don't even know what to imagine. In a next life, I hope I would be in a place where people would need me, where there is something meaningful to do. A next life without work, without purpose, would be disappointing."
When asked what her legacy might be, Piepmeier replied quite honestly, "Other people get to decide our legacy."
Still, she said she hopes her legacy will live on through her students "at the College of Charleston and at Vanderbilt."
"At the center of my heart, though, are my friends and my family. What I have left them is what matters most to me," she concluded.
Happiness Studies - Business and the Munich School of Business
Some further evidence why organizations should be thinking more about incorporating happiness and success studies into their development programs. Anyone, or any business or organization, is welcome to use the Happiness and Success online course resources for its own purposes. What does The Munich Business School know that some here might not know yet? See below:
What Do Students Learn in a "Happiness Course" at a Business School?
Prof. Dr. Christian Schmidkonz March 18, 2016
These months, the "Success Factor Happiness" course is held already for the third time as part of the Master International Business study program at Munich Business School. A Happiness course at a business school? Many may wonder about the interrelationship and the principal assignment of happiness to a business context. The course includes broad knowledge from the highly interdisciplinary research on happiness and is mainly inspired by the "Mindful Business" or also "Conscious Business" movement in the USA (and particularly in California).
Happiness and Well-being ? a "future technologie"?
Progressively, happiness and well-being are seen as the most important impulse for the next long-term economic cycle after the age of the Internet (the so-called sixth Kondratieff). In addition to bringing forth an increasing range of products and services in this area, the topic of happiness is gradually also gaining more attention and awareness in German companies.
SAP, for example, employs a "Director of Mindfulness", the credit institute Sparda Bank in Munich has internally and externally made commitments to common welfare and the employees of BMW Motorcycles compiled their own code of values around the matters of joy. In contrast hereto, the world of strictly hierarchical companies managed in an authoritarian manner is breaking down: not only VW and Deutsche Bank have clearly lost their attractiveness as employers for young MBS graduates.
The aspects of happiness
In five topical blocks, the Happiness course teaches students the most important findings of recent and traditional happiness research and their application in business:
Philosophy of happiness: Instructed and tutored by MBS lecturer Dr. Florian Langenscheidt, students are familiarized with the basic insights of various philosophers from different epochs and cultures. After all, the issue of happiness in life is probably the question that science has discussed for the longest ever ranging from Aristotle and Seneca to John Stuart Mill, Laozi , Confucius and others.
Psychology of happiness: In this part of the course, tutored and instructed by André Daiyû Steiner, students are familiarized with happiness-related psychological basics. Latest findings from neuroscience, as for example neuroplasticity, i.e. the targeted and deliberate change of the (physical) brain by corresponding exercises, are treated before the background of happiness. As ZEN teacher, André Daiyû Steiner introduces basic mindfulness exercises as practical exercises which can help many students to gain new insights about themselves.
Happiness at work: In a first part, students learn how to find a job that might make them happier than any randomly chosen other job. The meaning of ?Passion and Purpose? plays an important role here. The second part puts forth the basic features of mindful company management and company culture that goes with it. These new approaches also pay financially. Various studies have already shown that mindfully managed companies achieve an above-average increase of stock market value.
Marketing, branding and happiness: An increasing number of brands uses the findings of happiness research for marketing their products and services. By numerous case studies, the students learn to determine and analyze these mechanisms. This usually leads to very controversial discussions about exploiting the happiness factors for ultimately keeping up the hedonistic treadmill in which most consumers in Germany are stuck. However, the block will also address the potential societal benefits of the corresponding elements of happiness research in marketing.
Happiness economics: It is obsolete to measure an economy?s success by the growth rate of the gross national product. At the World Economic Forum in Davos this year, the discussion of alternative indicators was one of the central topics. With its method for measuring the gross national happiness (GNH), the small kingdom of Bhutan in the Himalayas belongs to the pioneers of more holistic measuring parameters that also take the population?s well-being into consideration (the results of the surveys, conducted at the highest professional standards, are regularly published on www.grossnationalhappiness.com). The teaching compares various index figures and analyses their contributing components.
Learning and self-experience included
In the "Success Factor Happiness" course, students not only learn new content; by numerous exercises, they also gain new insights about themselves. In a self-reflecting essay at semester?s end, the experiences from the course are compiled and re-processed and may even cause some of the participants to critically scrutinize their original goals.
More and more of MBS students seize the opportunity to delve deeper into some aspects of the subject in their Master thesis. And if, after graduation, the participants of the course will still remember the basic findings of the course and will then make a productive contribution to society, the ultimate goal of this innovative course will have been reached.
Adding a "Happiness Manager" to Your Organization
We spend a significant part of our lives at work. Management is naturally concerned about maximizing productivity and motivating it. Having a "Happiness Officer" recognizes that having a happier and more contented work force is likely to produce improved organizational results. While this movement started in the Silicon Valley, it has been a slow adaptation here in the States. In France, Denmark, Germany and other parts of Europe, it is a well-accepted concept. The following article from "Le Parisian Etudiant" (The Paris Student) is meant provides a primer for French students seeking "Happiness Manager" positions. It similarly serves as a primer for us. Think in terms of bringing such a position, education and innovation into your own organization.
Responsible for Happiness
Born in Silicon Valley, the function of "chief happiness officer" emulates in France. Objective: to help employees get to work with a smile ... and keep it. Responsible for happiness, here is a funny job that tends to develop within the French companies that start from the principle that an employee who feels good at work is twice as effective.
How to become responsible for happiness? Find here the missions, training required, remuneration of this profession.
Mission of the profession: Responsible for happiness
Head of happiness, Chief Happiness Officer (CHO), director or director of happiness , responsible for happiness ... The superlatives to qualify this new profession are not lacking. If you also want to contribute to the well-being of your office colleagues, here are the tasks you will have to perform at your workplace:
- create a good working environment,
- identify the problems faced by employees,
- find appropriate solutions,
- organize breakfasts, lunches, aperitifs or evenings offered by the company,
- offer in-house relaxation activities: yoga, karaoke, sophrology, massage sessions ...,
- welcome new employees and ensure their integration,
- pay particular attention to certain individual issues,
- organize and plan internal communication,
- ensure the maintenance and user-friendliness of workspaces,
- establish a culture of serene and positive work,
- fostering better relationships between employees,
- create links between employees,
- intervene on strategic elements of the company: introduction of new digital tools, working hours, teleworking, individual interviews, training ...,
- offer specific services to staff: subscription to a gym, concierge ...
The title of this new profession, which is found mostly in start-ups and digital companies, can be smiling or even sarcastic. Not surprisingly, its "champagne and glitter" aspect is often put forward: in some companies, the function is limited to the organization of moments of conviviality and celebration . But in others, the attributions of the "CHO" are wider. "I prefer to define myself as responsible for quality of life and health at work," confides Florent Voisin, of the web host OVH. "Conviviality is important to feel part of a collective, but far from being enough to be happy at work. "
More and more companies care about the happiness of their employees
Head of Happiness, Chief Happiness Officer (CHO), Director of Happiness, Craftsman of Happiness at Work, Quality of Life and Occupational Health
Becoming Responsible for Happiness: Qualities
Halfway between the profession of event creator and mediator, the person in charge of happiness within a company must be creative, dynamic and listening to others. If you want to embark on the adventure, you will need to sharpen your sense of observation and analysis to accurately detect the needs of employees. Organizing events must be your second nature. For that, you must necessarily have a solid spirit of organization and a rigor at all times. The event is not easy, no matter how big you organize. There are many unexpected events and you will have to anticipate and react quickly to find solutions. In order to contribute to the well-being of the people around you, you must be well on your side. Enthusiasm and good humor characterize you perfectly? In this case, you may be made to practice this growing profession. If, in addition, you have a keen sense of humor, you have the qualities required to become chief happiness officer.
Responsible for happiness: career / possibility of evolution:
Many of those responsible for happiness come from the communication or human resources sector. This position has been created to respond to the new needs of employees in the face of the profound changes that companies have undergone in recent decades, notably with the globalization of the IT tool and the liberalization of trade. Far from being merely a gadget, the job of responsible for happiness presents a real stake within the companies since it aims to improve, by rebound, the productivity of the employees.
By creating a good working atmosphere , the chief happiness officer helps to retain the most talented employees of a company for longer. This allows employers to realize, among other things, savings on the recruitment and training process. It is also said that a happy employee is much less often sick than an employee who drags his feet to come and work every morning.
Becoming responsible for happiness: training needed
The job of responsible for happiness is part of these new jobs straight from Silicon Valley. As such, it does not yet have any formal training even if we see appearing some private training here and there. The professionalisation of this profession will obviously depend on its ability to leave the confidential status in which it is currently located. Today, only the candidate's intrinsic qualities that can potentially inspire well-being are used as a curriculum vitae. Nevertheless, employers often look for people who have previously worked in the areas of communication, events or human resources. Among the profiles most often sought are:
sales manager, communication Manager, communication director, Human Resources Director, project manager, event planner
Situation of the job / context to become responsible for happiness
Quality of life at work is an increasingly important issue in French companies. The job of being in charge of happiness thus responds to a need that never ceases to develop, thus suggesting a good prospect for the future for this new profession whose contours are still ill-drawn. If companies specialized in high-tech and digital appear to have already integrated the profession of responsible for happiness with their organizational chart, their approach is still minority. The future of the chief happiness officer will therefore depend on the willingness of all French companies to want to move in this direction by offering their employees services to improve their well-being at work.
