Do You Want a Path to Happiness? Here is the Most Important PowerPoint Slide You Will Ever See!

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Exercise, gratitude, happiness, journaling, meditation, positive psychology, random acts of kindness, Shawn Achor, the happiness advantage

 

To start, I must give credit where credit is due.  I didn’t create this slide.  The slide was created by Shawn Achor, who has a PhD from Harvard where he teaches positive psychology concepts.  He is also author of the book “The Happiness Advantage.”  His TED Talk: The Happy Secret to Better Work is one of the most entertaining and insightful talks I have ever seen.

While most of the bullet points on the slide are self-explanatory, I will give a brief description of each below.  They are, essentially, actions you should take to increase happiness.

• 3 Gratitudes – Write down every day three things you are grateful for.
• Journaling – Start a journal and write down on a regular basis your thoughts or feelings.
• Exercise – Get moving… Period!
• Meditation – Proven to decrease stress, this is a good one.  There are many helpful apps out there that provide guided meditation exercises, but this can be as simple as sitting and paying attention to your breaths for 5 to 15 minutes a day.
• Random Acts of Kindness – Look for ways to do kind things.  Preferably ,spur of the moment things.  If you have never bought coffee for the person behind you at the Starbucks drive though.  Try it sometme.  You will be shocked at how good you feel the rest of the day.

The best part about the 5 items above, there is actually research to back them up.  So these are not just ideas, they are proven steps for increasing happiness.  Try them out for a few days and leave a comment about your experience.

This could be the clear path to Smiling Big and Dreaming Bigger.

Top 3 Reasons You Shouldn’t Dream of Winning the PowerBall Lottery

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burden, dreams, financial, happiness, money, PowerBall

Don’t get me wrong, it would sure be nice to win the PowerBall.  I would be stupid if I said I don’t want to win.  That’s not really what we are talking about here.  I am talking about if you should actually dream to win it.

It may be bold to say, but here are my top 3 reasons you shouldn’t dream of winning the PowerBall lottery.

 

1.  Money won’t buy you happiness – It sounds like a cliche I know.  And having millions would definitely alleviate most financial burdens.  In particular, your concerns about paying your bills every month would disappear like a magicians coin. Perhaps, more specifically, the thought of how you might escape that dreadful office cubicle also disappears.  But there are plenty of happy people who are poor and miserable people who are rich.  Much of the research I have read talks about a minimum threshold for happiness so your basic needs are taken care of.  I have heard it can be as low as $40,000 a year and as high as $70,000.  After that, it’s more of your own personal circumstances and attitude based on factors unrelated to money.

2. Dreams are aspirations – Dreams are things you want to do or achieve based on passions you have.  Often times the best dreams happen when your passion, skill, and concept of helping others collide.  Winning a lottery takes no effort.  And when is the last time you heard somebody proclaim, “I am passionate about winning the lottery?”  Well if they did say it, I am sure their tongue would be pressing a ditch in their cheek.

3. Small money small problems, big money big problems – I can hear in your head what you are thinking when you read this.  “Those are the problems I would love to be faced with.”  I am not going to try and convince you that you wouldn’t want to win the lottery.  I will say, there are a host of huge problems that come with having money that you can’t even imagine.  Do you I know from experience??  Absolutely not!  Do I know others who have had these experiences??  Absolutely!  With money comes freedom but freedom with strings attached like a marionette.

So there you have it.  My top 3 reasons why you shouldn’t dream of winning the PowerBall lottery.  I guess that gets us down to one last question which is probably swirling around in your head.  Did I put my money where my mouth was?  Well…. sort of.  I have not dreamed of winning the lottery but I did put $2 into an office pool.  Why would I do that you ask? Because having fun talking with my co-workers about what we would do with all that money is worth $2.  It’s also funny to think what my company would do if they lost a whole team of workers on a single day.  That’s right, $2 worth of wonderful and giddy entertainment.  Maybe next time I will just put $2 to flame and watch it burn away.  Cause after all, that sounds fun too.  Until next post… Smile Big and Dream Bigger!  Not about winning the lottery though.