Want to be happy? Ask anyone, and their reply will be “Yes”
All of us want to be happy, the question is, how do we go about becoming happy? Research says that indulging in positive or joyful experiences help us in enhancing our happiness.
If that is so, let us look at how our actions, intentions, achievements and behaviours help us in becoming happier people.
Seligman et al. (2005) in their paper Positive Psychology Progress: Empirical Validation of Interventions, explore several happiness interventions and point out that using top signature strengths in new and different ways every day for one week, had an enduring impact on people’s happiness.
Let us explore how to use our virtues and strengths to help us move to happier levels. Just to make it easier to understand, there are 6 classes of virtues. These virtues together are made up of 24 character strengths that are given below:
- Wisdom and Knowledge (Creativity, Curiosity, Open-mindedness, Love of Learning, Perspective and Wisdom)
- Courage (Bravery, Persistence, Integrity, Vitality)
- Humanity (Love, Kindness, Social intelligence)
- Justice (Being an active citizen who is socially responsible, loyal, and a team member. Fairness, Leadership)
- Temperance (Forgiveness and mercy, Humility and modesty, Prudence, Self-Regulation and Self-control)
- Transcendence (Appreciation of beauty and excellence, Gratitude, Hope, Humour and playfulness, Spirituality, or a sense of purpose)
It is possible that, many of us may not know our strengths. Well, that should not be a deterrent. We can find out our strengths by visiting the website https://www.viacharacter.org/character-strengths and completing the questionnaire. Once we know our strengths, we can start using them.
Want to know how? It is easy, just work on this two-step process.
The Two-Step Process:
Step 1: Choose one of the top strengths and get into the practice of doing intentional activities using this strength daily at least once through the week.
Step 2: Each day of the following week, continue to use the first selected strength randomly and in addition, take up a new strength to work upon daily.
For example: In Step 1, if Kindness is the strength that is chosen to be used, perform random acts of kindness. We can do simple things like buying someone chocolates or coffee or helping some elderly person carry their bag and so on. Try to use this strength at least once every day all week long.
Then, in Step 2, if we choose Gratitude as our strength to work upon, we must make efforts to see things around us or in people for which we could be grateful. E.g. express gratitude for the food on our table and to the person who prepared the food. Say a thank you to the taxi driver for reaching us safely to our destination. See the beauty of nature and express gratitude for the flowers, chirping of the birds, and so on..
In this way, we can start using each of our top strengths consciously for some time. This random practice of using the strengths will then become a natural part of us. We will find that continuing to use our strengths in action will definitely boost our happiness.
We will realise that every time we do something using your strengths, whether at work or in any situation, we will experience happiness.
Another tip is to practice using our strengths with a partner or share the outcome of the practice with a group of friends. This will make this effort more productive and thus enhance our happiness quotient.
Just start using the two-step process and, see the difference it makes to you happiness quotient!
