From the Archives: Happiness & How to Achieve It

A 3-Part DIY Guide for Finding Happiness!

The Problem: Running on Empty

Have you got the media miseries? Do you feel beaten down by complaining talking heads, political ranters and all manner of folks screaming for your attention based on the latest nasty scandal or ugly emergency? Are you worn out by your friends and family constantly complaining or maybe legitimately suffering from genuine obstacles to their happiness? 

Maybe it's time to take a step back, regroup and connect with your own happiness. After all, if your happiness reservoirs are empty, you're going to find it hard to find the energy to empathize with them and support them. And, worse yet, it's going to be tough for you to bring positive energy to your own life.

The Science of Happiness

Here's the bottom line: You can achieve happiness. In fact, there's a science underlying happiness that you can leverage to bring more happiness into your life. A few years ago, I published a series of articles all about that science. You can revisit them through the links below. Enjoy! 

Go to Part 1, A Little Theory

Go to Part 2, Some Fun Stuff

Go to Part 3, Train Yourself to Be Happier

See Also: 

• 10 Specific Actions That Can Help You Become Happier (an audio podcast)
• 10 of My Most-Accessed Items at Internet Archive
• Why It's Pointless to Argue about Politics or Religion
• Travel Back in Time, Through the Mountains of France & Around the World with Robert Louis Stevenson
• Some New Graffiti on the Wall of the Universe: All My Stuff at Internet Archive

Taking Care of Yourself: Some Tools & Tips from the Archives

 

This article is for the work-weary professional, manager or anyone else who feels swamped, is always getting interrupted and who feels like screaming in frustration! The selections below are from my collection Inspirations: Optimize Your Attitude, Maximize Your Results. These three are hand-picked to inspire you to take care of yourself, reclaim your humanity, enhance your job satisfaction and find some peace of mind.

Set and respect "office hours."

This excerpt from The Project Management Minimalist is a short pep talk and set of practical guidelines that will help you set aside uninterruptible office hours so you can be more productive and get into that "flow" state in which we all do our best work. 

 

Check out the book excerpt.

Leverage your signature strengths.

There is much happiness, emotional satisfaction and, arguably, higher-quality output to be had when you are doing what you are purpose-built to do.  Are you leveraging your "signature strengths?"  Learn more in this excerpt from The Project Management Minimalist.

Check out the book excerpt.

Is it time to go "off the grid?"

Ever feel like running away and simply disappearing for a while? Getting lost, going completely off the grid, can be one of the most energy-renewing, creativity-enhancing and simply joyful things you can do!  This article from the archives makes the case for doing so.  

Check out the article.

Get The Project Management Minimalist from Amazon or as a free PDF.

If you find the preceding samples to be valuable, why not go a little deeper. Specifically:

• Learn all about Project Management Minimalism here.  
• Get The Project Management Minimalist book in hard copy, paperback or kindle format here at Amazon.
• Get the entire book for FREE: Download the full book, at no cost (and no strings attached) in PDF format here. 
• Get all things related to PM Minimalism (including a do-it-yourself PM course outline, videos, audios and team-building/class materials) FREE at my Internet Archives Favorites collection.

Enjoy! 

10 Specific Actions That Can Help You Become Happier (an audio podcast)

Focus:  Whether you're part of a project team or a family group, when individuals are happy, the entire group will likely be happy! But how can you become happier? In this archived podcast from 2009 I share 10 specific actions that I’ve taken to create more happiness in my life.

------------------ October 2021 Update ------------------

This podcast was originally produced in December of 2009. In the 12 years since its release, social media companies and their fine-tuned algorithms have mastered the art of manipulating our consciousness. They pull us in and lock us down into contentious tribes. The sites cherry-pick news, opinion, sensationalistic rants, memes & images that exactly match our unique biases and push our buttons. Then they serve them up in a customized stream to keep us angry, warring and, most importantly to their bottom line, glued to their sites. 

If I were creating this podcast today, my highest-priority Action for producing happiness would be:

• Ration your time (or remove yourself entirely!) from social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. 

These sites are powerfully toxic to our happiness. At the very least, they generate a lot of FOMO (fear of missing out) as we see our "friends'" self-servingly-edited timelines and perfect lives unfold via their curated posts. And, at their worst, the algorithms keep us angry and outraged and posting our own venom. And all this is antithetical to happiness!

So as you listen to this podcast (or read the transcript) consider the powerful negative roles these social media sites have come to play in our lives as omnipresent aggregators of everything that irritates and enrages us. Then ask yourself: "If I am pursuing peace of mind and happiness, why am I engaging these toxic social media dumps?" 

--------------[End of October 2021 Update]--------------

(Use the control bar below to download or play the podcast. Or scroll down and simply read the rest of the transcript. Enjoy!)

[Transcript of this audio was originally published on December 7, 2009. Some links referred to below may no longer be valid]

Transcript

In this post, we focus on the individual instead of the team. After all, teams are made up of individuals. And when individual team members are happy, there’s a good chance the entire team will be happy! But how can anyone become happier? To begin to answer this question, I share 10 specific actions that I’ve taken to create more happiness in my life. (And I hope you will share your suggestions in the Comments section at the end of this post.)

A Little Happiness from the Archives!

Times are tough right now. And we're all struggling to find a little happiness amidst a pandemic, wild and unpredictable weather events, a polarized presidential election, all sorts of nastiness from media talking heads and, sadly, sniping among friends in our social media. So how can we find happiness amidst this chaos?  

Strange but true: Scientists believe that happiness is a skill that can be learned... and like any skill, with practice, you can get better and better at it! Check out this three-part series of articles (loaded with links to free stuff!) from the archives and learn how you can learn the skill of being happy. Enjoy!

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