Still fantasizing about being rich? Stop.

Still fantasizing about being rich? Stop. 70% of your happiness is tied to your relationships, Period. I’d recommend this book to anyone on the planet:

The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work

About the book: Our most commonly held formula for success is broken. Conventional wisdom holds that if we work hard we will be more successful, and if we are more successful, then we’ll be happy. If we can just find that great job, win that next promotion, lose those five pounds, happiness will follow. But recent discoveries in the field of positive psychology have shown that this formula is actually backward: Happiness fuels success, not the other way around. When we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, resilient, and productive at work. This isn’t just an empty mantra. This discovery has been repeatedly borne out by rigorous research in psychology and neuroscience, management studies, and the bottom lines of organizations around the globe.
In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor, who spent over a decade living, researching, and lecturing at Harvard University, draws on his own research—including one of the largest studies of happiness and potential at Harvard and others at companies like UBS and KPMG—to fix this broken formula. Using stories and case studies from his work with thousands of Fortune 500 executives in 42 countries, Achor explains how we can reprogram our brains to become more positive in order to gain a competitive edge at work.

There is a light inside each one of us. Something distinct. Something different from anyone else who has ever come before.

There is something that you were put on this earth to do.

Maybe it’s simply to be there for someone else.

For the young and the old alike, perhaps you are here simply to provide hope to someone you have not yet met. Perhaps that person does not yet exist.

Perhaps you will one day utter a few words to the right person at the right time… and for whatever reason those words will stick in their head and never leave… words that come to them at an hour when they need to remember them most.

For we all experience dark days, and in the darkest of hours it is those who have come before us, who leave traces of themselves lodged in our minds, in a place that we will return to when we need to most.

You have a purpose in this life. And i know what that purpose is, if only because I know it has nothing to do with you or me. You are here for those around you. You are here to lift up those you are tied to while on this earth.

There is a reason for you to strive to become better than you are today. To reveal, more accurately, the better self that lives within you. There is a reason to be in a better mood. To stay true to your self and your word. People are watching you whether you realize it or not. People aspire to greatness or allow themselves to fall, in part, because of what they see you do. In no small way we provide an example to others of what is OK. The standard we hold either lifts up or erodes the standard of the person in the cube or the room or the house next to us. We are all part of a fabric that rises and falls in no small part to the decisions you and I make every day.

Do not let this day go by without doing your best. Anything less is a waste of time.

What is a habit, really? And is any of this real?

For anyone wondering if we can change (and believe me I’ve struggled with this question myself), the answer, proven by science during the past 20 years, is a resounding “YES”. 

A habit can be learned through repetition. What is a habit? It is your brain’s way of going on autopilot. To conserve energy… to say “oh, hey, I know what to do. I’ve done this many times before… I’ll just take a back seat and let muscle memory kick in, and let the ingrained pathways in my brain run their course”.

The below image is the brain activity of a rat running a maze that he’s run many times before… once the “cue” to start the maze begins, brain activity is able to drop dramatically until the routine is complete. (Compare it to the image at the bottom… a rat brain running  a maze for the first time). 

Brain activity of a rat running a maze it has run many times before

Brain activity of a rat running a maze for the first time.

Sources:

Ann M. Graybiel, “The Basal Ganglia and Chunking of Action Repertoires,” Neurobiology of Learning and Memory 70 (1998): 119– 36.

Photos and story overview from: Duhigg, Charles (2012-02-28). The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business (p. 274). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.