We think successful people are happy, but it’s happy people who are successful.
An HBR article popped up in my Google feed last night about happiness, and that one-sentence summary was the basic thrust of it. (I can’t for the life of me find that same article again.)
Happiness releases dopamine which leads to successful outcomes, so if you want to be successful then work at getting your daily fix of dopamine.
Can you really train your brain to be happy?
Let’s find out. The very reasonable-sounding lost article I read had some interesting tips.
- Every morning send an email to someone to let them feel appreciated.
- List three things you’re grateful for every morning. (Preferably, I assume, different things each day.)
I’m going to do those two things every day (although I might swap email for text on occasion) combined with sharing a daily high.
- Share your daily highlight. The best thing that happened to you today.
But I’ll share for yesterday.
Daily Dose of Dopamine #1
- After months of procrastination, I shot a text message to my old co-worker John about connecting for HH drinks.
- Three things I’m grateful for: trying this dopamine project, starting a new quilt, finally jettisoning orphan laundry pieces that I kept shoving to the bottle of the laundry basket. (Small wins!)
- Yesterday’s daily highlight: I made progress on a new quilt. Early phases. I cut some 8-inch squares, halved them into triangles, and played with color layout. The highlight was the kids helping me stack triangles and then taking their own stash of extras to lay out quilts. And then Henry creeping downstairs late at night and sitting on my lap while I stitched together a chain of squares. He “helped” me push through a couple of pieces of fabric and loved watching the needle punch. And was in sheer awe of seeing that he had magically made two triangles become a square.