Canada: Happiness First

It won't come as a surprise to you to hear that happiness and success are related. But, if you have ever found yourself looking for  happiness around the corner - after you have made partner, won  your  next trial or made it through  a busy month of cross-examinations and discoveries - you might be mistaken about how the two are related.

According to Happiness Expert Paul Krismer, success does not necessarily lead to happiness.  However, when we are happy, success tracks us down. Paul delivered the keynote presentation at this  summer's Advocates' Society education program entitled "Stress-Free Litigation: A Myth?",  co-chaired by Ann Morgan and Alan Mark. His simple message - that happiness leads to greater  successes in life (or "Happiness First") - was one that resonated with me and I thought it was  worth sharing.

So what is "Happiness First"? It involves doing away with thinking that winning your next trial or  making partner or buying a new home or getting a dog will lead to happiness. While doing or  achieving these things might lead to feelings of contentment in the  short term, the science tells  us that these successes do not necessarily lead to long-term happiness. When happiness comes  first, however, success follows: people with positive emotions are more likely than their peers to advance their careers, be heathier, have stronger relationships, have fulfilling marriages, be  more involved in their communities and even live longer lives.

Here are a few snapshots of the fascinating research Paul shared (I don't do it justice here, but  for more details, read Paul's blog http://www.happinessexperts.ca or his book Whole Person  Happiness: How to be Well in Body, Mind and Spirit or follow him on Twitter @HappinessXpert): (i)  happy people outperform sad people; studies repeatedly show that happiness positively im- pacts  performance on cognitive tests; (ii) we literally see more when we are primed to feel happy; if  our emotions are negative, we see a narrower perspective; and, (iii) we can train our brains to  allow us to experience more positive emotions. This does not mean that happy people never feel  sad or that they are always successful. It is healthy to experience negative emotions arising  from painful or difficult life experiences; as we all know, we learn and grow from things that make  us feel bad. The trick is to train ourselves to focus on the positive in our day to day lives to  help offset negative emotions. In doing so, we can actually lay down new neuropathways in our  brains which will allow us to experience more positive emotions.

Paul challenged the advocates in the room to teach our brains to be happy by training them to focus  on what     is going well in our lives and the things we have to be grateful for. He suggested that  one of the most effective techniques for increasing your personal happiness is to commit to a daily  practice of writing down three things that have gone well each day. The research Paul shared shows  that, six months after starting this practice, even though the majority of people studied had since  stopped the daily practice, they were still happier than their base line. I'm going to give it a try.