Happiness drives executive performance: Who controls yours?

Often my clients and students try to explain how their unhappiness is caused by others. Who are the people making you unhappy? They could even be your spouse, child, brother, sister or even mother-in-law.

How do they make you unhappy? They can make you feel guilty. They can find fault in “no fault”. They can “infect” you with their unhappiness.  We all know some individuals who invariably cause unhappiness.

Now there are methodologies like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) that changes the patterns of thought, behaviour and emotions we can use to increase our happiness. With CBT you may not be able to change the world but you can change the way you respond to adverse events. And, that makes a world of difference.

We are used to letting others steer our happiness. We even say “happy wife is happy life”; “my happiness is dependent on my other half” and so on. Unfortunately, many lead unhappy lives simply because they have handed over their happiness to others. No matter how much you love your spouse, child, brother or sister you should not hand over your happiness to them. If you do, you will end up being unhappy during a greater proportion of life because you will be unhappy when others are unhappy. Moreover, your involvement may not help them to come out of their unhappiness. They have to come out of it by themselves. This is the simple truth. Time is the only limited resource. Life consists of billions of moments and if you let greater proportion of these moments to be influenced by unhappiness of others, then, you are bound to be unhappy most of the moments. What a mistake to let others steal your happiness!

How could we de-couple our happiness from others? It is indeed an art. You can be sympathetic towards the pain of others. Listen, help and care for others who are unhappy for a reason. But, there are many who are unhappy for “no reason”.

Whatever you do, they will find an “unreason” to be unhappy. Should you let such people steal your happiness? Even if you try to help them you will find it difficult because they are unhappy for an “unreason”. So, your reasoning will not help you to help them.

Are you unhappy for no reason?

Some worry about little things without celebrating the great things in life. You may not be able to change them but you can change how you react to them. Have you tried to make someone happy with a new car, a good holiday or a nice present only to find that they are unhappy about what you have done for some peculiar “unreason”?

It could be the colour of the car, place of the holiday or the wrapping of the present. They will find an “unreason” to be unhappy. Their unhappiness often stems from long years of being in an unhappy environment.

Finding happiness when others are unhappy is like finding peace on a rocking boat. It requires discipline and demands absolute firmness. It requires the art of decoupling your emotional stability from the state of others at the right time.

First, you should understand that time is a scarce. Then, you must do de-coupling (or letting it go). Then we need the demarcation of boundaries of our happiness – protecting our happiness without being overly selfish.

Most executives are facing this dilemma and, that in turn, affect executive performance. Once they are trained to de-couple their happiness from others, their happiness and satisfaction improve. That in turn positively influences executive performance. Often, they cannot control what others do but they can manage the way they react to them.

Re-training your thoughts

While genetics and the environment have a significant influence on the way we manage happiness, we can train our brains to shift from negative to positive and increase happiness. Once you are happy your quality of decision making will also improve and, this is where executives can improve their performance.

Sales professionals, in particular, tend to improve their sales performance when they are happy. First, the decision making skills improve. Second, customers prefer to deal with a happy and pleasant sales person. The psychology behind this process is worth noting. The challenge is to develop cognitive strategies that assist executives to recognise thoughts and beliefs that make them unhappy – often called Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTS) – and learning to reframe them into more positive thoughts.

Even when others influence you with ANTS you should learn to stand tall to “preserve” your happiness. The process is a demanding one. It needs on-going practice. But the rewards could also be great.

Refreshing your mind

The mind, like any other information processing tool, needs refreshing and reprogramming. It should delete the clutter and refresh itself with relevant and useful information. If the new information and its processing are focussed on happiness and positive thoughts, then, your happiness can be improved.

The process is not simple. It needs perseverance and determination. But the investment is likely to deliver good returns – superior decision making and overall superior executive performance.

We should continue to examine our lives in order to re-align our attitudes, thoughts and priorities to the purpose of our lives. As Socrates puts it “the unexamined life is not worth living”. The more we examine our lives and re-align ourselves, the more we are likely to become more effective leaders.

(The writer is Director, Agape International and Senior Adviser, FPC Funds Management, Sydney. He is a visiting lecturer at a number of postgraduate business schools in Australia. He can be contacted at [email protected].)