I read an article yesterday by Shawn Anchor, titled “How To Achieve Happiness Despite Everyday Challenges” that appeared in The Good Men Project (a publication I also write for). Anchor is the author of “The Happiness Advantage”. Formerly at Harvard, he is now one of the world’s leading experts on happiness, and a consultant to Fortune 100 companies.

I was struck by the simple strategies Anchor offered, based on positive psychology. So many of us are stressed out, and overwhelmed by “everyday” challenges—whether it is work, money, relationships, or whatever. Sometimes the pursuit of happiness feels like we are in a real live enactment of “Where’s Waldo?”

If you are not familiar with Anchor’s work, it’s worth checking out. After all, if we can’t be happy, what’s the point? It is a revelation that happiness is a choice within our control. Of the six strategies he described to achieve happiness, one resonated deeply—Give Thanks.

Give Thanks

In one of Anchor’s experimental studies, he found that participants who thought of three things they were grateful for before sleep became significantly more optimistic, after following this routine for 21 days. And their positive mindset lasted well after the conclusion of the experiment, six months later. Increasing optimism is a valuable thing. For one, increased optimism can improve productivity by more than 30%. This is a staggering statistic given how too many of us complain about “not having enough time” which of course just leads to more stress and even less time.

After my mom died last year, I started to see a rabbi for grief counseling. I was anxious on many levels, experiencing ambivalent grief, and consumed by my own mortality. My relationship with my mother was complicated, and it is fair to say that her “less than positive psychology” had a profound affect on my own psyche.

During my first session with the rabbi, she wrote a saying on a lime green sticky which she instructed me to read as soon as I awoke. Normally, I would instinctively reach for my mobile device, leap out of bed and charge into the day. The saying was “Modah ani lifonecha…” the phonetic Hebrew translation of “I am grateful for…”.

This grateful meditation has become an important daily ritual. On an intellectual level I know how lucky I am. In fact, logically I know that I am the luckiest person on the planet. But emotionally I can too easily become hijacked by ridiculous things, and lose sight of what matters most in my life.

Silently going through the exercise of acknowledging what matters to me, the big-ticket items such as: “I am grateful for two beautiful sons who are wise beyond their years…” as well as the silly things that are indulgences, “I am grateful for my espresso machine and my morning latte …” give them more gravity, prominence, and power. The more I go through the routine of saying what I am grateful for, the more I believe what I am saying. And the more I believe in my own words, the happier I become.

“Words have magic. Spells and curses. Some of them, the best of them, once said change everything.”

― Nora Roberts, Jewels of the Sun

Previous: How To Fill In The Blanks This Valentine’s Day
Next: Are Alpha Males Really The Top Dog?

• Tweet