Happiness is the secret sauce of productivity

To be truly productive you do not have to test the limits of your willpower, but rather try to stay happy. This advice may look counterintuitive at first, after all, we remember the “no pain no gain” saying. It does converge with “follow your passion” guideline, yet so many passionate people burn out. So what can be done to stay happy and productive in the long run? Let us discuss the issue. This post is inspired by this, this, this and this articles.

When we get depressed we are less productive. This is common knowledge, you do not need hard science to prove it: if you survived puberty probably you already have some experience in this area. When we are depressed we have less energy to do stuff, have some hard time preserving focus, our general motivation suffers and we get less help from other people because we appear less attractive for them. Depression is somewhat similar to attention deficit since it is associated with the brain not getting a reward for positive actions. Considering attention deficit, we can blame dopamine receptors in our brains. Regarding a depression, there is some abnormal activity of orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala where our fears are activated.

Knowing the physiological generators of depression does not really help. Using mood stabilizing medication is probably not very good. Luckily some of the factors that make us live longer will make us happier. Meditation, sports, creative activities, minimizing bad habits like smoking and alcohol, healthy diet and sleep, family and social connections may be hard in the short run, but will ultimately make us healthier and happier in the longer time frame. We do need to generate some immediate rewards for our brain to stick to the healthy habits. The rewards can vary: a cup of tea, a joke, a casual game. Use pomodoro breaks to reward yourself for the job well done, and you will reduce the chance you will get stressed and depressed.

Our job is not just our career, but also our hobbies and chores – the total amount of the activities we accomplish each day. Our resilience, happiness, and longevity are directly connected to our job performance, and the connection is reciprocal. When we are doing a great job, we feel inner satisfaction, we become more charismatic, our immune system gets stronger and we get more productive. When our job performance suffers we get depressed and become less productive. To do our job right we need to know ourselves and plan the amount and variety of activities that will make us happy.

Setbacks are inevitable. No matter how successful you are, you will occasionally fail in your job. This applies not just to your career path, but also to family life, personal habits, finances etc. Humility is a simple way to suffer less from your failures. Self-criticism can lead to self-sabotage. Instead, show yourself some compassion. Try to rest and digest what just happened. You do not have to be the best in everything you do, and you are probably already good enough most of the time – which is the perfect level of accomplishment for your inner piece. Turning our expectations from ourselves just one notch down, we reduce the stress and the chances of self-sabotage and we will probably be much more effective.

Being passionate about something we often get impatient and try to push ourselves to0 hard. When I was in the fourth grade I found math very easy and I had a great math teacher. He allowed me to progress alone using books of progressively higher grades. I was reading the books of 9th grade when he gave a had exam for fourth graders. All of us failed, including me. He came to me gently and suggested to practice more challenging fourth-grade exercises: “You will learn the 9th-grade materials eventually, and you will need strong foundations to learn it right”. This is a great advice. Quite often I am asking my students to slow down their progress, measure less and enjoy more. It takes some time to learn new things.

The world of constant self-measurement, setting high goals and constantly pushing ourselves is not sustainable. It is great to be in the “flow” state, but we cannot be there all the time. Be humble, allow yourself to fail and be happy about it. Happiness will make you more resilient, more productive and healthier.

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