According to Harvard psychologist Shawn Achor’s book The Happiness Advantage, it is happiness that begets success and not the other way around.
And one of the quickest ways to boost your mood is to start by sending someone a quick email every morning.
The simplest thing you can do is a two-minute email praising or thanking one person that you know. We’ve done this at Facebook, at US Foods, we’ve done this at Microsoft. We had them write a two-minute email praising or thanking one person they know, and a different person each day for 21 days in a row. That’s it. What we find is this dramatically increases their social connection which is the greatest predictor of happiness we have in organizations. It also improves teamwork. We’ve measured the collective IQ of teams and the collective years of experience of teams but both of those metrics are trumped by social cohesion.
For a longer-term impact on happiness, Achor advises checking your attitude, sociability, and how you choose to view challenges.
Read New Harvard Research Reveals How to Be More Successful and watch Shawn’s TED Talk below