Post by cjm on Jun 26, 2016 16:19:48 GMT
Celebrate! :backstabber:
This Is the Best Way to Improve Every Part of Your Life
Eric Barker
May 3, 2016
Eric Barker writes Barking Up the Wrong Tree.
Little celebrations for small accomplishments make a huge difference in motivation for even the toughest tasks
You don’t celebrate enough.
I’m not talking about just having fun for the sake of having fun. Plenty of scientific research shows that celebrating is the key to a better life.
We need more high-fives, more parties, more chocolate consumption, and a lot more saying, “Wow, that’s great!”
Sound too simple and cheery? Wrong. Here’s why…
Relationships
Are you trying to fix things in your romantic relationship so it will last? Stop right now. Why? Because you have it backwards.
Studies show divorce isn’t usually caused by an increase in problems. It’s often caused by a decrease in positive feelings.
Want to predict who has a happy relationship? Don’t look at how they fight — look at how they celebrate.
Shelly Gable, professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, has demonstrated that how you celebrate is more predictive of strong relations than how you fight.
Want a better relationship? Spend more time celebrating the good things.
Research shows that couples who regularly celebrate the good times have higher levels of commitment, intimacy, trust, and relationship satisfaction… It’s not enough that your partner knows that you take pride in his or her accomplishments. You have to show it. Making a fuss over the small, good things that happen every day can boost the health of your marriage.
And romantic relationships aren’t the only ones that need celebrating. When I spoke to Carlin Flora, author of Friendfluence, she said:
People in romantic relationships always celebrate anniversaries, yet you might have a friend for 15 years and you’ve probably never gone out to dinner and raised a glass to that. We need to cherish our friendships more.
Okay, it’s easy to understand how celebrating more often might help relationships — but do we need more celebrating at work? Oh yeah…
Work
Harvard professor Teresa Amabile found seven factors that made companies more productive and employees happier. Wanna guess what one of them was? You’re probably already ahead of me…
Our participants’ thoughts, feelings, and drives fared better when successes, even small ones, were celebrated and then analyzed for knowledge gained…
Want your team at work to be more successful? Let’s look at the research on sports teams for a sec. What predicts more wins on the field? Whether players celebrate with their teammates:
“The more convincingly someone celebrates their success with their teammates, the greater the chances that team will win,” according to Dr. Gert-Jan Pepping, Sport Scientist and lecturer in Human Movement Sciences at the University of Groningen…
I know, doing an end zone dance is not appropriate in the conference room. But there’s no excuse for not giving more fist bumps, high fives, chest bumps, and half hugs.
And research shows those little celebratory touches make a big difference.
…a 2010 study by a group of researchers in Berkeley found a case in which a habit of congratulatory slaps to the skull really is associated with successful group interactions. The Berkeley researchers studied the sport of basketball, which both requires extensive second-by-second teamwork and is known for its elaborate language of touching. They found that the number of “fist bumps, high fives, chest bumps, leaping shoulder bumps, chest punches, head slaps, head grabs, low fives, high tens, half hugs, and team huddles” correlated significantly with the degree of cooperation among teammates, such as passing to those who are less closely defended, helping others escape defensive pressure by setting what are called “screens,” and otherwise displaying a reliance on a teammate at the expense of one’s own individual performance. The teams that touched the most cooperated the most, and won the most.
Alright, celebrating helps your personal life and your professional life. What about your internal life? You know, that little thing called happiness…
Happiness
We spend an awful lot of time running around grabbing for things to make us happy. That’s not terribly efficient. You’d be smarter to spend more time appreciating the good things you already have.
Gratitude and savoring have been extensively researched and both are powerful happiness boosters. And you don’t have to get out of bed to engage in them. It’s all about where you put your attention.
The key component to effective savoring is focused attention. By taking the time and spending the effort to appreciate the positive, people are able to experience more well-being.
And when you feel gratitude or savor something wonderful in life, express it. Say something or do something to show how you feel. Quite simply, celebrate it.
The fancy term researchers use is “Behavioral Expression.” That’s PhD speak for shouting, “Hooray!” Sound corny? Perhaps… but it works.
This purely behavioral response represents an outward physical manifestation of inner feelings in which one expresses an energetic response of exuberant joy, excitement, and enthusiasm by jumping up and down, dancing around, laughing out loud, or making verbal sounds of appreciation. Such responses or their inhibition may be purely reflexive or automatic, or may be deliberate.
Letting those good feelings out multiplies the good feelings.
Eric Barker
May 3, 2016
Eric Barker writes Barking Up the Wrong Tree.
Little celebrations for small accomplishments make a huge difference in motivation for even the toughest tasks
You don’t celebrate enough.
I’m not talking about just having fun for the sake of having fun. Plenty of scientific research shows that celebrating is the key to a better life.
We need more high-fives, more parties, more chocolate consumption, and a lot more saying, “Wow, that’s great!”
Sound too simple and cheery? Wrong. Here’s why…
Relationships
Are you trying to fix things in your romantic relationship so it will last? Stop right now. Why? Because you have it backwards.
Studies show divorce isn’t usually caused by an increase in problems. It’s often caused by a decrease in positive feelings.
Want to predict who has a happy relationship? Don’t look at how they fight — look at how they celebrate.
Shelly Gable, professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, has demonstrated that how you celebrate is more predictive of strong relations than how you fight.
Want a better relationship? Spend more time celebrating the good things.
Research shows that couples who regularly celebrate the good times have higher levels of commitment, intimacy, trust, and relationship satisfaction… It’s not enough that your partner knows that you take pride in his or her accomplishments. You have to show it. Making a fuss over the small, good things that happen every day can boost the health of your marriage.
And romantic relationships aren’t the only ones that need celebrating. When I spoke to Carlin Flora, author of Friendfluence, she said:
People in romantic relationships always celebrate anniversaries, yet you might have a friend for 15 years and you’ve probably never gone out to dinner and raised a glass to that. We need to cherish our friendships more.
Okay, it’s easy to understand how celebrating more often might help relationships — but do we need more celebrating at work? Oh yeah…
Work
Harvard professor Teresa Amabile found seven factors that made companies more productive and employees happier. Wanna guess what one of them was? You’re probably already ahead of me…
Our participants’ thoughts, feelings, and drives fared better when successes, even small ones, were celebrated and then analyzed for knowledge gained…
Want your team at work to be more successful? Let’s look at the research on sports teams for a sec. What predicts more wins on the field? Whether players celebrate with their teammates:
“The more convincingly someone celebrates their success with their teammates, the greater the chances that team will win,” according to Dr. Gert-Jan Pepping, Sport Scientist and lecturer in Human Movement Sciences at the University of Groningen…
I know, doing an end zone dance is not appropriate in the conference room. But there’s no excuse for not giving more fist bumps, high fives, chest bumps, and half hugs.
And research shows those little celebratory touches make a big difference.
…a 2010 study by a group of researchers in Berkeley found a case in which a habit of congratulatory slaps to the skull really is associated with successful group interactions. The Berkeley researchers studied the sport of basketball, which both requires extensive second-by-second teamwork and is known for its elaborate language of touching. They found that the number of “fist bumps, high fives, chest bumps, leaping shoulder bumps, chest punches, head slaps, head grabs, low fives, high tens, half hugs, and team huddles” correlated significantly with the degree of cooperation among teammates, such as passing to those who are less closely defended, helping others escape defensive pressure by setting what are called “screens,” and otherwise displaying a reliance on a teammate at the expense of one’s own individual performance. The teams that touched the most cooperated the most, and won the most.
Alright, celebrating helps your personal life and your professional life. What about your internal life? You know, that little thing called happiness…
Happiness
We spend an awful lot of time running around grabbing for things to make us happy. That’s not terribly efficient. You’d be smarter to spend more time appreciating the good things you already have.
Gratitude and savoring have been extensively researched and both are powerful happiness boosters. And you don’t have to get out of bed to engage in them. It’s all about where you put your attention.
The key component to effective savoring is focused attention. By taking the time and spending the effort to appreciate the positive, people are able to experience more well-being.
And when you feel gratitude or savor something wonderful in life, express it. Say something or do something to show how you feel. Quite simply, celebrate it.
The fancy term researchers use is “Behavioral Expression.” That’s PhD speak for shouting, “Hooray!” Sound corny? Perhaps… but it works.
This purely behavioral response represents an outward physical manifestation of inner feelings in which one expresses an energetic response of exuberant joy, excitement, and enthusiasm by jumping up and down, dancing around, laughing out loud, or making verbal sounds of appreciation. Such responses or their inhibition may be purely reflexive or automatic, or may be deliberate.
Letting those good feelings out multiplies the good feelings.