The Spark Within: A Beginner’s Guide to Positive Psychology

By Steve Achor

Looking to ignite your inner spark and unlock your full potential? Look no further than "The Spark Within: A Beginner's Guide to Positive Psychology." In this transformative book, renowned positive psychologist Steve Achor shares his expert insights and practical tips for cultivating a positive mindset and leading a more fulfilling life.

 

Drawing on the latest research in psychology and neuroscience, "The Spark Within" offers a comprehensive introduction to the principles of positive psychology, including gratitude, mindfulness, resilience, and self-compassion. Through relatable anecdotes and engaging exercises, Achor shows readers how to reframe negative thinking, build healthy habits, and tap into their inner strengths to overcome challenges and achieve their goals.

 

Within these pages, you will discover:

• Identify and Reframe Negative Thoughts and Self-talk
• Build Resilience and Bounce Back from Setbacks
• Develop Healthy Habits for Lasting Happiness and Success
• Cultivate Meaningful Relationships and Enhance Social Support
• Tap Into Your Inner Strengths and Achieve Your Goals

 

AND MUCH MORE!

 

Whether you're struggling with stress or anxiety or just looking to enhance your overall well-being, "The Spark Within" offers a wealth of practical tools and strategies to help you harness the power of positive psychology and live your best life. So why wait? Order your copy of "The Spark Within" today and start unlocking your inner spark!

 

Don't waste another minute. Scroll up and hit "BUY NOW" to get started today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishing Forte
• Release date: May 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223448884

Book preview

Introduction

The U-Shape of Happiness

In 2008, Blanchflower and Oswald developed an interesting theory after analyzing data from the UK labor force and Eurobarometer data. They came up with a theory that most people have a U-shape in their happiness levels throughout life: Most people experience an increase in happiness from the age of 25 to 40 and a steady decline from 40 onwards. In fact, Blanchflower and Oswald found that, on average, there was no difference in happiness between 16-20-year-olds and those over 80. It made them wonder if we are too preoccupied with the idea of finding happiness.

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This got more thinking. By extrapolating on their findings, we can conclude that we were happiest as children. A child has no bills to pay, doesn't have to work, has no stress, and is not conscious of the unfairness of life. As you know, we were conceived out of love and raised in a loving environment. We were loved, supported, and encouraged to reach for our dreams and achieve our goals from a young age.

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As school starts, circumstances start to change too. First, we get into a monotonous routine of going to school, doing homework, eating dinner, and sleeping. We experience our first significant heartbreak as we separate from Mommy and Daddy and experience the cruelties of youth, such as getting bullied by kids who were once our friends or getting rejected by the person we really liked.

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When we reach puberty, things change even further. We start having crushes on people who may not like us back and undergo an identity crisis where we wonder who we really are and how others see us. We start to feel awkward and out of place as we interact with people differently than we're used to. We start becoming self-conscious and insecure about our body hair, skin tone, being too tall or short, nose being ugly, or eyes being too big. The list can go on ad infinitum. These are all things that affect us psychologically and emotionally throughout life. Though they vary in intensity depending upon your point of view, the thing is that they do happen to everybody at some point in life. There's an opportunity to make a few bucks through summer jobs, but getting a job means that we'll have to wake up earlier, won't have as much time to hang out on the weekend, and have less time to play video games and watch TV.

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Then comes adulting. After studying for years, taking tedious exams, getting involved in stuff we aren't interested in, being on the road for a few hours a day, working our asses off, and paying bills every month just so we can pay for gas and our food, we've arrived. The dream of getting married, having kids, and retiring at 45 sounds amazing, but that's not how life works. We push ourselves to make better opportunities for ourselves because we don't want to be poor like our parents were. But the everyday struggle starts to get too much - the commute is a hassle, we miss sleep, wonder why we work so much to pay off our student loans and save money for retirement.

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Hobbies are a luxury. We must choose what's important and cut the rest (to pay our bills and save for retirement). We often spend more time thinking about work than we do thinking about the people we love or what hobbies we want to pursue.

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All of these changes can lead a person to focus on things that really don't matter in the grand scheme of life. If we're not careful and don't take stock of our lives, we can see ourselves being driven by shiny things instead of staying focused on what matters – all for the sake of feeling good, having fun, or getting praise from others.

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On the happiness graph, we don't feel that we're getting anywhere. Our happiness level continues to dip until we turn 50. Then, something unexpected happens: We start gaining happiness in our late 50s and 60s. This is where things start to get interesting.

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While Blanchflower and Oswald haven't given us a physical explanation as to why this happens or what causes this change, it's not speculation. We become conscious that the things we focus on don't matter. We come to the realization that we can do whatever we want for our future, no matter how old we are, and it doesn't have to follow a set pattern from 18 years old until death.

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At this point in life, we've seen it all. We could have become homeless a few times, lost a loved one, gone through a divorce, had a heart attack, and lived in another country for a few years. We may have built the career of our dreams, but we also got laid off and were unemployed for six months.

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At this point, we start being more conscious about how we spend our time and attention on things that matter to us. We realize that there's more to life than chasing that elusive bag. We understand that happiness has nothing to do with external things and everything to do with how we choose to feel. We stop comparing ourselves to others and can see them more positively. At this point in life, if someone follows their passion, we encourage them and push them to do it even more. If someone is trying something new and different, we support them instead of telling them, It's not for you.

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It's no coincidence that the turning point in Blanchflower's curve coincides with the age at which most of us experience the midlife crisis. We're starting to focus on what we have neglected during our 20s and 30s. If people are serious about succeeding, they will focus on their health and ensuring they're good enough to give it their all. They'd be living their dreams and not letting the future scares them away.

When a Spanner Was Thrown Into the Works

Sadly, there's no data on how happy people were in the earlier centuries. Before the agrarian and industrial revolutions that saw us work 16 hours shifts, it's hard to tell what the average person felt like. It's impossible to tell how much happier people were in the 1750s compared to 1965. Though we can't quantify the happiness levels of people from centuries ago, I'd assume that their happiness level was probably higher than ours.

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Why do I believe so? Well, I don't know. But in my head, there's this romantic notion that people were happier before technology took over. They were probably more in tune with nature, less worried about their lives and how they were going to take care of themselves and survive another winter if they were even still alive by then. They had more time to spend with the people around them, and life was simpler.

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Don't get me wrong – I love living in the modern age, but it seems as though we're caught up thinking that we're missing out on something if we don't have the latest technology or gadgetry. We've become a culture of always wanting more and not being satisfied. And to be honest, I'd rather be in the 15th century than the 21st.

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The modern 8-hour workday (9 to 5) was invented by American labor unions two centuries ago but didn't become mainstream until the 1920s when Henry Ford implemented it in his factories. Prior to the 20th century, most people were out of the office in the evenings - more time to be with friends and family.

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We're more concerned about what's going on at work than what's happening at home. Americans average around 6 hours of sleep per night, 3 hours less than the average from a century ago. If we want to even out our lives, we've got to start understanding that working for a company doesn't make us happy.

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It's not work that will make us happy. It's not the love we find in a spouse or whether our children are doing well at their jobs. These things don't make us happy. From my own experience and from talking to friends, family, and readers, it is our happiness that will spread around to others and create a ripple effect in our lives that can change the world.

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The Science Of Happiness

Happiness is Transient

Most of us know that happiness is fleeting. By this, we mean that happiness is a temporary state of mind that comes and goes. We're happy when we go on vacation, but as soon as we come back home, we're right back to where we were before leaving town. We do this time and time again, for years on end.

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The reason why most of us think that happiness is transient is that the concept of happiness is a relative idea. It's dependent on our internal perception of what's going on in our lives rather than some objective measure of happiness.

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When someone says, I feel happy, they're referring to the feeling of glee we get when we look at the sunset. A feeling of contentment and peace surrounds