Modern Wisdom - #021 - Susanna Halonen - The Happyologist; What Science Says Makes Life Happier

Episode Date: July 17, 2018

Susanna Halonen is a positive psychology expert, author, published researcher, TEDx speaker, online columnist, and a regular commentator in the media from the BBC to The Huffington Post and more. The one thing we all endeavour to be is happy. And in today's episode, we find out science's suggestions for the best approaches to leading a happy life. Smiles abound, let's journey together to find some happiness. Extra Things The 6 Minute Diary: https://amzn.to/2mlpYQb Happiness Is Here book: https://amzn.to/2zM3t0q Susanna's Website: https://happyologist.co.uk Check out everything I recommend from books to products and help support the podcast at no extra cost to you by shopping through this link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi friends, this week we're talking about happiness. The field of psychology for a very long time was focused on making bad people okay as opposed to okay people better or happy people even more happy. I'm happy to sit down pardon the pun with Susanna Hallenon who is the world's first haphiologist. She is a positive psychology specialist. The author of Happiness is here and screw finding your passion. She's a published researcher, TEDx speaker, online columnist, and a regular commentator in the media from the BBC to the

Huffington Post and more. And we're going to try and find out how we become a little bit happier in life. I was incredibly surprised at how many basic steps we can take in our day to day life, to actually make our level of happiness, our baseline level of satisfaction improved. It was very enlightening and there was a lot of new information that came out of this. Now, one of the key tools that Susanna suggests that everybody should be using is a journal. And I know that I will be asked for some advice on which journal I recommend, which one

I use. So, the six-minute diary, which I've mentioned on numerous life hacks, the podcast with War Encast and the podcast with you in Lawson, will be linked in the show notes below. It's my favorite way to develop a journaling habit. Three minutes on the morning, three minutes in the evening, with prompts for questions. Susanna gives you a lovely little program that you can follow as well on a weekly and a daily basis. You can add those in. I've chosen to, as there are sections in the diary, to add weekly notes as well. If you follow the link in the show notes below, you will be supporting this channel at no extra cost to yourself. So please do so. If you want to start journaling,

consider using the six minute diaries. It's my favorite. Now let's chase after some happiness. Susanna Hallinnan, welcome to Modern Wisdom. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. It's fantastic. How are you? Yeah, I'm very good. I'm feeling good.

The sun is shining. I've had a good start to the week, so yeah, it's all good. That's brilliant. So let's get straight into it. Can you tell me what a happyologist is, please? Yeah. Can you tell me what a happyologist is, please? Yeah, so basically as my job, as the happyologist, my mission in life is to make the world a happier place. And the way I do that is anything from one to one coaching work to workshops, to keynote talks at organizations. And I've recently started also doing more online courses on it

and some books as well. And it's basically just all about helping you to live a happier and more fulfilling life, in short. Yeah, okay, it sounds like a pretty noble pursuit, I suppose. Yeah, I mean, I love it. It's amazing. It must be very fulfilling. Yes, it is. It absolutely is. And it is really the opposite, almost

of what I used to do, because I haven't always been the happyologist. So I went initially into the corporate career, doing, well, a mix of things from project management to marketing communications to PR, and very quickly realized. It wasn't quite the world for me and also I felt it wasn't meaningful enough for me so I felt like I wanted to connect to the work that I was doing more and feel like what I was doing was making some kind of positive impact and when I discovered

positive psychology I just had this epiphany moment that was it, that was kind of the thing that would help me to help others as well. That was your calling in life, right? Yes, absolutely. That's fantastic. So I've seen you've done TEDx speaking, you commentator from BBC to Huffington Post as well.

So for a subject area as happyology, which I guess is not tremendously mainstream, it's obvious that there's a demand for your work and your talents. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's a growing field as well. So how I kind of got into it is initially just my, you know, exploring positive psychology with books and blogs and people in the field and then eventually I went to do a Masters of Science in it because I really wanted to specialise myself in the actual science behind it. And I mean the university where I went to do it was University of East London and that was only the second university to offer positive psychology as a Masters of Science studies. So is your Masters of Science is in positive psychology as a master's of science. So is your master's of science is in positive psychology in applied positive psychology?

Oh, yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah. So I mean, if there was ever someone who had the natural passion and then the academic backing to deploy this sort of research and this sort of knowledge, I guess, that's the perfect storm for yourself, right? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think also because when I was, you know, going through my corporate career and trying to figure out, you know, what was wrong and why wasn't I happy and why was I so unfulfilled, I think that's also one of the things that attracted me to positive psychology. So when I went to study it, initially, basically,

to use it to help other people, I also obviously tested every exercise and every tip and every practice on myself. So through that, I was able to transform myself as well and take that journey myself that I now take my clients through. And I really managed to go from a natural pessimist to a trained optimist. And it's, yeah, it was an incredible journey and it's, yeah, it was very worthwhile.

Okay, so you've touched on something there that I really wanted to ask you. Can you tell us how much of our level of happiness is nature and how much of it is nurture? So, well, when we talk about external versus internal things, when it comes to our happiness, according to research, on average, only about 10% of our happiness is predicted by external things or environment, things like, I don't know, the job we're in, the neighborhood we live in, the relationship we're in, everything that's outside of us, that's really only 10% of our happiness,

and 90% is entirely up to you. Now, obviously, in that 90% there are some genetics at play, so our kind of family history in terms of mental health and well-being does have some influence but there's a huge chunk is basically just about our perspective and how we choose to approach life. Wow so you are broadly in control. Yes absolutely absolutely and that's why I always say happiness is not a destination that we get to when we get that perfect job or dream house or amazing relationship. No, because yes, of course, when we get those things, we get a back to that same mood set point that you were in before. For sure. And it's actually about learning to choose happiness on a daily level because happiness is not a destination. It is a daily choice.

And the way you make that daily choice is by really learning to embrace your mindset and your perspective and really practice an attitude of gratitude on a daily level. Well, hopefully we can try and lay out a framework for some of the listeners to be able to follow that today. So, you briefly mentioned it there. I want you to ask, is that what you've just discussed with regards to chasing the house and not being the fulfillment and then the reset? Is that hedonic adaptation? Yeah, pretty much, because that's the thing.

We're chasing all these things. I mean, there is a little bit of Imonic happiness there a little bit's the thing we're chasing all these things. I mean, there is a little bit of Imonic happiness there a little bit because when we're chasing goals and we're growing and challenging ourselves I'm pushing ourselves whenever we're growing and evolving we naturally get a sense of purpose and sense of meaning also because we know Kind of why we're doing what we're doing But I think the mistake is that then we think well when we get that that's it That's that's the kind of end and then we're there and we're doing, but I think the mistake is that then we think, well, when we get that that's it, that's the kind of end. And then we're there and we're permanently happy when usually when we just get to that goal, we just set another one and another milestone

and something else to reach for, which of course is good because then you are striving and pushing yourself. But the mistake is that then like you say, you just adapt to the circumstances and you're like, oh, I'm not happy with what I have anymore I need more to be happy. The next big house, the next nice house. Exactly. When in fact if we just learn to kind of appreciate the now every day regardless of what you have or where you are, still keep striving for those goals but still learn to kind of enjoy that journey and every step of the way towards them. Do you think that the, do you think that it's a difficult task for someone to be grateful

and feel satisfied with what they have, which it would appear you say you are alluding to helps to manifest happiness, whilst also keeping themselves hungry for that drive to get more, you understand how that could seem conceptually to be too opposites. Yeah, but I think it's just about finding the right balance because you can still have goals and you can still have milestones and you can still appreciate the journey towards them. So being grateful for what you have doesn't mean that you don't grow or learn or push yourself or go after the things you want.

It doesn't mean you stay at status quo and never strive for anything. It just means that whenever you are faced with a challenge or a setback or a failure, you're still able to see the positives, you can see it as a learning opportunity, and then you can almost use that as fuel to keep going and also on those days when maybe you are feeling a little bit more low or sad or stressed then you can swoop in with gratitude and actually pay attention to all the good things that you do have in your life as well. So it is really all about finding kind of that perfect balance between being content and fulfilled with what you have will also pushing yourself

to grow and involve as well. Yeah, I think that must be a very difficult balance for a lot of people. I know looking at my own experience that a lot of the time I can sometimes, or in the past, I have not allowed myself to be as grateful or as thankful for things that have gone on because in the back of my mind, I think I've thought, well, if I get comfortable with this, my drive to improve is going to wane, and I'm somehow going to become complacent, and that's going to prevent me from continuing to chase down my dreams, so to speak. And I think that's definitely something that a lot of people will be dealing with.

So before we get into it, can you define being happy or can you define happiness? Yeah, well, basically, if you kind of summarize it in positive psychology terms, happiness equals in short pleasure plus purpose. And when I'm talking about pleasure, so that's simplifying that whole hedonic happiness side of the equation, which is all about short term positive emotions, things like savoring, delight, laughter, joy, contentment, all of those things. And then purpose is all about having that sense of meaning. So that's more tied to odomonic happiness. And that gives more of a long-term sustainable type of happiness that fulfills you in a completely different way. So if you're able to understand what brings you

hedonic happiness or those short-term bursts of positive emotions. And also what gives you eudimonic happiness, so that sense of purpose, that sense of why connecting to yourself, feeling like you're fulfilled in the life that you live, then those two things are what basically make happiness happen for you. Wow, so you've got these two very distinct elements, presumably there's an interplay between the two. Yes. But in the same way as someone's training schedule will consist of both training and nutrition

and the two interplay between each other but are both distinct as well. In order to chase down the goal of happiness you need to have both of these. Yeah, absolutely. That's, I mean it makes sense. It's not something that I that I directly knew but it definitely makes sense that there's these two elements to it. Yeah. So what's the framework that you begin to give people to turn that concept of two different kinds of happiness? How do they begin to implement that in their lives or chase it down to manifest it? Yeah. Well, I think before I even start talking to them about Hedonic Road, I'm on a cappiness.

I encourage them to turn gratitude into a habit, because when you're able to have an attitude of gratitude, that's when you can actually totally rewire your brain and you start to see things differently. You start to notice things differently. So the first exercise I give all my clients is a gratitude journal, which is basically finishing every single day by writing down three specific things that you were most grateful for in that specific day. And the really key there is to make sure that they are specific. So it's not just, I'm grateful for my family, I'm grateful for my job, I'm grateful for the

sun. No, it has to be really specific. Like, I'm grateful for a lovely Skype call I had with my brother who lives in a different country. I thought you were going to say a lovely Skype call I had with Chris. That's well, that's well, yeah. So the thing is with the gratitude exercises to make sure that they are really specific to that day and then to keep doing that gratitude exercise every evening at least for 21 days, if not longer, basically when you start to notice yourself going into your day looking for things to be grateful for, like, oh, I could put that in my journal later. Ooh, that could go in and that could go in. That's when you know that it's starting to work.

That's when you know you're starting to learn to focus more on the positives, on the things that you can be grateful for and you can start approaching life, which more of this sense of awe and wonder that children, for example, approach it with. And once you start getting your mindset into that kind of place, that's when it's a lot easier to start exploring these questions of hedonic and eodimonic happiness. What is it that actually brings me joy and what is it that brings me odemonic happiness also because then you can look back in your gratitude journal and you will probably start to see common denominator.

It's like patterns, right? Exactly, exactly. So that's always kind of the first step I encourage people to take when it comes to them shifting into into a more positive place regardless of what's going on around them but really starting to focus on working on that inner mindset. Is that is gratitude the foundation upon which happiness is built then to a degree? Yes, yeah, absolutely because without gratitude it's very difficult to see the light in a lot of things, you know, because gratitude leads to anything from being

able to be more creative, to productive, to being able to think of more solutions, to being able to focus on the good, appreciate the people in your life, deal with stress more effectively. I mean, it just goes on and on in terms of the benefits of gratitude because you really start to approach things from a completely different angle. Yeah, but I like the fact that you've brought up stuff to do with habits. We spend a lot of time talking about habits on the show and I swear that you aren't reading my notes, but there is how can habits impact happiness a little bit further down my notes. We're going to come back to that in a little bit. But I think the litmus test of are you starting to see things during your day that you want to

become grateful for or that you see can will feature potentially in the journal or in your diary later on in the day. I think that's a really nice way to put it. I used this example previously. But one of my friends was talking about his training and he was saying that he was not getting enough sleep and he was not getting enough food at the moment and his training wasn't optimal. And I've been journaling for a little while and his approach to that was, I'm not optimal, I'm not in my best, I'm not prepared myself the best to go in and train, therefore I can afford to write training off to a degree and we had a conversation about it and it was a little bit down

and my approach to it, which surprised myself because this isn't my tip of this wouldn't, there've usually been my typical way of looking at it, my way to look at it was to say, well, look mate, you have the opportunity here to conduct training sessions under duress and under non-ideal circumstances. This is an opportunity so that if you go into a competition and you know you haven't slept sufficiently well, you know that you haven't eaten well, maybe you've traveled, maybe whatever's happened, you know that you've still got it in the tank. So this is an opportunity for you to be grateful for, yeah, okay, maybe it's not ideal, but how can we flip that on its head and actually

make it into a positive rather than a negative? I think, for me, that was a very small but really stark identifier that the journaling practice I've just completed five months yesterday. So I've finished my first one, I've had to get a new one. And this happens to be the third podcast in a row where we've brought up journaling. So the one that was released just last week with Dr. Ewan Lawson, author of the Healthy Writer, that he sang the praises of journaling.

And I think when you've got so many different, so many people from different fields, all of whom are converging over the top of a single habit. I think for anybody who's listening who isn't journaling and isn't doing gratitude, I think that that's a definitely a good place to start. So you're talking about three things on an evening that people are grateful for and that is beginning to form the foundation, Is that right? Yes, absolutely, definitely. Great. Where do we go from there? So from there, I think, like you said, once we've done it for a couple of weeks,

we can start looking at those patterns, and then we can start actually exploring those two questions about what is it that actually makes you feel joy in those short term moments of positive emotions. And on the other side, what is that gives you that sense of meaning? Because especially when it comes to sense of meaning and that why and that purpose, a lot of people tend to get overwhelmed with the idea that in order to have purpose in your life, you're supposed to be curing cancer, abolishing poverty, or solving some massive humanitarian cause. And it's like, well, no, actually the definition of purpose

is just you knowing why you do what you do. So as long as you understand why what you're doing has actually some kind of outcome or purpose or it's somehow meaningful to you, that's good enough. And I think, yes, it's still good to explore the whole, if you want to have some kind of positive impact, you know, you want to leave your mark on the world. But we have to start small because those big questions can be really overwhelming, especially if you haven't really explored it before. So really, just start by looking at your

daily actions, you know, brushing your teeth. Oh, why do I brush my teeth? Oh, well, I can have healthy teeth. And it's like, you know, why do I go to the gym or go for a walk in the park? Well, it's good to exercise. Okay, and it makes me feel good. Okay, I get it. Right. You go into work mode. Okay, why am I doing, I don't know, this report for my manager. Oh, it's because he needs it to show to the board or the team or whatever. Okay, so that's the why behind that. Because once you just start asking yourself, right, why am I doing this? Then you start to connect to all those different actions

on a daily level in your life and at your work. And you can actually start to create more of that sense of meaning and purpose without daunting yourself with that massive question, oh, what's my life purpose? And it's gold, right? Yeah, exactly. To bring it back to the listeners, the listeners are gonna know what? Yeah, exactly. To bring it back to the listeners, the listeners are going to know what I'm going to say,

to bring it back to Jordan Peterson. One of the exercises that he uses is clean up your room. I'm not sure if you've heard him talk about this. No, I haven't actually. Right, so he, the first thing that he gets a lot of his patients to do is to begin to clean up their room. And what he says is that your bedroom is a domain of competence that you broadly, most people, generally speaking,

will have control over. There are very few people whose bedrooms are so out of control they couldn't tame it themselves. And the point is that you start off by getting control over a domain of competence that is within your capabilities. And then once the room is clean, then you can look, right, okay, maybe I can try and do

the bathroom, maybe I can try and do the kitchen. Okay, well my friends got something going on with their house, with their life, with their, and as you begin to clean up the small things first, you build a brick on top of a brick on top of a brick and before you know it's a wall, which is your capacity to overcome things, but also the domain of competence grows. So what gets included within that web of what you're trying to take on also becomes broader. And I think that the starting small, starting at finding what am I doing now?

Why is it giving me purpose? What is the larger perspective looking at these tasks? I think that that sort of ties across really nicely. Yeah, absolutely. And that's just it. Like you said, like all those tiny little steps do end up building that massive fortress in the end, but it's just about really breaking it down and taking the time, doing the tiniest thing you can do or asking that tiniest why question,

and then that's how you can start building it up. Because also with kind of every step forward and every question that you kind of answer, you get more of that sense of confidence as well and more of that fulfillment. So then you want to do even another step and even another step. So each step kind of fuels the next one as well. Yeah, I really wanted to ask this question actually, you've just touched on it there. Can you explain how confidence and happiness interplay? Yeah, I mean, they're completely interlinked.

So happier people are more confident and also the more confident you tend to be that happier you feel. So it is kind of like this positive spiral. And a lot of it is to do with, because when you feel confident with yourself, that's when you kind of believe in yourself. You have a sense of, you know, self-love and self-compassion and you appreciate that you have certain, you know, abilities and strengths and qualities and traits and talents that you are meant to share with the world. And when you have that

sense of confidence within you, you're naturally going to show up more as who you are wherever you go. So naturally, you're going to be living a life that's much more aligned with who you are, which again is another kind of driver of happiness because you're not trying to build a life by being somebody who you're not or just trying to be somebody who you think you should be. But if you have that natural sense of confidence, you tend to really connect to your values, to your truth, and build a life according to them. So naturally, that is also going to fuel your happiness and fulfilment on many levels. Yeah, that's really interesting. Again, to draw it across to something else, Jordan Peterson talks about rule number seven of his 40 rules for life is tell the truth.

In fact, no, it's not, it's rule number one. I can't remember it that well. Yeah, rule number one, tell the truth and rule number three, act so that you can tell the truth by how you act. Yeah. And so you mentioned there that people should start to take pride in the things that they do.

I can imagine, I can hear some of my more negative friends already saying, well, I have nothing to be proud of. I'm not proud of anything that I do in my life. What do we say to that? Well, we tell them to dig deeper, basically, if we don't get... I can't be confident. I can't be confident because, or I have no confidence

because I don't do anything which is a value to me. So this is when I think it's really important to be surrounded by cheerleaders. So these are kind of, you know, your dream tribe around you, so people who really support you and encourage you. And, you know, if you have a friend who's a little bit like that or is having a rough day or is just not seeing, not able to see any of their successes or achievements, that's when it's kind of your opportunity to also step up and say, look, I do you think you're being realistic about this and then just point out certain things.

Like, what about that time when I don't know, you spoke up to your manager and said, actually, could I change the way this is done because Because I think it's more productive, or that time when, I don't know, they succeeded in a fitness challenge, anything, just anything goes. And I think it's also then about bringing it back to you and your relationship with them and talk about, well, actually, I think you're an incredible friend. You've always been really supportive and encouraging.

And again, try and give concrete examples as much as possible, because then you can start to help kind of see it in a different way. Because that's also how I talk to some of my clients who maybe have had or have, currently have some confidence issues and they can't really see anything positive and are being a bit too self-critical. You know, I really try and ask them to try and turn themselves, try and put yourself in the shoes of your best friend who's always supported you, encouraging

and loved you. What would they say to you right now? What is it that they would want you to hear in this moment of your doubt? Because then you can really step in and you can start exploring, no, there are actually positives of play. Oh, okay, there was this time where I was successful or this time that I did well or this time when I helped somebody. And again, try and really look for the tiniest little things.

And when you start exploring it and thinking about it, then more and more will come out. But it's just about making sure you really push your brain really to work hard on this and just really think of as many examples as possible because initially you might come up with the most obvious ones but then you just say okay what are three more examples what are three more examples and just keep pushing and pushing and then eventually they'll be like okay they'll they might look back on their list or that conversation that you've had and be like okay very enough maybe there are some times that, you know,

I have done things well and I have been successful and okay, I can recreate more of that, etc. Yeah, I think having done my gratitude journaling for quite a while now, it's strange to see what it is that I find a value to myself. I think after a little while these patents begin to emerge as you said. And they're not necessarily always the things that you think. They're not, you know, it's never, I've never written in my gratitude journal at the end of the day. I'm grateful for getting 2,000 likes on a photo on Instagram. That's never appeared. And I think a lot of the time what that's led to happening is for me to look at where I'm spending my time

during the day and then what it is that I'm valuing on a night and I'm seeing quite a contrast between the two at times. Although I'm trying to close the gap as best I can. And sometimes, especially early on, the amount of time and effort that was being invested in the things which at the end of the day wouldn't even feature in the periphery of what could enter the Gratitude Journal was, it just meant, well, why am I spending my time doing that? Yeah. Why? It's not fulfilling me, it's not making me feel any better.

It's when I'm alone with my thoughts at the end of the day, just before I go to bed and I'm writing in what were the best parts of my day, it's not there. So when the day starts to fresher game tomorrow, maybe think about not doing it. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think it's really good to do that kind of self-reflection on a continuous basis because as a human being, you're naturally evolving daily

and you are very dynamic from every level. And that means that sometimes these things can also shift. So maybe things that you thought were really important to you, I don't know, five years ago, maybe you've still kept doing them. And then you, I don't know, five years ago, maybe you've still kept doing them and then you realize them today, actually, I'm not connecting with them anymore and that's when you need to check in and say, okay, maybe this is something that I shouldn't be doing anymore. So it's about constantly checking in with yourself, your actions, your values, all those things so that you can really understand, okay, what is it that's fueling my fulfillment and am I basically doing enough of it on a daily level?

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So we've got the gratitude that we're doing on a daily basis. We've started to look at the things that we know can give us, the small things that we know can give us purpose day to day. Where do you take it from there? So then I would really encourage people to practice resilience and again that's something that both of these things fuel anyway. So the more grateful you are, the more optimistic you are, the more resilient you tend to be. And when I talk about resilience, it's not about being stubborn

minded and things like that and just sticking with things that you know aren't right for you. No, it's about understanding that when you are faced with a setback or a challenge or some kind of failure, it's there for a reason. It's there as an opportunity for you to check in with yourself, for you to grow, for you to push yourself out of your comfort zone, for you to develop. And when I talk about resilience, I talk a lot about growth mindset by Carol Drak. Have you heard of that? I've heard of it, but not read it.

Yeah, so basically, yeah, it's one of the, I think one of my favorite books from my studying times, it was incredible, and it really completely shifted my mindset. And she talks about basically these two ways to approach life when it comes to your mindset so you can have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset and if you have a fixed mindset you basically think that your abilities, your traits, your intelligence is fixed and that's it that's what you've kind of been gifted with and that's what you have to work with and you just carry on with that.

Whereas somebody with a growth mindset sees their trait, skills, intelligence, abilities, something that they can always develop and that they can always evolve and they can always grow in. Now, when it comes to you facing different situations, obviously there are certain situations that can maybe put you more in a fixed mindset and other ones that can push you more into a growth mindset. But the important bit is to really try and again, be aware of this and see kind of where you think you fit in the scale when you are faced with a challenge. Because if you are able to harness a growth mindset, that's when you start seeing those challenges

as opportunities to grow and learn. You start seeing other people's success as inspiration, not threat. You really start taking feedback in a positive way and realize, okay, this is an opportunity for me to grow rather than taking it personally and thinking this is just an attack on you. And that's why I think when it comes to resilience and really being able to face all the challenges and all the unplanned surprises that we have on a daily basis. The life inevitably flows through us, right? Exactly.

So I think it's really important to try and harness that growth mindset and whenever you are faced with that challenge or that some kind of setback, just have a look at it. Think of it, okay, how am I starting to approach this challenge right now? Am I going to the negative or the positive? Am I thinking fixed mindset or fixed mindset way or growth mindset way? Then start diving into it and I know, okay, this is an opportunity for me to grow. This is an opportunity for me to learn. This is an opportunity for me to really step in and be a better version of myself.

And one thing that can also help you get more comfortable in a way in feeling more resilient is also looking back on some of your past setbacks and failures. And then ask yourself, how is your life or how are you better because of those setbacks? Because in one way or another, there will be some kind of learning and growth in them. And taking the time to really pause and reflect on that can help kind of bring more of that growth mindset in and also help you to

change face future challenges in a better way as well. Okay, so that's taking it a little bit of a step further than just the gratitude. It's a reflection period generally. Yeah. So do you encourage your clients and your patients to take these to periodize reflection? Yeah, well I encourage if you can at the end of every week to basically answer three questions. And again, you can do journaling or you can talk to somebody about it, you can just think about it. I mean, again, I'm a huge fan of journaling, so I always recommend that because also putting

stuff out on paper kind of helps you digest them in a more effective way. But the three questions are, is basically one, what was the one thing that I'm most proud of from the last week? The second question is, what is one learning that I've had in the last week? And the final is, what is the most beautiful moment I've had in the last week? So it kind of, again, touches on all those different elements of, okay, what is it that I'm proud of? How can I connect to that sense of achievement and connect to myself and my truth and feel more of that compassion? And the second is all about

that learning. So really about understanding, okay, was there a setback or a challenge or something that really helped me to learn? And what was that learning that I can now take forward with me? And the final, just reflecting on one beautiful moment from that week, because I think we just generally don't take enough time to just pause and reflect on all the kind of amazing things that are happening around us, and just picking one moment that you're kind of gonna spend some time extra time savoring

after it's happened can really help to boost not only those positive emotions, but also that sense of fulfillment. Yeah, I think so. The time that you can spend to ruminate over something which gives you pleasure. Inherently, it's very liberating. And it's like free happiness,

presuming that, do you know what I mean? Like you've already done it, you've put the investment in the activity has gone, and you're now able to just revisit that in your mind and elicit the same emotions again. Yeah, absolutely. So I wanted to ask a question that I think a lot of people will think. Yeah. Is tackling unhappiness the same as making people happy. So in CrossFit there is a

spectrum of sickness to wellness to fitness or sickness to health to fitness. So is this the same? So it depends pretty much how you define unhappiness because obviously if you have been diagnosed with clinical depression, it's a little bit of a different ball game and there are, you need to kind of be a little bit more cautioned about what kind of exercises you do and you know work with a clinical psychologist to help kind of yourself work on yourself with the right tools because sometimes depending on how in what kind of place you are some of the tools, if you struggle with them, they can make you feel worse.

I'm going to guess a reflection period if you're feeling really bad, it's just going to send you the spiral, the echo chamber that you mentioned before of positivity, is actually just going to bounce you off the walls about all of the bad stuff. Exactly, because if you're not able to think of the positives and then you start just journaling or rather You know, you're making about all the bad stuff. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, absolutely And then then I would encourage you to think more of things you can do with your body So things like moving breathing smiling hugging, you know the power pose Just kind of trying to almost trick your mind into a more positive place by getting your body into a more

positive place as well. And also when it comes to positive psychology, for example, it kind of got born in a way. I think it's been around like just, well, yeah, just over 25 years now. And it kind of became what it is because the founding father is Martin Seleckman and Mihali Chik sent Mihai. They said that traditional psychology is a little bit too focused on kind of the negative, so how to get people from minus five to zero. Whereas positive psychology really focuses on how you get from zero to plus five. So you're already kind of stable and you're kind of healthy overall. Yes, you can still worry and stress and have anxiety and things like this,

but you're in a place where you feel kind of at least somewhat confident that you are capable of working on yourself and you believe most importantly, that you can get to a better place. And when you're in that place, that you can get to a better place. And when you're in that place, that's when you can really start using a lot of these positive psychology exercises to get to that happier place. Yeah, I understand that completely. I think to draw it back to the training of the CrossFit analogy, that is right.

It is a spectrum of going from unhappiness to normality, whatever you class as normal, to then happiness. But in the same way as someone who's sedentary and hasn't been training, you don't get them off the couch and then try and get them a deadlift to 200 kilos. There's an on-ramp to get them through the spectrum. The methodology is different and the specifics are different, but the concept is the same. However, there are stages at which people need to be taken through. Right, okay, you haven't moved, you haven't moved for a long time.

Why don't we try and do 10 minutes of walking a day? Why don't we do 30 minutes of walking? Why don't we go for a light jog? Why don't we begin to do some weight training? And in the same way as there is a paradigm and within each strata, as people begin to move through it, they open up new exercises which they can use and utilize in different ways and probably dispense with old ones. There's not many top level cross for athletes who are probably considering going for a 10 minute walk because that's contributing to their training. And in the same way as

people who have gone through the, moved from depression to normality to happiness, don't necessarily need to go back to the exercises they were doing to stop their depression. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's really, really interesting. So what does, is there anything else which science says makes people happy, which we haven't covered so far? Ah, yeah, I mean, well, there's a lot. Basically.

Well, I mean, we've talked a little bit about the body and obviously, with the CrossFit mentions that you've made as well. Maybe it's good to spend a little bit of time talking about that and what we can do with our body as well, because as much as we think, our mind is driven, it affects our body, our body also affects our mind, and actually, if we're able to kind of nurture ourselves and take care of ourselves and give our body the things that we need from healthy exercise, to enough rest, to the right nutrition, then we're already starting in a better place. But also when it comes to specific exercises, you can do with your body physically to start shifting your mindset into a positive one.

I mean, the most simplest one is smiling. And I mean, it sounds ridiculous and silly and a lot of people laugh about it but there is a whole chemical reaction that happens in your body when you smile and actually even a fake smile can trip right? I was going to say so that's true even regardless of whether the smile is listening to you being happy if you smile. Yeah. Your mind will respond. Exactly because that's when the dopamine is

returning, all of those things kick in, they start flowing in your body and then you actually start to feel better and then you want to smile even more and the more you smile, the more they go into your body and again the better you feel. So even kind of forcing a fake smile can help to stop make that shift. And best of all, with the smiling, it's also very contagious. So, you know, if you go to a room and you smile at people, you not the mirror neurons in the back of their brains automatically get activated and they immediately want to reciprocate and smile back at you. I mean, that's just something that evolutionarily is something that happens naturally without you thinking about it. So you have to try really hard not to smile when somebody's just giving you

Yeah, so I think that's just something to to remind yourself off as simple as that just smiling and it's a double win Right you get the effect on yourself plus you get the effect on other people plus you get there Reci reciprocated likeness towards you. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it builds more meaningful connections. It just fuels positive energy within you and around you. So it's really a win-win-win in a way. Can you talk to us about diet and its effect on mood and happiness? Yeah. I mean, the thing is, with diet, if we don't get all the nutrients into a body that we need, you know, the vitamin, the protein,

the carburet everything, we actually start depriving of our body and our body naturally goes into a state of stress. And if our body is in a state of stress because it's not getting what it needs and it thinks it's in starvation mode or it's not getting enough water, it's continuously dehydrated.

Then that's when it starts to kind of shut down some body parts to try and preserve your energy and one of the things that it starts to shut down, the first is actually your mind. So you actually have less power over your brain and less capacity of your brain power to use because your body is thinking, ooh, they have an eaten well or there aren't nutrients, ooh, maybe like I'm in starvation mode, okay, I need to preserve my energy, I need to hold things back and then you start being less able to manage your thoughts and also your emotions

and being able to think creatively because your body just doesn't have the fuel it needs in order to do that. Yeah, I know calorifically that the brain is incredibly expensive. It is. For the body, I think it's something like 5% of your weight, but takes up 30% of your energy or your calories. I think that something along those lines. Am I right in thinking that there's a very high number of, is it dopamine or serotonin Either receptors in the gut or releases in the gut? Yes, yes exactly that as well so that when you're basically

Digesting stuff and and processing food You need to also make sure that that's all happening and and that's why that fuel is just so important because like then That would also then connect to the smile and how effective the smile is, because obviously it's harder to smile if you don't have those things in a readily state to function as well. And again, they need that fuel to really keep going.

Yeah, definitely. So we've touched on a little bit on exercise. We need to get some people moving. If people want to be happier, they can move more. Yes. Absolutely. We need to make sure that they're eating correctly. We want them to be doing some gratitude journaling. We want them at the end of the week to be asking themselves three questions. What about sleep? What sort of an impact does sleep have on mood? Yeah, sleep is massive as well because the only time that your body has the time to recover is during sleep.

That's when your cells are regenerating. If you've done a hard workout, some things like that, your muscles are recovering and recuperating. Also, whatever you've gone through in the day before, learning or challenges or creative thinking, at night, when you're asleep, your brain is actually hard at work because it's digesting all of that, it's creating new neural pathway, their new neurons forming. So your brain is also, again, it's a time in that time when you're asleep in your mind physiologically, your body is actually working quite hard to get everything back in place and recovered so that

you're ready for the next day. So, I mean, research kind of suggests that ideally, on average, you should be getting between seven to nine hours of sleep every day. Now, it does vary individual to individual, but that is the ideal on an average. And they also recommend that you should try and have a similar sleep time routine. So basically, go to bed approximately same time and get up in the morning the next day

approximate the same time because that's when your body again going back into habits. Your body starts to understand when it needs to start kind of winding down and getting ready for bed and equally in the morning then it knows okay we're approaching I don't know 7 a.m. and okay it's time to start kind of awakening and getting alert. Yeah, definitely. And again, the more you can follow also the kind of natural cycle of light, the best set, because of your cortisol levels being highest in the morning, when you get up, when the sun has come up, that's also when you're your most alert and you're most kind of creative and productive. So, if you can, you should try and really use as much of the daylight as you can.

And obviously, it depends where you are and how much daylight you have. I mean, I come from Finland and in the winter in the north, I think there's about two hours of daylight. You can't really sleep the rest of the time. Yeah. It's going to be a short day at work. Yeah, it's going to be a short day at work. Yeah, exactly. But as much as you can, you should try and kind of look at nature as well and look at that cycle and see if you can match with that as much as possible. Yeah, throwing you circadian rhythm into chaos is a surefire way to start to decrease your mood. Yeah. I'm a club promoter and I have been for 12 years, which means that

I'm a club promoter and I have been for 12 years, which means that for probably for the last six to seven years, at least three nights a week, I've gone to bed after four in the morning. And that's a non-negotiable. I can't change that about my job. So it's been a long and arduous process for me to work out strategies of how I can mitigate that. And for a very, very long time, I was very harsh on myself about why you're getting up late, why you sortied, why you were able to perform at the level that you want to either in work or in relationships or in the gym or wherever it

might be. When not giving myself enough credit for the fact, well, you went to bed at four in the morning after working a 20 hour day, give yourself a break. Like sleep is one of those things, I think people always believe, well, you can just man it up, you know, like it'll be sweet, I'll sleep when I'm dead.

That's, I mean, that's, holy, holy, terrible advice, because you're going to be more unhappy and you're gonna die sooner's holy, holy, terrible advice because you're going to be more unhappy and you're going to die sooner. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I think you brought up a really important point there about kind of being kinder to yourself as well,

being aware of what's going on in your life. And like you're having, like you said, 20 hour days. I mean, oh my god, of course, you need to just relax, recharge, and recuperate as much as you can. And I think that's, God, of course, you need to just relax, recharge, and recuperate as much as you can. And I think that's, again, another thing, especially in today's society, where I think we seem to be rewarded by busyness and the more we do, and the better we seem to look to the outside world, and just having a packed schedule and wanting from one place to another. And it's like, well, no, that's not what life is about.

It's actually, we need to kind of take more time to nurture ourselves and spend some quality time with ourselves and make sure that we are in a happy, healthy, and fit state, because otherwise, we don't really have much left to give to others either. 100%. There's a couple of things that you've touched on there

that I've spoken about recently. And one of them is to do with, I use an analogy in an Instagram post and I said, why is it that in an aeroplane which is going down, they ask you to put your oxygen mask on before they ask you to put on anybody else's and it's because if you're suffocating your capacity to help other people becomes drastically reduced. And the same thing talks through here. If you're not giving yourself time and care and love, even if you think you're making the sacrifice of yourself

on behalf of someone else because they need your time more, you're restricting how much of yourself you can give them by not caring about yourself. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's... Yeah, a lot of this appears to come back to having more compassion, having more self-compassion. Again, another Jordan Peterson rule for life, treat yourself as someone you are responsible for helping. That compassion is a really big deal. I love the concept about people seeing busyness as some marker for purpose. I think busyness is being conflated with purpose.

And it's the one inch deep, goth and mothin veneer as opposed to actually looking at what's underneath that and trying to fix that problem or trying to work out what actually is meaningful to me. Well, I'm so busy, I can't work out what's meaningful to me. My schedule is so packed, I don't have time to reflect. So you don't have time to work out whether something's good or bad because you're just in so much chaos. Yeah. But you don't have time. Yeah, absolutely. And it's like that saying, if you think you're too stressed or too busy to meditate, then

you should meditate twice as long. Yeah. Because, yeah, you'd say, I mean, that's when you need it the most and that's when you have to prioritize it even more as difficult as it may seem. But you have to. It's like, it's self-preservation. I mean, it's survival. It's a non-negotiable, I think, for me.

Yeah. Especially a lot of what it's to do with as well, and this comes back to the domain of competence thing and the building the brick one on top of another. There is, I can hold my hands up, and I can say that at some days in my life, I haven't had five minutes to be able to stop. But I can probably honestly hold my hands up and say that there's never been a day in my life

where I haven't had one minute. And on headspace, you can meditate for a minute. There's a button, it's on the homepage. And you can press it and you can do it for one minute. And at the end of the day, when I fill in my habit-bull checker, yeah, okay, it's not going to go down as a green, which would be fully completed. It'll go down as a yellow, which means that it was a scaled version.

But you know what I mean? It's logged on the board. That's a little bit... The brick hasn't been taken away, at the very least. I might not have had another one on, but I've not lost one. No, exactly. I think that have added another one on, but I've not lost one. No, exactly. I think that building on top is definitely, definitely a lovely way to look at it. I think that little concept about people

confusing busyness with purposes, gonna strike a chord if the listeners who are those that maybe do fill their schedules very, very heavily, I think taking some time to think about, well, how much do I actually enjoy what I'm doing? How much of what I'm doing is just me being busy and how much of it is me being happy. Yeah. I think there's probably going to be some harsh realizations. So I want to talk about happiness is here.

So you brought a book out January this year? Yes. Take us through it. Yeah, so it's called Happiness is Here and it's basically a 30 day guide to join fulfillment. So the book basically summarizes kind of the most transformational tips when it came to me changing my mindset from a natural customer's trained optimist and me kind of finding happiness and fulfillment in my life. So I was really keen to share those tips with the rest of the world. So it is quite a personal story.

So I share a little bit about where I was at happiness at the start, as in not very happy. And also when I went into positive psychology and how kind of everything that I learned there and continued to learn even beyond my studies afterwards, still now, today through life and through, you know, coming across different things, it was really important for me to share those learnings that were most helpful for me and also have been most helpful for my clients when it comes to just yeah starting to bring more happiness into your

life and it must be it must be such a you must have a wealth of things to pick from and it must be quite difficult to a degree because academically you understand the subject matter anecdotally you understand your own personal experience of it and then professionally you understand your own personal experience of it, and then professionally you understand how this has been deployed to your clients. So, you know, I think if there was, if there was anyone that I was gonna trust

to give me a program that I was going to follow to try and become more happy, I think that you were, I think you definitely take all of the boxes there. Yeah, thank you, well that's good. Yeah. So take us through some of the boxes there. Yeah, thank you. Well, that's good. So take us through some of the things that you cover in the book. Yeah, so some of the things we've discussed today, so in terms of what happiness is, basically,

this pleasure and purpose, that's all, or they're all kind of in there as well, so kind of debunking some of those myths around happiness. And there's also a lot about kind of really understanding to connect to yourself. So there's a whole section about you personally and your values and just you learning to connect to your own inner truth as well, because the way I've kind of structured is with these 30 days, so the idea is that every chapter, it's quite short, you can probably read it in five to 10 minutes. At the end of every chapter, there's basically a tip that

you're meant to practice on that day. And, you know, the first part is all about those happiness truths and myths. And then it's about your unique happiness. So connecting to that purpose, your values, what gives you hadonic happiness, then we start looking at your perspective. So I talk about gratitude there there a little bit more deeply about optimism, noticing the beauty, resilience, all those things that we've kind of touched on. I also look a little bit on relationships because obviously as humans we are social creatures, so we not only need each other to survive but actually to thrive. So I give a few tips on how to make sure that you are connecting in a more meaningful way with the people in your life and how you are celebrating as well those cheerleaders of yours

that you appreciate. And I do also have a chapter on decluttering some relationships because I think And I do also have a chapter on decluttering some relationships because I think sometimes we hold on to people or relationships that maybe, well, either need a breather or need some kind of change and or they just simply don't belong in your life anymore. And I think it's really important to take a kind of harsh, true look at some of them because if there are people in your life that are potentially holding you back or being toxic, then it's important to try and distance yourself from that because you don't want them to start influencing your happiness in a negative way. And then there's also a part about your body, you know, where I talk again a little bit more about smiling, moving, hugging,

power pose, and then my final part, which I think is my favorite, is all about making your happiness last. And this is where I talk about nurturing yourself, reflecting, finding time to be still, and also letting go of things that no longer serve you. So anything from your limiting beliefs to objects, to people, kind of just anything that you feel like, it's time to let go of now.

And I wrap up the book with some tips about listening to your heart and your intuition as well, because that's another point that I'm very, very passionate about. And I think in today's societies, where we are very mind-driven and rational, we've kind of forgotten a little bit about the heart and that gut feel and that intuition and we forget that intuition knows so much more than our mind does. I mean our intuition is basically connected to our body, our brain and every single experience we've ever had in our lives and we need to kind of learn

to reconnect with that because that again is something that can really help guide us when it comes to us on our path and finding our truth and understanding what is it that's meaningful to you and what is it that you want to basically pursue and how you want to live your life. That's really interesting. So is intuition defined in the scientific literature? your life. That's really interesting. So is intuition defined in the scientific literature? So I mean there's been some attempts to define it. I think that's the tricky thing with intuition is because it's very hard to measure scientifically, especially in psychology terms. I mean you can do subjective surveys and things like that on what people think is intuition. Inherently very subjective, are I? Yeah, exactly. So it hasn't gone much further than that. But equally, I do believe it has a role to play and I think that people are trying to kind of

find ways to measure it and explore it. But then at the same time, maybe it's just one of those things that can't necessarily be explained with science But it's just something that we know through feeling regardless of whether or not the research or the literature can define it Everybody who's listening Understands what the manifestation of that phenomenon is like everyone understands what intuition feels like Mm-hmm, and whether or not that can be defined it is, would be helpful. But it's a little bit secondary if we know how to manipulate it.

So what I really like about happiness is here, and one of the reasons why specifically for myself, I'm looking forward to implementing it, is it's very prescriptive to a degree that you have things that you can follow. It's got hard lines drawn in the sand, so to speak, that are takeaways. I enjoy reading personal development and self-help books, which are conceptual and leave the door open for you to apply the principles yourself. I also like being, I like having things laid out, the mobility routine that I do, Rommuadu, which I do every morning. That is every single day all I do is put my phone on and I press a button and I do what the,

I do what the video tells me to do. I like, I like that element and I find that when you're beginning a practice and you know positive psychology and taking moves, people taking active moves to make themselves more happy for the for the sole goal of being more happy, not for it being because I'm going to profit off it, not because I'm going to be more successful at work or whatever it is for the sole goal of being happy. That's going to be a big departure for a lot of people from probably what they do on a daily basis. I can't imagine that a large majority of people will wake up and think, on a morning,

well, today, I'm going to work really hard on being happy. Yeah. Which is actually probably quite the wrong way to think about it But yeah, the the prescription development of it the the rock hard takeaways are really really like I think some of the things that we've gone through today. I love the framework that we've got hopefully we can Some of the listeners will be able to employ these strategies and if they want to Take this further happiness is here, I'll make sure that the link is in the show notes below.

Can you tell the listeners where they can find you online? Yes, of course. So you can find me on my website, which is Happyologist.co.uk. I'm also on social media as at the Happyologist. So the Happyologist is basically on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And I also do a free newsletter, so if you want to sign up, you can do that on my website.

And yeah, so come and have a chat, basically. You also do coaching online coaching for clients as well, right? Yes, yes, I do online coaching. I've got a new online course actually coming up where I'm working on a couple ones and Yeah, and also those workshops and talks for organizations and different types of conferences and events. Oh, wow, fantastic So thank you very much for your time, Susanna. I'll make sure links to Happyology.co.uk your socials to, happiness is here, plus screw finding your passion, which I know we didn't even get round to, maybe we're going to have to do another one and we can talk.

We can go on talking about that, but thank you so much for today. It's been a fantastic chat. I think a lot of people will have taken away some really, really good concrete bits of advice that they can implement in their lives. Yeah, no, thank you so much for having me. It's been a blast and I mean this is my mission so I really love I love sharing insights and yeah I really hope that it's been helpful to your listeners. I think we've definitely had an impact today so thank you again.

Thank you thank you so much. Cheers Susanna. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,