Quick question: what can lower your blood pressure, work your abs, reduce your stress levels, improve your heart muscle, boost T-cell production, release endorphins, and give you a general sense of well-being? (Are you mumbling to yourself that surely nothing can do all of those things?) It’s laughter, plain and simple. When was the last time you laughed? Not your ‘career laugh’, but a real laugh when you might not have been able to stop – your sides hurt, you can’t catch your breath, but in a good way. If you haven’t done it for a while, give it a whirl today! If ‘funny’ is in short supply at the moment, go looking for some. And let me know what makes you laugh – pass it on! (In the spirit of passing it on, here's what always makes me weep with laughter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD6rKhzV_m0​.)

Regular readers of the blog and my website will know how much I love solution-focused thinking. And I was reminded of this love last week, when I met up with a friend who is choosing her next life path – exciting times! She uses SFT too, and had the lovely task of choosing her next ‘future perfect’. Therefore, this week, I want to focus on an aspect of SFT that is really easy to use in everyday life: the scale (sounds a bit like a Phillip Schofield ITV game show!).

The Scale is a way of helping yourself reflect on strengths and coping strategies, and can help identify personal goals and steps towards achieving them. The chosen number on the scale is not important in itself – it just helps to realise more about a situation. The important thing about scaling is that it really helps to explore perceptions rather than reality.

Have a quick go by thinking of an example of something in your life that you would like to be better. This can be something outside of work, perhaps a hobby or a skill. Go through these points in order:

• On a scale of 1 – 10, where 10 is the best things could ever be and 1 is the opposite to that, where would you put things today?
• So, you’re at n now. How did you get that far?
• What would half a point higher look like?
• How would you know if you got to n+1?
• Where would someone else rate you on this scale? How would this person know when you got one point higher up the scale?
• What do you know that will help you get higher up the scale?
• On a scale of 1-10, what is your commitment to taking that step?
• What are you most pleased about your efforts so far?
• What will be the first signs that things are getting better?

If you go through these questions and are really honest in your answers, you’ll be confirming your progress, encouraging more change, focusing on how you would like things to be, and helping yourself to decide on next steps. Handy, eh?!

It is often said that the fewer desires you have, the happier you will be. Hmmm… I think this needs some clarification before I can commit to it.
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If we have correct and true information, this can lead to a greater sense of contentment. Then, if we have a correct understanding of ourselves, our purpose, our origins and our true relationships, we can free ourselves from the cycles of boom and bust associated with modern life (and ‘having things’). Once this happens, it can eventually lead us to an ultimate happiness.

As Socrates said, ‘He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.’
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I’d love to hear what you think about this. Might still need some convincing! 

Do you remember the old TV programme called 'Why Don't You?' The title song suggested that you “Switch off your TV set and do something less boring instead!” Some recent research totally agrees with this and proposes that TV won’t make people happy. Some positive psychologists suggest that people in rich, Western countries spend too much free time on passive activities, like bingeing on box-sets and browsing social media, rather than on active, psychologically-demanding activities, like cooking, sport or playing music, that allow the opportunity to experience ‘flow’ – that magic interval where your abilities only just meet the demands of the challenge. A new paper in the Journal of Positive Psychology examines this dilemma. Do we realise that pursuing more active, challenging activities will make us happier in the long-run? If so, why then do we opt to spend so much more time lazing around doing things that are pleasant in the moment, but unlikely to bring any lasting fulfilment?

There was a clear pattern: more effortful activities are identified as being more associated with lasting happiness, yet people said they spent much more time on passive, relaxation-based activities, like watching TV. Looking at their other judgments, the key factor that seemed to deter participants from engaging in more active, flow-inducing activities is that they tended to be seen as particularly daunting and less enjoyable, even while being associated with lasting happiness. The more daunting an activity was deemed to be, the less frequently it was undertaken (by contrast, and to the researchers’ surprise, the perceived effort involved in the activity did not seem to be a deterrent).

This seems to be a paradox of happiness: we know which kind of activities will bring us lasting happiness, but because we see them as daunting and less enjoyable in the moment, we choose to spend much more of our time doing passive, more immediately pleasant things with our free time.

So what can you do about it? The researchers’ advice is to plan ahead “to try to ease the physical transition into flow activities” to make them feel less daunting. For example, they suggest getting your gym clothes and bag ready the night before, and choosing a gym that’s close and convenient; or getting your journal and pen, or easel and paintbrushes, ready in advance. They also suggested attending a Clean Well-Being class (joke, obviously!).

The other thing they suggest is using mindfulness, meditation or some other “controlled consciousness” technique to help yourself to disregard the initial “transition costs” of a flow activity, such as the early pain of a run, and to focus instead on its pleasurable aspects and the long-term rewards. So a little bit of effort pays dividends!
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