Making happy accountants

Dear <$salutation$>

So you want to be happy? Simple: just shut your eyes and wish hard! Wham-bang, you’re happy! That’s Positive Thinking, and people (yes even us amongst us cynical Brits?) buy into it.

Do you swallow that? Many don’t. Some people actually blame Positive Thinking for the credit crunch (You wanna house? Have one!), and I bet that soldiers hope their commanders have something better than hard wishing up their sleeves. Or was the Charge of the Light Brigade a disaster because commanders didn’t wish hard enough?

However, it’s understandable that people cling to this relentless can-do optimism in a world where misery is apparently the norm.

But the world has moved on. Psychologists, who increasingly seek to understand the nature of happiness rather than concentrating on mental disorder, dismiss the quick fixes of Positive Thinking. They urge us instead to consider things that are seemingly more difficult but which are more individual to us: resilience, engagement, good relationships.

From this new Positive Psychology we learn that that setbacks and sadness serve a purpose and that always feeling good is a pipe dream. We actually need negative emotions, to sharpen the contrast with positive emotions (in a ratio considered ideal at 3:1 positive to negative, not 1:0!). Ceaseless joy is simply not on the menu, and money doesn’t help, unless we’re seriously short of it: relationships and experiences are better for us than objects.
It follows that routine dulls happiness and that novelty is positive; also that we should seek meaning outside of our own little lives.

Achieving this vital personal definition of happiness and success requires a unique blend
of skills and experiences that match our personal values.
It must be holistic, as happiness implies balance, and it needs to relate to our lives outside of
work as well as in the office.

Sounds overwhelming?  This is where your coach comes in. 
Work in partnership with your coach to discover your own personal prescription for success and then design and implement
a plan to achieve it.

Positive Psychology rejects simplistic solutions. It recommends
we nurture relationships and new experiences, and that we gladly embrace the complexity of experience. Maybe it’s not easy, but
it works!

Strange! Yet again in our newsletters, new thinking revives ancient wisdom. Try googling the following:
Abd Er-Rahman III+happiness

Need a little more help?

Just email me at info@theaccountantscoach.com and book a complimentary telephone consultation.

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