As the calendar turns to another year many of us take time to establish new personal goals or focus areas for the year. It is estimated that only about 27% of people actually meet their New Year resolution goal. Oftentimes we are too focused on the desired outcome, rather than the process and mindset which will lead us to our goal.
Conventional wisdom holds that once we succeed, we’ll be happy; that once we get that great job, win that next promotion, lose those five pounds, happiness will follow. But the science reveals this formula to be backward: Happiness fuels success, not the other way around.
Researcher and author Shawn Achor writes about how happy people become successful, not the other way around in his book titled The Happiness Advantage. The idea is radical and eliminates the common excuses along the lines of “I’ll be happy if X happens”. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Instead of trying to become successful, so you can finally be happy in the distant future, try to become happy right now, so you’ll be successful later.
Research shows that happy employees or students are more productive, more creative, and better problem solvers than their unhappy peers. And positive people are significantly healthier and less stressed and enjoy deeper social interaction than the less positive people around them. It is now rock-solid science that being in your most positive frame of mind and functioning is the most powerful predictor of any type of success. A landmark 2005 study by Lyubomirsky, King and Diener showed that success across every single life domain was preceded by being in a flourishing emotional state where positive emotions outweigh negative emotions by three to one. We do not get happy because we are successful; we become successful because we are happy.
Learn how to put yourself in the most positive frame of mind at all times. Positive Psychology researchers have shown that half of our daily happiness flows from what we think about and what we do.
Along with setting resolutions and goals for the new year, it is also a great time to reflect and be thankful. I would like to share some good cheer with all of those people that have made the first semester go so well. Thank you to our teachers and support staff, and volunteers for their commitment to education and all of the work they do every day to make our students successful. Also, thank you to the administrative team and the school board for their leadership and focusing on what is important in our school district. A special thank you to all of our parents, for sending your amazing children to our schools each day. We are very honored and very lucky to get to work with such wonderful students every day.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to me.
Phone: (319) 436-5685 or email: kyle.koeppen@vscsd.org
Take care and Happy New Year,
KYLE KOEPPEN
Superintendent
#GoVikes | #VSProud
