Tag: mindfulness

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Wear Life Loosely and Still Meet the Deadlines

I love Bernie Siegel’s advice to wear life loosely.[1] It’s a way of being that speaks to my soul and releases what feels like my creative best.

I’m happiest when I can wrap the magnificence of life loosely around my shoulders like a comfortable, old shawl – and tackle head-on whatever comes my way. I’m a bear to myself and others when I can’t.

I can’t fully define what it means to wear life loosely, but I sure know how it feels. Calm. Exhilarating. Productive. Joyful.

Wearing life loosely involves at least three things for me:

1. Mindfulness: being in the moment and enjoying it totally, without feeling time or performance pressures

2. Playfulness: a lighthearted approach to whatever I’m doing that includes a sense of appreciation and wonder, a willingness to impishly push boundaries and rules of restraint, and plenty of giggles

3. Feeling responsible for only myself: a release from excessive worries and fears for others and the world – real and imaginary.

Although it may seem paradoxical, I work very hard at staying loose. Living life loosely does not come easily, but everything seems to work better when I can.

I grew up in a hard-working, blue collar family. My father held two – sometimes three – jobs much of his life to make ends meet, and I had my own high-top stool in his basement workshop from as early as I can remember to help him however I could. My mother was disabled and rarely left our home – and I assumed adult caretaking roles at an early age.

I came by responsibility, intensity, anathema to wastefulness, and a predisposition for over-achievement honestly: I know how to take care of people and business and myself and get things done. I’m not complaining – that’s something of which I am proud. But I carry a legacy that must be managed: the inner child only runs free when everything is in order.

Wearing life loosely reminds me that perfect order is never arriving: a life mantra of que sera sera is more realistic.

How do you wear your life? Is its mantle loose enough for you to achieve your goals with ease?

Get looser and laugh about it:  Laughter and humor are keys to the good life. We all need to laugh more. It’s just that simple! Laughter and humor augment our creativity and productivity, and there’s ample evidence they are good medicine, too.

Humor, for example, gives our creativity a perfect workout. It employs many of the creative right brain’s most powerful attributes: understanding situations in context, getting the big picture, combining different elements in new alignments, and adding surprise and novelty.

Researchers have used humor as a measure of managerial effectiveness, emotional intelligence, and innovation – and those who use it well score high on all three.[2] Humor can reduce workplace hostility, relieve tension, communicate difficult messages, and lessen status differences.[3]

Humor cushions the most stressful bumps in life. Mark Twain once said, “Humor is the good natured side of a truth.” He demonstrated this in his famous response to news accounts of his passing away: “The news of my death has been greatly exaggerated.”

Humor encourages us to take ourselves less seriously – and that is especially important in situations involving difficult people or problems.

Above all, humor is a way to illuminate and break frame – to demonstrate that any one take on a situation is limited, arbitrary, and open for deeper investigation.[4]  After Churchill lost the 1945 election to be Prime Minister, his wife Clementine suggested it might be a blessing in disguise. Churchill replied, “That may be, but I wish it were not so well disguised.”

So laugh a little – or a lot. Laughter releases nature’s pain-reducing, relaxation-promoting chemicals called endorphins. You know what tickles your fancy: humor books, corny jokes, movies, improvisation games, comedy tapes, time with witty friends. Engage and enjoy!

Laugh with friends and colleagues. You’ll connect in deeper ways and both benefit from the body’s release of the bonding hormone called oxytocin.[5]

How do you wear your life? Is its mantle loose enough for you? What adjustments do you need to make for a good life? To meet those deadlines with productivity and grace?

[1] Bernie S. Siegel (1998). Prescription for Living. New York: HarperCollins.

[2] Daniel H. Pink (2006). A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. New York: Riverhead Books.

[3] Fabio Sala (2003). “Laughing All the Way to the Bank.” Harvard Business Review (September, 2003).

[4] Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal (2017). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice and Leadership (sixth edition). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Wiley.

[5] Amit Sood (2013). The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-free Living. Boston, MA: DaCapo Press, p. 243.

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Leading with persistence, focus, and patience: Let joyful attention training fuel the way

Leaders need persistence, focus, and patience in their work.

Leadership is an interpersonal sport, and people are complex and unpredictable. Leading well requires sustained engagement, open exchange, mutual learning, and influence. It involves loss and change, and change takes time. High-impact leadership cannot be forced: you don’t want to cross the line into bullying or assume you can go it alone. Both have their costs. You want to stay firmly grounded yet open to new possibilities – relaxed yet vigilant with an eye on continued progress toward the prize.

How can you develop habits of the mind that underpin the kind of calm, focused, non-judgmental persistence required? Sound complicated? It really isn’t.

You have undoubtedly experienced moments of “flow”[i] – when you feel “in the zone” and so deeply engaged in an activity that the world around you disappears. Time seems to fly. Professional musicians aim for this in their performances;[ii] and NBA coaching great, Phil Jackson, designed his entire coaching strategy around helping his players get there[iii]. But you don’t need to be a professional athlete or musician to intentionally train and direct your mind to be more focused yet relaxed. Your attention is like a muscle. Work it with regular mental exercises to make it stronger. A bit of neuroscience explains why and how[iv].

The mind is never at rest. The idling brain is as active when you are “vegging out” as when doing a crossword puzzle! Unless you direct it, your brain will do what comes naturally: neurons will fire spontaneously with thoughts about you – your problems, woes, and what ifs of life, spinning internal dialogues and stories that randomly weave together your past, present, and future. The idling mind is a wandering mind, easily distracted by things other than what we are doing or wanting to think about[v]. Three things about this are important for our discussion here.

One, it is as important in learning to better focus your attention that you know how to turn off parts of your brain as it is to turn on others.

Two, you can turn off dysfunctional or energy-wasting ruminations by choosing to engage in an externally-oriented, goal-directed, chosen task.

Three, what helps you refocus your attention in the short term retrains your brain over time. Neurons that fire together stay together, hardwiring your brain.[vi]

You want habits of the mind that “right-wire” your brain. That’s the benefit – and the joy – in attention training.

Dr. Amit Sood of the Mayo Clinic offers strategies for “right-wiring” your brain, and suggests practicing simple attention-focusing techniques four to eight time a day during your training period. You may have to undo life-long cognitive tendencies, and “just as a river needs time to carve a canyon, resilient new brain pathways depend on repetitive and deeply felt experiences.”[vii]

His suggested activities ask you to notice and enjoy your world more deeply, connect your thoughts and senses, look for novelty in the everyday, and suspend judgment. Important for our purpose, each can be used to disrupt unhelpful or distracting ruminations – and remind your idling brain that you are in charge! Many take but a few minutes to practice, and they bring the added benefit of increased pleasure and joy. Joy refuels the soul for life’s uphill climbs!

Try this[viii]:  Let me suggest a few personal favorites from Dr. Sood to get you started. Commit yourself to a few weeks of brain retraining, and let me know how things are going. Email me at theprof@theleadershipprofessor.com

Find novelty in an ongoing relationship: greet another as if meeting after a long time; devote time to sharing something new or newly rediscovered for each of you

Find the extraordinary in the ordinary: pay attention to some detail around you in a new way – the blue of the sky, different shades of green in the grass, the pattern in the rug you have walked mindlessly on so many times. Let each new discovery of beauty or novelty wash over you!

Start and end your day with gratitude: use it to turn off the stress in waking up to your usual to do and dread lists or in hitting the sack focused on everything on the lists for tomorrow.

Notice nature: as the Buddhist adage goes: Spend 10 minutes each day quietly in nature. If you are very busy and overloaded, spend 20 minutes.

Eat, walk, or exercise mindfully: pay attention to time, place, pace, posture, and other sensory experiences in everyday acts. And mindful eating is a good way to control weight and food choices!

Try small random acts of kindness: kind attention is externally-focused attention, and kindness toward others will boost your mood.

Find something in another to be impressed by: The Hindi word namaste means the divine in me salutes the divine in you. See the divine in those around you. Namaste!

[i] Mihaly Csikszentmyhalyi (1997). Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books.

[ii] John Whiting (2008). YoYo Ma: A Biography. Westport, CT: Greenwood.

[iii] Phil Jackson (2006). Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior. New York: Hyperion.

[iv] Amit Sood (2013). The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-free Living. Boston, MA: DaCapo Press, chapters 2, 5, 6, 7.

[v] Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert (2010). “A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind.” Science 2010: 330-932.

[vi] Donald Hebb, as quoted in Sood (2013), p.10. Hebb is the father of neuroscience, and American Psychologist named him one of the 20th century’s most eminent and influential theorists in the realm of brain function and behavior.

[vii] Amit Sood (2013), p. 66.

[viii] This post is adapted from material appearing in Lee G. Bolman and Joan V. Gallos (2016). Engagement: Transforming Difficult Relationships at Work. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. https://www.amazon.com/Engagement-Transforming-Difficult-Relationships-Work/dp/1119150833/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1517320130&sr=8-2

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Grow Your Brain: Lead Yourself to Increased Leadership Capacities

Research, published in the new book The Emotional Life of your Brain by Richard J. Davidson (with Sharon Begley), has good news. We can change our emotional styles and become more self-aware, attentive to context, and resilient – core skills for surviving and thriving in the rough-and-tumble leadership world. All it takes is systematic mental practice.

I’ll let you read the neurophysiology and brain science and just cut to the chase here. By thinking – and thinking alone – adults can expand areas of the brain to broaden their cognitive and emotional capacities.

This gives us more control than previously believed over what Davidson and Begley call the Six Key Elements of Emotional Style: our resilience in the face of disappointment, outlook on life, self-awareness, social intuition, attention, and sensitivity to context.

To quote the authors: “Mental activity, ranging from meditation to cognitive-behavior therapy, can help you develop a broader awareness of social signals, a deeper sensitivity to your own feelings and bodily sensations, a more consistently positive outlook, and a great capacity for resilience.”

Too negative an outlook on life or situation? Embrace the essentials of “well-being therapy” and focus on ways you can be more grateful, generous, appreciative, and upbeat. You’ll have significant growth in the brain areas used, giving you quicker and more automatic access to these positive responses over time.

Not very self- or other-aware? Slow down and ask yourself to focus on the feelings, discomfort, or concerns of another. It’ll increase activation of the circuitry involved in taking in pain and distress more carefully and broaden your capacities to see life more richly and compassionately.

Too self-aware and filled with the internal chatter and self-evaluations that keep you spinning your wheels? Learn to observe your thoughts or feelings non-judgmentally and choose to put them aside.

Mindfulness and meditation help here. [See the blog archives for past posts of mindfulness and the work of Ellen Langer.] With practice, you’ll develop the hard-wiring and self-control needed to pause, acknowledge a setback or disappointment, have a good laugh at how quickly your mind wants to perseverate and magnify a mere bump in life’s road, and stop yourself from spiraling downward.

The authors claim that locating the base of emotions at least partly in the brain’s seat of reason is a major break from conventional wisdom in psychology and neuroscience.

I’m thrilled their work affirms human capacities to develop the emotional and cultural intelligence needed for effective leadership in an increasingly diverse world. How do you want to lead? Respond? Be? Make it happen. That’s hugely empowering – and productive for us all!

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Leaders, Boost Your Creativity in 2012: Five Suggestions for the New Year

It’s resolution time. I’ve made my list and share five suggestions for yours to boost creativity in 2012.

Times are tough, and every industry is rethinking how it does business. Creativity and the capacity to think deeply and flexibly can pull an organization ahead of the crowd. How can you enhance your capacities and help your organization claim its competitive advantage?  Suggestions to boost your innovation brainpower:

1.  Read more fiction. There are plenty of benefits. Build new neuronal circuits. Deepen your knowledge of the human condition – and learn about yourself as your reflect on your responses. Improve your vocabulary, beef up those communication skills. Expand your cultural intelligence. Leadership is all about influence, communication, relationships, and seeing the simplicity on the other side of complexity. 

No time for major tomes? Try The Art of the Novella Series: short novels by some of literature’s greatest – Melville, James, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Twain, and more. The tiny classics tuck easily into a brief case, purse, or pocket – and their colorful contemporary covers are great conversation starters.

My first was a holiday gift – The Dialogue of the Dogs by Cervantes. Turns out the creator of Don Quixote also wrote the first talking-dog story. Ever wonder what your pet is really thinking, and what Fido can teach you about ethics and fairness?  I loved it: a quick read and deep ideas. I was hooked on the novella.

The Duel by Heinrich von Kleist (a 19th century German author I knew nothing about) was next. Read it, and let me know how your thinking about loyalty, everyday assumptions, and trust have changed.

I’m on The Lifted Veil by George Eliot now — her only work in the first person with eerie similarities to  Eliot’s claiming her public identity as a woman author. Next in line The Lemoine Affair by Proust — and a look at why humans are so easily conned!  Think shades of Bernie Madoff. 

2.  Discover the power and joy of quiet. We live in a world of 24/7 stimulation and news. We text, email, surf, and sit in front of screens (computer and TV) more and more (and Nicholas Carr in The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains paints a dire portrait of the neurological, intellectual, and cultural consequences). Creativity requires quiet – the time and space to think. Find ways to build that into your day. Mindfulness is not a luxury for strong leadership.

3.  Break the work addiction. All work and no play makes for dull, burned-out people – and maybe even dead ones. The Chinese pictograph for “busy” is two characters: “heart” and “killing.” Loving your work isn’t the same as being a slave to it. You’ll work better and smarter when refreshed. Play is productive.

4. Think gray. It’s simple and counter-intuitive: train yourself to not make decisions quickly. You’ll fall into your regular thinking patterns easily: you need to push yourself to think slowly and carefully about what you’re not thinking about. That’s where you’ll navigate through the shades of gray to identify the best course of action. It’s hard to think gray: humans love binary, right-wrong, yes-no, black-white thinking. The concept comes from Steven Sample (the highly successful president emeritus of the University of Southern California) and is developed in his chapter in Business Leadership.

5. Embrace the novice role. Experience the world with new eyes. It’s good for mind and soul. A good way is to try something you’ve never done but have always wanted to or that you know you don’t do well. The process of learning slows life down, encourages mindfulness, and fine-tunes your skills as a reflective practitioner – a definite leadership plus. You might discover a new talent or passion in the process. 

Onward to a creative 2012 for us all! 

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Managing the Occupational Hazard of Leadership

Leadership is emotional work. “There’s no leading without bleeding,” Jerome Murphy, professor and former Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, writes in the most recent Phi Delta Kappan.[1] “No matter what we call it — stress, agitation, loss, frustration, fear, exhaustion, shame, confusion, sadness, loneliness, hurt — there’s not an executive alive who can lead without experiencing emotional discomfort.” Anyone who has led – from the head or the foot of the table – knows exactly what Murphy means.

Leaders can’t escape this occupational hazard; however, they can be their own worst enemy in responding to it – turning inevitable job discomforts into personal anguish and self-doubt that erode focus and energy.

“In the privacy of our minds, we can make things worse by fighting our discomfort, getting hooked on our troubling thoughts, and scolding ourselves for falling short. As a consequence, we can sidetrack our work and lose sight of what really matters to us.”

The stage is set for unproductive denial (and an investment of psychic energy pretending we’re not uncomfortable) or negative self-talk (and worries about whether our discomfort is a sign that we’re a flop or, worse yet, no leader at all). “In the grip of mind chatter that sounds like a Greek chorus of naysayers, it’s not unusual to rehash the past, fret about the future, and hang ourselves out to dry,” concludes Murphy.

There are more productive ways to respond, and Murphy draws from psychology and Eastern thinking to suggest six.

1.  accept the emotional discomforts at the core of leading: “In doing so, we can hold them more lightly, believe them less resolutely, and take them less personally.”

2. acknowledge distress without clinging to it: “We can have our thoughts rather than be had by them.”

3. focus on changing behaviors, not feelings: “We can accept what we’re experiencing at the moment while still working to make things better.”

4. treat self with compassion, kindness, and care. “Both intuitively and through scientific research, we know that self-compassion is central to well-being.”

5. accept human imperfection: “Self-criticism is often accompanied by an irrational but pervasive sense of isolation — as if ‘I’ were the only person suffering or making mistakes.”

6. keep faith in core values: They remind us what’s at stake and put the inevitable discomforts in leading from and toward them in perspective.

Mindfulness training can help cultivate these habits of the mind. The leadership payback is clear: increased capacities for situational diagnosis, task focus, calm value-centered action, and resilience.

Our internal dramas may still be intense, warns Murphy, but we’ll witness them from a safe, nonjudgmental place where we can respond wisely.

[1] Jerome. T. Murphy. Dancing in the rain: Tips on thriving as a leader in tough times. Phi Delta Kappan (September 2011), 93 (1): 36-41.

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Lead like a Rebel: Be Your Greatest Self

Learnings, reflections, stories, and eulogies abound at the death of Steve Jobs. It’s no surprise. The guy really made a difference in how the world thinks about communications, beauty, technology, design, personal computers, telephones, music, virtual relationships, entertainment, movies, and more. Sure, he made plenty of mistakes – who doesn’t?  And by all accounts, Steve was headstrong, cantankerous, stubborn, a perfectionist, and a highly demanding (and sometimes over-controlling) boss. 

But he was also a visionary — a student of mindfulness who worked hard to be true to himself.  And at the end of the day, his authenticity drove his passions and creativity – and we all benefitted from that.

I repost excerpts from Nilofer Merchant’s reflection on Jobs’s real legacy: the reminder to design and live our own life. Interesting to think about why we so often forget that very important truth.  

What can you do right now to free your inner rebel? Focus your energies on the things that really matter to you?  Find the contribution that is yours alone to make?  No apologies. No excuses. No jumping through someone else’s hoop. No living someone else’s life.    

What are you going to do with your gifts and talents to make a difference?  I’m confident you’ll figure that out, and I’ll be cheering you on. I’d like someday to celebrate your impact and legacy of greatness, too.   

……………………………………………….

imageWhile there are many things worth celebrating of Steve Jobs’ life, the greatest gift Steve gave us is a way to design our own lives.

In our society, thinking for ourselves is not highly valued. Our education model was designed with the 19th century more than the 21st century in mind. It reinforces fitting in and suppresses much of the natural creativity we start with. That’s how we go from drawing and acting and make-believe to PowerPoint. If we allow creativity at all, it is limited to arts and sports. "Real work" has us looking like a Dilbert character. Between the pressures of our teachers, parents, and ultimately co-workers, we often give up any search for personal meaning as we aim to belong to a tribe. After a while, we may not even believe we have something unique to offer. Rather than figure out what we are each about, far too many of us live within the boxes others define.

To live in a box defined by someone else is to deny our uniqueness. Each of us is standing in a spot no one else occupies. That unique perspective is born of our accumulated experience, perspective, and vision. When we deny these things, we deny that which only we can bring to the situation, our onlyness. And that is surely not the way the world is made better.

I’m reminded of the ad copy Steve initiated when he returned to Apple:

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. (Apple Inc.)

The problem with being a rebel, a misfit, a troublemaker is that the masses will not be cheering you on. Rosa Parks might be a heroine today, but at the time, she lost her job. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. both had huge dissension within their own communities. It took Jobs years to come up with a turnaround strategy that showed what Apple could do. People forget the years between 1996-2001 where much of the market called him more insane, than insanely great.

But he knew that his journey was to apply what only he could — from his meticulous design methodology, to reimagining computing, to building a different type of company. He realized — and showed us — that our real job is not to conform to what others think. Instead, we need to recognize that our life’s goal is to find our own unique way in the world.

That is the fundamental gift of Steve Jobs. His insane greatness was to find his own journey and to live his life this way. He didn’t worry about being weird; he only wanted to be himself.  He was competitive, sure, but mostly against himself.

So I ask you to join me in honoring Steve’s greatness not by trying to be Steve, but by trying to be your greatest self.

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Strong Advocacy: Perfecting Your Skilled Candor

If asked, most of us would say that it’s good to speak up, tell the truth, and say what we mean. Yet we often fall well short of candor for two main reasons: fear and lack of skill. We’re afraid we’ll hurt ourselves or someone else. Do we tell the boss something he doesn’t want to hear? Do we tell our colleagues something that will upset or anger them? Should we admit we’ve made a mistake? Even if willing to speak up, if our attempts at candor are awkward, confusing or inflammatory, no one is helped.

A key element of skilled candor is describing your reality, not “the reality.” Speaking up openly and honestly isn’t the same as venting, shooting from the hip, bluster, argumentativeness, or attack – all of which prime others to resist rather than understand your message. It helps to remember the distinction between your truth and the Truth. When you say, for example, “This is how I see it,” you’re describing your reality. When you say, “This is how it is,” you claim to know not just your perception, but the Truth. No one knows your reality better than you, but anyone can claim to know the Truth at least as well or better than you do.

To describe your reality you need to know it and accept it as your unique take on the situation. A first step is reflection – looking within and asking yourself what you are thinking and feeling and why.

If, for example, you’re in a meeting and find yourself thinking, “This is all stupid. We’re going nowhere.” you could say that, but you’d be making a claim about the Truth that has little chance of being a productive contribution and may be very different from what others are experiencing. A brief reflection on what’s happening for you might reveal that you’re feeling confused and have lost track of what the conversation is about. That lets you say something like, “I don’t know how anyone else is feeling, but I’m lost. I don’t know where we’re going. Is it clearer for you than for me?” That statement shares your reality while giving others permission to see it differently. And it ends with a question asking others to take stock on how things are going.

You can strengthen your capacities for skilled candor when you:

Know yourself. Regular practices like journaling, meditation, or activities that encourage mindfulness build your capacities for self-reflection. Mindfulness is an important leadership skill, essential for monitoring your ongoing assessment of process – how you think things are going in your interactions with others – as well as content – the progress you believe you and others are making on the substance of the task at hand.   

Slow down your reactions. Recognize that they are just that – your reactions.

Cool your inner critic. Resist jumping to fast conclusions and ask yourself why when you do.

Use “I” statements, if necessary, to develop the right habits of the mind. It may feel awkward at first, but it’ll keep you honest and focused on what’s happening for you.

Leadership is all about effective relationships and strong communications. So remember, the goal in all this is to find ways to engage others in honest conversations that enable you and others to learn — about what’s happening for individuals, about what’s happening in the exchange, and about how to work more  effectively together. 

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Avoiding the Misery of Yves Saint Laurent: Happiness Strategies When L’Amour Fou (Crazy Love) is Not Enough

Pierre Berge, the long-term lover and business partner of the late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, has been in the news. Friday marked the U.S. release of a French documentary about the relationship between the two men, and everyone is abuzz about the film’s attention to the frantic 2009 Christie’s mega-auction of the more than 700 art objects the men jointly collected during their 50 years together. The film’s title: L’Amour Fou – in English, Crazy Love.

Saint Laurent was complex, as creative genius often is. The relationship between the two men anything but simple, as relationships mixing the personal and professional rarely are. The art was indeed something – and the auction netted close to $500 million dollars. And Saint Laurent was a colorful public character with an enviable array of riches beyond the astounding collection: he had talent, fame, fortune, physical attractiveness, a profitable outlet for his creative expression, a comfortable life surrounded by beauty, a long-term relationship with someone who cared, influence in his field and beyond, access to people and international opportunities, and more.

I was struck, however, by Berge’s comment in a New York Times interview: Saint Laurent “was a very, very unhappy, unhappy guy.” He lived in misery and depression despite his success – and “even with a wonderful collection.” He eventually descended into alcohol and drugs.

The story begs the 64 thousand dollar question: what does it take to make someone happy? Think about your life. What makes you happy? Chances are your list includes the expected: a good job, family, friends, success, home, life partner, contribution. But even having it all doesn’t assure happiness. Just look at Saint Laurent.

Harvard psychologist and author of Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert, offers insights into why that is so. Basically, we’re all poor predictors of what will make us happy: choices we make in the short run don’t deliver as anticipated. Couple that with the fact that everyone wants happiness – it ranks above money and health, according to research by University of Illinois professor and happiness guru, Ed Diener – and you can see the problem.

We all want something that we’re not very good at getting for ourselves – and as a result, some version of the Yves Saint Laurent misery story could easily become our own.

Accomplish much. Live out dreams, passions, and talents. Choose a path – and a partner, hobby, and vocation – that we think will make us happy. Work hard. Build a credible and influential track record – and end up unhappy. A sobering thought.

We don’t help the world or ourselves when we’re miserable. And Saint Laurent’s story reminds us that, even if we’re content, we’re apt to run into unhappy others in unexpected places. Fake it ‘til you make it strategies are, well, fake. They can’t be sustained over time. What will get you closer to the happiness prize – and help others do the same?

Research and experience support two routes: (1) embrace mindfulness, and (2) give yourself permission to change, grow, and develop.

You don’t need to be a Zen master to employ the first. Mindfulness is basically training yourself to stay alert to the present and to enjoy it in all its richness.

On any journey, it’s easy to get bogged down in the details and complexity of the travel, focus excessively on the destination – are we there yet? – and fall into complaints about what and how long it takes to arrive.

An alternative: engage every moment of the trip. Enjoy the scenery, the newness of each place, your progress. See detours and delays as opportunities. Find splendor in the rush, the surprises, the unexpected. If Gilbert’s research is right, by the time you arrive at your final destination, you’ll wish you were somewhere else anyway. You might as well enjoy the process of getting there.

Second, give yourself permission to experiment and to change. Deepak Chopra, in Why is God Laughing: The Path to Joy and Spiritual Optimism, makes a case for how fear and ego lock us into patterns of behavior. We keep on doing what we’re doing even if it no longer works for us – or, worse yet, even if it never worked.

Happiness is, after all, more than happy feelings, concludes Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology, in his hot, new book Flourish. It’s finding ways to spend time daily on the things that matter – and being honest with ourselves about how we actually use our time and about what really matters most.