Can our Happiness Facilitator Training make YOU happier?
One of the great delights for us at The Museum of Happiness is teaching how to share the tools and techniques of sustainable happiness through our Happiness Facilitator Training.
Why? Because the course attracts such amazing people! We often refer to them as the lighthouses in their homes, communities, and workplaces, as they’re often kind and big-hearted people who want to bring warmth and hope to others during stormy times.
But one of the things we’ve noticed is that these kind-hearted people tend to put everyone else first. They’re often attracted to our course because they want to have a positive impact on other people.
So we wanted to find out if participating in our course has an effect on THEIR happiness - and it turns out that it does!
70% saw an increase in their happiness levels!
The April 2021 cohort of our training was invited to take part in a small study, using the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire to discover their levels of happiness before and after taking the course.
Approximately 25% of our cohort very kindly answered the questionnaire both times, sharing which “home experiments” they performed between sessions in the second survey.
70% saw an increase in their happiness levels between the two surveys, with an average increase of almost 12%. One person’s happiness increased by almost 20%. Not bad for a six-week online course!
But here’s where it gets interesting. For five out of our six sessions, we invite our participants to try a home experiment for the coming week.
The 30% who saw a decrease in their happiness levels only performed an average of 1.66 experiments. We know life gets in the way for all of us at times, so it’s not always easy to put things into practice.
But the 70% who saw an increase in their happiness levels? They performed an average of 4.43 home experiments!
Our study was very tiny, which makes it hard to say whether the results were statistically significant. But research does suggest that intentionally taking activities to boost your happiness has a positive effect.
Everyone has their individual blend of genes, life circumstances, and activities, meaning that the impact they have on our happiness varies. But at least some of our happiness is in our hands, and continued effort makes a huge difference.
So while it’s hard to know the impact our actions have on others, the emotional contagiousness of emotions means that we can have a positive effect on others just through being happy ourselves.
Which is a win-win for everyone involved!
Three simple ways to increase your happiness;
Keep a gratitude journal: Writing down three good things every day for a week is a simple way to redirect you attention away from the negative things in your life, and helps you to notice the good things you may normally overlook
Write yourself a letter: So often, we beat ourselves up for our perceived failures and mistakes. Writing ourselves a self-compassion letter, full of acceptance and kindness, allows us to finally hear the reassurance we all need and long for
Take a mindful break: When we’re stressed, many of us hold our breath without realising it - or, at the very least, breathe using just the top part of our lungs. Taking five minutes to sit quietly, using our breath as the anchor for our attention, gives us the chance to tune into something other than the endless chatter of our busy minds
Do you want to make the world a happier, kinder place?
