Tag Archives: action

How Serendipitous Is Your Life?

Don’t you love when things just fall into place, as if by magic? I do.

I have found that most of what I have pushed and pulled to make happen rarely was as sweet as the things that have enchanted, serendipitous beginnings. Yet, I also have suspected that I co-create these moments of serendipity since they seem to happen frequently when I am curious and looking for treasures in the mundane moments of life; and they seem to disappear when I am anxious and stressed.

In a New York Times article I recently read, Pagan Kennedy says the word serendipity originally did connote action on our part, not some good fortune or luck. It originated from a Persian fairy tale about three princess from the Isle of Serendip who had keen skills of observation allowing them to discover things they were not looking for but were present on their travels.

Isn’t that exactly how serendipity works? You are looking for something in your wallet when you see a card from someone you intended to call but forgot. If you pick up on the clue and make the call right then you find some enchanted outcome you did not expect but nevertheless are now overjoyed by.

The keys to cultivating serendipity is in your observing the small cues and then acting on them!

It is a two part process–observe and act. If you are stressed about other things you are not likely to notice the card at all and just push it aside in pursuit of your original quest. If you are in a hurry you might notice, but maybe only make a mental note to make the call later rather than do it now. Either way, the moment will be lost.

According to the NYT article Dr. Erdelez studied 100 people in the 1990’s “to find out how they created their own serendipity, or failed to do so.”

She categorized her subjects into three groups: 1) those that stayed focused on tasks and to-do lists when searching for something, 2) those that occasionally “wandered off into the margins” and had infrequent moments of serendipity, and 3) those she called “super-encounterers.” These were people who expected magic and found it because they looked for “happy surprises” in odd places.

If serendipity is a skill we can cultivate, I want to become a student of it today and increase the enchanted encounters in my life. How about you? Three things seem necessary.

Curiosity

Observation

Action

I am going to bring more curiosity to my life, looking in the oddest places for “happy surprises” and expecting to find them. And when I do, I will act. Sounds like a great adventure!

Happiness 101

Do you long to be happier?  Maybe you are content with your life; yet, feel your day to day mood rarely swings into full gear on the happiness throttle.  What can you do?

I recently saw a social media post about neuroscience research on happiness that intrigued me so much I followed it all the way to the various source articles that it referenced to learn more. The Business Insider article by Eric Barker that summed it all up offered four keys to becoming more happy.

Although you may have heard it all before, it is important to understand that neuroscientists are studying human brains and finding confirmation that these steps truly change the chemical make up in your body and the activity in your brain.  If you are not actively doing all four regularly, you might want to ask yourself, “Why not?”

The four things you can start doing today and feel real results do not take a lot of time, are fairly simple to do, and are in your control.

  1. Find what you are grateful for.

    There are lots of reasons to look on the bright side of life; and we often feel shame when we don’t. But now the research shows that even looking for something to be grateful for on the days when it feels like your whole world is upside down can increase your levels of dopamine and seratonin–both of which help you feel better. Researchers even found that gratitude and searching for things to be grateful for increased you neuron density creating greater emotional intelligence, which makes finding things to be grateful for easier. So the more often you do it the easier gratitude becomes. I use a gratitude journal as one of the key antidotes for feeling stressed and unhappy. 

  2. Give your negative feelings a label.

    This is an interesting tactic you might remember from parenting classes. Parenting classes always include the advice to help your child identify their feelings and put a name to them. The mere act of labeling your feelings disipates their power over you. This is not going into the story and justifying how terrible things are; it is simply a word or phrase that describes how you feel. Researchers have now studied people’s brains using MRI technology while they are upset and find that labeling how you feel reduces the activity in your amygdala–you know the place in your brain that makes you overreact and go into fight or flight. How simple, yet powerful!

  3. Make decisions.

    Decision making is often stressful and you might think putting this on a list of ways to become happier is non-sense. But don’t rule this gem out so quickly because making decisions reestablishes your feeling of being in control, and we all know that is a whole lot less stressful than feeling out-of-control. Apparently our friends in neuroscience have found that making decisions engages the pre-frontal cortex and reduces anxiety and worry. But not all choices are easy and you can read more about ways to help you make even the toughest choices in my blog.

  4. Hug someone.

    Scientists have confirmed that human touch is good for us.  Whether you hug everyone you see today, shake people’s hands, or go get a massage, you will be releasing oxytocin–the feel good hormone. Here is a challenge.  Apparently, research shows that 5 hugs a day for four weeks increases your happiness quotient big time. Want to try it with me?

I love the idea that things we intrinsicly know about life are starting to be proven with science. Hopefully, knowing the science behind the advice will encourage you to take action and live happier, starting today!

For more ideas about increasing your feeling happiness each day read 5 Easy Steps to Increase Your Happiness.