59 SECONDS by Richard Wiseman

• Attempting to “think yourself happy” by suppressing negative thoughts can make you obsess on the very thing that makes you unhappy.
• The message is clear—those who do not feel in control of their lives are less successful, and less psychologically and physically healthy, than those who do feel in control.
• Many people are attracted to self-development and self-improvement because of the lure of quick and easy solutions to various issues in their lives.
• Happiness does not just make you enjoy life more; it actually affects how successful you are in both your personal life and your professional life.
• Regardless of the method used, the overall result was clear—happiness doesn’t just flow from success; it actually causes it.
• Happiness makes people more sociable and altruistic, it increases how much they like themselves and others, it improves their ability to resolve conflict, and it strengthens their immune systems. The cumulative effect means that people have more satisfying and successful relationships, find more fulfilling careers, and live longer, healthier lives.
• when people can afford the necessities in life, an increase in income does not result in a significantly happier life.
• The bad news is that research shows that about 50 percent of your overall sense of happiness is genetically determined, and so cannot be altered.7 The better news is that another 10 percent is attributable to general circumstances (educational level, income, whether you are married or single, etc.) that are difficult to change. However, the best news is that the remaining 40 percent is derived from your day-to-day behavior and the way you think about yourself and others.
• One of the most important writing techniques for boosting happiness revolves around the psychology of gratitude.
• Everyone has something to be happy about.
• As the old cliché goes, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.
• The results revealed that those who had described their best possible future ended up significantly happier than those in the other groups.
• In short, when it comes to an instant fix for everyday happiness, certain types of writing have a surprisingly quick and large impact. Expressing gratitude, thinking about a perfect future, and affectionate writing have been scientifically proven to work—and all they require is a pen, a piece of paper, and a few moments of your time.
• There are many things in your life for which to be grateful.
• The results from both studies clearly indicated that in terms of short- and long-term happiness, buying experiences made people feel better than buying products.
• Our memory of experiences easily becomes distorted over time (you edit out the terrible trip on the airplane and just remember those blissful moments relaxing on the beach). Our goods, however, tend to lose their appeal by becoming old, worn-out, and outdated.
• Also, experiences promote one of the most effective happiness-inducing behaviors—spending time with others.
• Materialists tend to be somewhat self-centered.
• Those who spent a higher percentage of their income on others were far happier than those who spent it on themselves.
• So, scientifically speaking, if you want some real retail therapy, help yourself by helping others. It has a direct effect on your brain that in turn makes you feel happier.
• Buy Experiences, Not Goods.
• Want to buy happiness? Then spend your hard-earned cash on experiences.
• When it comes to happiness, remember, it is experiences that represent really good value for the money.
• ‘Tis Better to Give Than to Receive.
• The science shows that exactly the opposite is true—people become much happier after providing for others rather than themselves.
• A few dollars spent on others may be one of the best investments that you ever make.
• carrying out five nonfinancial acts of kindness on a single day also provides a significant boost to happiness.
• People behave in highly predictable ways when they experience certain emotions and thoughts.
• Get people to behave in a certain way and you cause them to feel certain emotions and have certain thoughts.
• People smile when they are happy, but they also feel happier because they are smiling.
• The message from this type of work is simple: if you want to cheer yourself up, behave like a happy person.
• Smile.
• There are a number of happiness-inducing behaviors that can be quickly incorporated into your everyday life. Most important of all, smile more.
• Sit Up. Your posture is equally important.
• Act Happy.
• So, to maximize happiness, choose intentional change over circumstantial change. Make the effort to start a new hobby, begin a major project, or try a sport that you have never tried before.
• Whatever you decide to pursue, make a real effort to change what you do and when you do it.
• It seems that presenting weaknesses early is seen as a sign of openness.
• Remember that likeability is more important than academic achievements and work experience, so …
• When you do have weaknesses, don’t wait until late in the interview to reveal them.
• The researchers, labeling the phenomenon the “center stage” effect, concluded that when looking at a group, people use a basic rule of thumb—“Important people sit in the middle.”
• K.I.S.S. When thinking about the name of a new project, campaign, or product, keep it simple.
• people to be drawn to words that are easy to remember and straightforward to pronounce.
• These results suggest that you can increase how bright people think you are by merely writing legibly and simplifying your language.
• Likeability matters.
• To encourage others to like you, ask for their help.
• When you gossip about another person, listeners unconsciously associate you with the characteristics you are describing, ultimately leading to those characteristics’ being “transferred” to you.
• The Franklin Effect People like you more when they do a favor for you. The effect has its limits, however, and is more likely to work with small favors rather than more significant requests that make people either respond begrudgingly or, even worse, refuse.
• The Pratfall Effect The occasional slipup can enhance your likeability. However, remember that the effect really works only when you are in danger of being seen as too perfect.
• Gossip Know that whatever traits you assign to others are likely to come home to roost, being viewed as part of your own personality.
• people are swayed far more by the individual than by the masses.
• For persuasion, the research points to a simple fact: similarity works.
• When it comes to persuading others, try lightening up.
• Unfortunately, because most people are reluctant to stand out from the crowd, everyone looks to everyone else for pointers, and the group can end up deciding to do nothing. Even if a clear and present need for help exists, there is still the issue of responsibility. In most everyday situations, there is no clear chain of command.
• The message from the bystander effect is clear—the more people who are around when a person is apparently in need of assistance, the lower the likelihood that any one person will actually help.
• An understanding of the diffusion of responsibility may also help you to persuade people in other situations.
• To increase the chances of getting people to help, send the message to each person individually.
• According to sociologists, there are only a handful of rules that are absolutely central to the well-being of any society. These rules have been found in almost every culture and help to ensure the smooth running of communal living. Perhaps the best known of these is “Don’t kill other people simply for the fun of it,” closely followed by “Try not to have sex with members of your close family, or their pets.” Even though a minority of people struggle to adhere to these rules, it is obvious why both of them help keep society together. There are, however, several other rules that operate at a more subconscious level but are nevertheless equally vital for group welfare. The notion of reciprocation is perhaps the most important of these.
• In order to keep society in one piece, people have to work together and help one another.
• We like people who help us, and we help people we like. However, for favors, it is surprising how little it takes for us to like a person and how much we give on the basis of so little.
• It seems that if you want to help yourself, you need to help others first.
• A large body of research has shown that doing a favor for someone often results in their giving significantly more in return.
• So, for maximum persuasion, remember: save your favors for strangers, it really is the thought that counts, and the favor has to appear to come from the heart, not the head.
• fantasizing about your perfect world may make you feel better, but it is unlikely to help you transform your dreams into reality.
• To achieve your aims and ambitions, there are four key techniques that will help you succeed: having the right kind of plan, telling your friends and family, focusing on the benefits, and rewarding yourself each step of the way.
• Break your overall goal into a maximum of five smaller steps. Each step should be associated with a goal that is concrete, measurable, realistic, and time-based. Think about how you will achieve each step and the reward that you will give yourself when you do.
• Some research suggests that eating more slowly helps people eat less, perhaps because it fools our brains into thinking that we’ve eaten more and allows extra time for the body to digest food.
• To cut intake, make sure that tempting foods are out of sight, stored in a place that is difficult to access, such as a high cabinet or the basement.
• People eat significantly more when they are distracted at mealtimes and therefore are not paying attention to their food.
• When people work on their own, their success or failure is entirely the result of their own abilities and hard work.
• Genuine creativity can come from spending just a few moments occupying your conscious mind, thus preventing it from interfering with the important and innovative activity in your unconscious.
• Prime your mind by working feverishly on a problem, but then give yourself a release of effort by doing something completely different.
• To inspire creative thoughts, place plants and flowers in a room and, if possible, ensure that windows look out on trees and grass, not concrete and steel.
• The message is clear: if you want to fast-track a group or an individual to think more creatively, use the power of visual priming.
• To prime your mind for thinking creatively, spend a few moments describing a typical musician or artist. List their typical behaviors, lifestyle, and appearance.
• For successful lie detection, jettison the behavioral myths surrounding the Anxiety Hypothesis and look for signs more commonly associated with having to think hard.
• According to Hancock, people are reluctant to lie in e-mails because their words are recorded and what they say can come back to haunt them. So if you want to minimize the risk of a lie, ask others to e-mail you.
• Research shows that people have a strong tendency to underestimate how long a project will take and that people working in groups are especially likely to have unrealistic expectations.
• Even when they are trying to be realistic, people tend to imagine that everything will go according to plan, and they do not consider the inevitable unexpected delays and unforeseen problems.
• Develop the Gratitude Attitude. Having people list three things that they are grateful for in life or three events that have gone especially well over the past week can significantly increase their level of happiness for about a month. This, in turn, can cause them to be more optimistic about the future and can improve their physical health.
• Be a Giver. People become much happier after even the smallest acts of kindness. Those who give a few dollars to the needy, buy a small surprise gift for a loved one, donate blood, or help a friend are inclined to experience a fast-acting and significant boost in happiness.
• Hang a Mirror in Your Kitchen. Placing a mirror in front of people when they are presented with different food options results in a remarkable 32 percent reduction in their consumption of unhealthy food. Seeing their own reflection makes them more aware of their body and more likely to eat food that is good for them.
• Buy a Potted Plant for the Office. Adding plants to an office results in a 15 percent boost in the number of creative ideas reported by male employees and helps their female counterparts to produce more original solutions to problems. The plants help reduce stress and induce good moods, which, in turn, promote creativity.
• Touch People Lightly on The Upper Arm. Lightly touching someone on their upper arm makes them far more likely to agree to a request because the touch is unconsciously perceived as a sign of high status. In one dating study, the touch produced a 20 percent increase in the number of people who accepted an invitation to dance in a nightclub and a 10 percent increase in those who would give their telephone number to a stranger on the street.
• Write About Your Relationship. Partners who spend a few moments each week committing their deepest thoughts and feelings about their relationship to paper boost the chances that they will stick together by more than 20 percent. Such “expressive writing” results in partners’ using more positive language when they speak to each other, leading to a healthier and happier relationship.
• Deal with Potential Liars by Closing Your Eyes and Asking for an E-mail. The most reliable cues to lying are in the words that people use, with liars tending to lack detail, use more “ums” and “ahs,” and avoid self-references (“me,” “mine,” “I”). In addition, people are about 20 percent less likely to lie in an e-mail than in a telephone call, because their words are on record and so are more likely to come back and haunt them.
• Praise Children’s Effort over Their Ability. Praising a child’s effort rather than their ability (“Well done. You must have tried very hard”) encourages them to try regardless of the consequences, therefore sidestepping fear of failure. This, in turn, makes them especially likely to attempt challenging problems, find these problems enjoyable, and try to solve them on their own time.
• Visualize Yourself Doing, Not Achieving. People who visualize themselves taking the practical steps needed to achieve their goals are far more likely to succeed than those who simply fantasize about their dreams becoming a reality. One especially effective technique involves adopting a third-person perspective: those who visualize themselves as others see them are about 20 percent more successful than those who adopt a first-person point of view.
• Consider Your Legacy. Asking people to spend just a minute imagining a close friend standing up at their funeral and reflecting on their personal and professional legacy helps them to identify their long-term goals and assess the degree to which they are progressing toward making those goals a reality.