The Winning Formula for a Thriving Life – Do You Know It?

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Is there a winning formula for happiness and success?

According to one of the leading researchers of Positive Psychology, Prof. Tal Ben-Shahar, the answer is “yes”. Read on to find what the formula is…

Before we take a look at the equation, I want to explore optimism a little further. In the self-help movement we read over and over: “Whatever you can dream, you can achieve.” But is that the complete truth? Or is a partial truth?

John P., a digger driver I once worked with in psychotherapy believed that he could jump from a rooftop (without any mechanical aid) and fly – if only he could believe strongly enough. I’m sure you can imagine where he ended up. Yes, he ended up in a mental hospital!

Optimism that’s not grounded in reality can hurt us.

As the story of Admiral James Stockdale illustrates, false optimism can actually kill you. Stockdale was shot down in the Vietnam war and spent 7 years in a Vietnamese POW camp.

He was one locked in leg irons in a bath stall, and was routinely tortured and beaten. Many of his fellow prisoners died, but Stockdale survived.

The author James C. Collins interviewed him for his bestseller called Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t.

Stockdale said:

“I never lost faith in the end of the story, I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”

Collins asked, “Who didn’t make it out?”

“Oh, that’s easy, the optimists. They were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”

Stockdale added:

“This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end-which you can never afford to lose-with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

Collins later called this stance the Stockdale Paradox.

How do we identify the difference between healthy optimism versus optimism that is detached from reality?

It’s important to ground our expectations in reality. Positive belief is not enough.

“False optimism sooner or later means disillusionment, anger, and hopelessness.”~ Abraham Maslow

How do you identify the right amount of faith, the exact point of realism?

I think it’s good to be optimistic, and even a bit over-optimistic – but without losing touch with reality.

Here’s a funny video about a new ‘depressant’ called Despondex for annoyingly cheerful people:

Very funny, don’t you think?

Now here is what I promised you, the equation for a thriving life according to Prof. Tal Ben-Shahar.

The equation is O+P+P:  Optimism plus Passion plus Persistence.

Optimism – the belief that we can do well

Passion – loving what we’re doing

Persistence - the ongoing hard work to achieve our dreams.

When these three components interact that you get the optimal condition for a thriving life.

Optimism here means belief in oneself, grounded in reality. The reality usually means ongoing struggle and hard work.

According to author, musician, and neuro-scientist Daniel Levitin, an expert or master of any craft is measured by that person practicing their craft for 10,000 hours. In his bestseller This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of Human Obsession says that the emerging scientific picture is that 10,000 hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert in anything. It is equal to roughly 3 hours of practice a day, or twenty hours a week, of practice for ten years.

Many self-help books want to make us believe that we can jump the step of hard work by using visualizations instead.

However, as we can see from Ben-Shahar’s winning formula, optimism is only one of the necessary components for success.

There are no short-cuts. But, hang on – what about luck? Isn’t that a short-cut?

I’m a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the luckier I get. ~Thomas Jefferson

As I explained in my post 7 Strategies for Good Luck,  Professor Richard Wiseman researched why some people are luckier than others. He found that there are certain strategies that make us luckier. You can read about them in his article The Luck Factor

One of the factors is persistence.

Luck is where opportunity meets preparation.~ Winston Churchill

Preparation is the combination of optimism and passion (mental preparation), as well as ongoing hard work (physical preparation).

So, there you have it.

The winning formula for a thriving life is three equal measures of Optimism, Passion, and Persistence.

Does this line up with your experience?

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