Various research has shown that, for better or worse, money can buy happiness. And the process doesn’t end there. Happiness can also help you make money, though in a less direct sense. Happy people are generally more open to opportunities, challenges and risks that can financially benefit them. And what boss doesn’t like a happy employee, to the point where they may be particularly invested in seeing them succeed?
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Happiness is in your best interest, as is productivity. But what if you’re not naturally upbeat and energized? How can you change your disposition? A recent CNBC Make It story written by Aditi Shrikant explored five small but impactful behavioral tasks, or hacks, that experts recommend if you’re looking to increase your happiness and, through that, build your wealth.
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Text or Call a Friend — With Intention
If, like many of us, you spend a good portion of the day texting with friends, the recommendation, “text a friend to boost your mood and productivity” may sound completely unconvincing. Texting or talking on the phone with friends is often a way of distracting ourselves from the things we need to get done to make money. So why does Vienna Pharaon, a therapist and the author of “The Origins of You,” recommend calling or texting a friend as a way to boost positivity?
The idea isn’t to text or call for the sake of texting or calling; the idea is to connect. Pharaon recommended scheduling a 10-minute catch-up with someone you love, via text or phone call. “It makes us feel really good to do for others, and the bonus is that it also creates much needed connection,” she told CNBC Make It.
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Do Something You’ve Been Avoiding
Even the most enthusiastic doers on the planet have things they don’t want to do. They may just be a little better at actually doing the dreaded things that those of us who’ve made a habit of procrastination are. And we can be better, too. We just have to understand that doing things we need to do but have been avoiding will make us feel good, maybe even happy.
“Addressing something you’ve been ignoring lightens the load and allows you to accomplish something that’s been weighing you down,” Pharaon told CNBC Make It.
When you do this exercise, keep the following points in mind: Don’t feel like you have to pick a “traditional” dreaded task, like cleaning the house or calling tech support to deal with a computer problem. You can also choose to do something healthy that you’ve been meaning to do but haven’t like drinking more water or reducing screen time at night. Additionally, don’t take on too much at once and if you’re tackling a big project, break it up into smaller, more manageable tasks.
Compliment Someone
You know that burst of light you feel when someone tells you that they love your outfit or, even better, that they were impressed by something you said at a company meeting? That’s the feeling of your brain’s reward center being activated and dopamine being released. It works the other way around, too: Giving someone a compliment makes you feel good.
“That quick compliment may boost your mood for longer than you think,” Laurie Santos, a psychology professor at Yale University and host of The Happiness Lab podcast, told CNBC Make It.
Break a Habit With the 5-Second Rule
Nobody is perfect and we know this because everybody has a bad habit of some kind. Knowing you have a bad habit — and keep doing it — can be agonizing in itself. You may feel like a failure as you bite your nails, again, or sleep in instead of going to the gym — for the 15th day in a row. There are a lot of really helpful tips out there for breaking bad habits, and Mel Robbins’ book “The 5 Second Rule: Transform your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage” has some of that great advice.
In the book, Robbins laid out a practice to help you break bad habits. Here’s what you do: When you feel the urge to act on something productive or healthy, countdown from five to one. Then, complete one action that propels you toward doing that thing. So, if you’re sitting around on your phone, indulging your bad habit of doom scrolling, count down from five to one and then set your phone aside. The goal here is to attach action to desire — while there’s time.
“If you have one of those little impulses that are pulling you, if you don’t marry it with an action within five seconds, you pull the emergency brake and kill the idea,” Robbins said in a Ted Talk cited by CNBC Make It.
Delete the App You’re Most Addicted To
You’ve probably already had the thought that you’re at least a little bit addicted to your phone; but have you thought about the specific apps on your phone that are pulling you in the most? Gmail? Instagram? TikTok? Whatever it is, get rid of it. You’ll feel like a child who’s just been robbed of their favorite toys, but the shock and horror will wear off soon enough. Well, in two weeks or so.
“In the first two weeks, you’ll crave it and you’ll miss it, and your brain will tell you all the reasons why it’s not a project worth doing,” Anna Lembke, the chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic and author of “Dopamine Nation,” told CNBC Make It. “If you can make it about 14 days, you might notice that you actually don’t miss it and that you find you’re feeling better without it.”
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 5 Small Hacks To Improve Your Wealth, Productivity and Overall Happiness
