Are Happiness and Success Related?

Success is a very important part of life, but is there any evidence that happiness is more important than success.

Happiness is such a priceless feeling and there are neuroscientific and psychological studies that show that it leads to better health, better mental health, and greater well-being.

There is also strong evidence that happiness correlates with, and often precedes, career success, and that positive emotions lead to better outcomes in the workplace. And subsequently there is strong evidence that happiness is more than important to success. ^{Sources: 15, 16, 20}

The biggest correlation between business success and happiness is that money can’t buy happiness. If you build your business focusing on the things that make you happy, then you inevitably become successful. But that’s something many people struggle to believe in. Why? Often because as entrepreneurs we are often in the thick our work and oftentimes not able to see the wood for the trees.

In these situations, it’s always best to take a step back and have someone else take a look at what it is you need to be doing with your business to create the balance between doing something that brings happiness and success.

If you work hard, you will become successful. But will that be enough to make you happy?

The pursuit of happiness may be a daily task, but if we celebrate our small wins each day then the happiness seems to grow naturally.

In other words, happiness is crucial to a healthy and successful life.

But what’s important here is to understand what happiness is to you. To do this one process is to write down your own definitions of what happiness and success mean to you. That level of clarity gained from this exercise can help you identify true happiness and success. As an example, if you say that success is completing your tasks for the day then you’re more likely to be successful each day as opposed to not being clear and having some vague idea that success is related to the dollar amount in your bank account!

Your Tribe

If you want more happiness and success in your life, it really helps to surround yourself with people who are happy and successful. Building strong relationships gives you the opportunity to find a higher level of success and happiness in life.

You will feel happier and prove that happiness is not something you have to wait for before you succeed, but that you can feel happy now by proving it to yourself. And seeing others happy and successful does something wonderful to the brain, it gives you the desire to achieve the same.

When you look at happy people, they will tell you how easy it is, that you don’t need anything to actually get happiness from it.

The field of positive psychology contains a lot of research into how our behaviour affects our happiness and how it affects success and happiness and is definitely worth checking out.

One interesting point to note is that after reviewing 225 studies, it has even been shown in some cases that success does not produce happiness in the way we might think, and that it is indeed happiness that leads to success.

Success is like a vision and without happiness there is no sense of purpose in it. It is important to remember that happiness is the most important thing in this equation, because that is what our ultimate vision is about.