Fake It...

How much better would your life be if you simply chose to be happy? I first stumbled across the idea while researching Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) which led me to a website discussing the principles of Huna. It was an interesting concept but hardly life changing for a man who doesn’t believe in spirituality, Cartesian Dualism or any of the New Age nonsense. It’s a nice thought but it can’t be as simple as saying “I want and choose to be happy”…nothing is that easy!

The idea of “choosing happiness” didn’t resurface until a few months ago when I was researching quality of hire. How do you find enlightenment while researching HR topics? By accident! I found a blog entry on the topic and the author discussed her research but, in the end, it always came back to the fact that a person’s perception is their reality. The light bulb came on and an experiment was now in order.

My “experiment” isn’t based on any single philosophy or path but on the trial and error of evolutionary learning (i.e. I’ll make mistakes but will learn from them to get to the next level...or not and will wander aimlessly). The experiment has a beginning but no defined end at this point…The goal is to be happy for the rest of my life either through choice or by finding the thing(s) that naturally bring happiness.

The first phase of my experiment can best be described as “Fake it”. Behavior/thoughts don’t change overnight as you’ve got an entire life time of negative reinforcement and rationality to overcome. This phase requires suspension of some basic human traits…in essence, fake being happy even when your not. My goal was to smile at all times (in public) and to say at least one nice thing to five strangers a day. It sounds easy but it’s harder than you think!

I started at a local shopping mall and decided to walk around with my new positive attitude and smile to see what happened. Not much...on the first trip, I felt very conscious of the fact I was smiling and probably looked like one of those “happy” people you just want to slap for no real reason. It took multiple trips but it became more natural the less I thought about it and simply let muscle memory take over. Over time, I found myself smiling even though I wasn’t really happy. I was faking it like a politician!

The second part of Phase One was much more difficult as I had to engage strangers in a non-threatening way and give them a compliment. There were no limiters so it could be anyone and I found my first opportunity by chance. I was buying dress shirts at Macy’s and a woman was debating (with another woman) which of two shirts to buy for her husband. My comment, “Get both…you have excellent taste”. Did she have good taste? I don’t know (and don’t care!) as the point wasn’t to establish a conversation or get anything from the interaction…just to say something positive. The outcome was a sincere smile and the comment “You’re right...I like them both. Thank you”. Success!

But what do you do when real life situations intrude on the experiement? The situation at my office over the past two weeks has been downright depressing and walking around with a smile would’ve made me look like an insensitive idiot. I’m sure people would have said “What a jack*ss! He’s smiling while people are being sacked!” so had to change up the plan. I decided to substitute words of encouragement with the goal of making people feel better...think of it as projecting your smile to others.

At the conclusion of Phase One, here’s what I’ve learned:

1) Forcing a smile (even when I felt less than happy) actually improved my mood and reduced stress…it became a natural feeling much easier than expected.

2) Most people (walking alone) either have no expression or frown in their natural state. I found this shocking and actually walked around a bit longer to try and find one person who was smiling…no success.

3) A sincere gesture/compliment is usually met with a look of disbelief and healthy dose of skepticism (we are a cynical society…).

4) The better I treat other people the better I feel about myself and my situation. Making others feel better about themselves or their situation brings you happiness...guaranteed!

At the end of Phase One, I’d changed my outward appearance (smiling almost all the time) and attitude when interacting with people and it was starting to show positive results. I was still faking it a great deal of the time but it was starting to become more natural.

With lessons learned, it's time for Phase Two.

To be continued…