ARE YOU HAPPY?

In her article, Blue is the New Black, Maureen Dowd, the op-ed columnist for The New York Times says that “women are getting gloomier while men are getting happier.” Research from six different studies around the world conducted each year since 1972 (a total of 1.3 million men and women to date), shows that despite all the progress over the last few decades, “women around the world are in a funk.” It doesn’t matter what age they are, if they are married or single, working or unemployed, with children or fancy-free, the results are the same.

There is lots of debate around this topic, but here are some ideas based on “why”:

• More demands on their time these days−coming home from work to do the “second shift?”
• Too much choice – could it be that the more “things that are crowded in their lives, the less attention women are able to give to each thing?”
• A tendency to be too hard on oneself – on work performance, looks, you name it.

Management guru, Marcus Buckingham, in his latest book, Find Your Strongest Life: What the World’s Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently wanted to know how to change this situation. He studied women who had “bucked the trend” and found that the happiest and most successful women:

1. Don’t agonize over who they aren’t, they accept and act on who they are. They have discovered the role they were born to play and they play it.
2. Don’t juggle, they catch-and-cradle. They don’t keep things at bay, but select a few things and draw them in close.
3. Don’t strive for balance, they strive for fullness. They intentionally imbalance their lives toward those moments that make them feel strong.
4. Always sweat the small stuff. They know and act on the specific details of what invigorates them (and they let go of what doesn’t strengthen them).

SO, WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Do any of these things work for you? Do any of them resonate with you and will you try them? What are your thoughts on what makes women happiest? And do you believe that women unhappier now? Our WLC Advisory Council would love to know what you think. Share your ideas by posting your comments below.

If you want to find out what makes you happy, check out Buckingham’s quiz called the Strong Life Test.