What Science Says Makes Your Life Happier | Susanna Halonen

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (wind blowing) Hi, friends. This…

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      (wind blowing) Hi, friends. This week we're talking about happiness. The field of psychology for a very long time was focused on making bad people okay, as opposed to okay people better, or happy people even more happy. I'm happy to sit down (laughs) , pardon the pun, with Susanna Hallinan, who is the world's first happiologist. She is a positive psychology specialist, the author of Happiness Is Here and Screw Finding Your Passion. She's a published researcher, TEDx speaker, online columnist, and a regular commentator in the media from the BBC to the Huffington Post and more, and we're gonna try and find out how to become a little bit happier in life. I was incredibly surprised at how many basic steps we can take in our day-to-day life to actually make our level of happiness, our baseline level of satisfaction improved. It, uh, it was very enlightening and, and there was a lot of new information that came out of this. Now one of the key tools that Susanna suggests that everybody should be using is a journal, and I know that I will be asked for some advice on which journal I recommend and which one I use, so the Six Minute Diary, which I've mentioned on numerous life hacks, the podcast with Warren Cass and the podcast with Ewan Lawson will be linked in the show notes below. It's my favorite way to develop a journaling habit, three minutes on a morning, three minutes in the evening with prompts for questions. Susanna gives you a lovely little, uh, program that you can follow as well on a weekly and a daily basis. You can add those in. I've chosen to, as there are sections in the diary to add weekly notes as well. If you follow the link in the show notes below, you will be supporting this channel at no extra cost to yourself, so please do so. If you want to start journaling, consider using the Six Minute Diary, as it's my favorite. Now let's chase after some happiness. (upbeat music) Susanna Hallinan, welcome to Modern Wisdom.

   2. SHSusanna Halonen2:33

      Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.

   3. CWChris Williamson2:35

      It's fantastic. How are you?

   4. SHSusanna Halonen2:37

      Yeah, I'm very good. I'm feeling good. The, the sun is shining. I've had a good start to the week, so yeah, it's all good. (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson2:43

      That's brilliant. So let's get straight into it. Can you tell me what a happiologist is, please?

   6. SHSusanna Halonen2:50

      Yeah. (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson2:50

      (laughs)

   8. SHSusanna Halonen2:50

      So, um, basically as my job, as the happiologist, uh, my mission in life is to make the world a happier place, and the way I do that is anything from one-to-one coaching work, to workshops, to keynote talks at organizations, and I've recently started also doing more online courses on it and some books as well, and it's basically just all about helping you to live a happier and more fulfilling life, in short. (laughs)

   9. CWChris Williamson3:21

      Yeah. Okay. Well, it sounds like a, a pretty noble pursuit, I suppose.

   10. SHSusanna Halonen3:26

       Yeah. I mean, I, I love it. I, it's, it's amazing.

   11. CWChris Williamson3:28

       It must be very fulfilling.

   12. SHSusanna Halonen3:30

       Yes, it is. It absolutely is, and it is really the opposite, um, almost of what I used to do, 'cause I haven't always been the happiologist. So I went initially into, um, the corporate career doing, um, well, a mix of things from project management to marketing communications to PR, and very quickly realized it wasn't quite the world for me, and also I felt it wasn't meaningful enough for me, so I felt like I wanted to connect to the work that I was doing, um, more and feel like what I was doing was makes- making some kind of positive impact, and when I discovered positive psychology, I just had this epiphany moment that, that, that was it, that was kind of the thing that would help me to help others as well.

   13. CWChris Williamson4:15

       That was your calling in life, right?

   14. SHSusanna Halonen4:17

       Yes. Absolutely.

   15. CWChris Williamson4:18

       That's fantastic, 'cause I've seen you've done TEDx, uh, speaking.

   16. SHSusanna Halonen4:23

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson4:23

       You are a commentator from BBC to Huffington Post as well, so for, um, a subject area as ha- happiology, um (laughs) -

   18. SHSusanna Halonen4:34

       (laughs)

   19. CWChris Williamson4:34

       ... which I guess is not tremendously mainstream, it's obvious that there's a demand for your, um, your work and your talents.

   20. SHSusanna Halonen4:41

       Yeah. Absolutely, and it's, I think it's a, it's a growing field as well, so how I kind of got into it is initially just by, you know, exploring positive psychology with books and blogs and people in the field, and then eventually I went to do a Master's of Science in it, 'cause I really wanted to specialize myself in the actual science behind it. And, I mean, the university where I went to do it was the University of East London, and that was only the second university to offer positive psychology as a Master's of Science study.

   21. CWChris Williamson5:10

       So what, what, so is your Master's of Science is in positive psychology?

   22. SHSusanna Halonen5:13

       In applied positive psychology, yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson5:15

       Oh, right. Okay, okay. Um-

   24. SHSusanna Halonen5:17

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson5:18

       So, I mean, if there was ever someone who had the natural passion and then the, uh, the academic backing to deploy this sort of research and, and this sort of knowledge, I guess that's the perfect storm for yourself, right?

   26. SHSusanna Halonen5:36

       Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely, and I think also because when I was, you know, going th- through my corporate career and trying to figure out, you know, what was wrong and why wasn't I happy and why was I so unfulfilled, I think that's also one of the things that attracted me to positive psychology, so when I went to study it, initially basically to use it to help other people, I also obviously tested every exercise and every tip and every practice on myself-

   27. CWChris Williamson6:03

       Mm-hmm.

   28. SHSusanna Halonen6:03

       ... so through that I was able to transform myself as well and take that journey myself that I now take my clients through-

   29. CWChris Williamson6:10

       Yeah.

   30. SHSusanna Halonen6:10

       ... and...... I really managed to go from a natural pessimist to a trained optimist, and it's, yeah, it was an incredible journey, and it's, yeah, it was very worthwhile. (laughs)
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   There'll be some patterns,…

   1. SHSusanna Halonen15:00

      and you can start approaching life with more of this sense of awe and wonder that children, for example, approach it with. And once you start getting your mindset into that kind of place, that's when it's a lot easier to start exploring these questions of hedonic and eudaimonic happiness, like, "What is it that actually brings me joy and what is it that brings me eudaimonic happiness?" Also, because then you can look back in your gratitude journal and you will probably start to see common denominators, like-

   2. CWChris Williamson15:26

      There'll be some patterns, right?

   3. SHSusanna Halonen15:27

      Exactly, exactly. So, that's always kind of the first step, um, I encourage people to take when it comes to them shifting into, into a more positive place, regardless of what's going on around them, but really starting to focus on, on working on that inner mindset.

   4. CWChris Williamson15:42

      Is that, uh, is gratitude the foundation upon which happiness is built then, to a degree?

   5. SHSusanna Halonen15:47

      Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Because without gratitude it's, it's very difficult to see the light in a lot of things, you know, because gratitude leads to anything from being able to be more creative, to productive, to being able to think of more solutions, to being able to focus on the good, appreciate the people in your life, deal with stress more effectively. I mean, it just goes on and on in terms of the benefits of gratitude, because you really start to approach things from a completely different angle.

   6. CWChris Williamson16:16

      Yeah. Well, I, uh, I like the fact that you've, you've brought up stuff to do with habits. We spend a lot of time talking about habits on the show, and I swear that you, uh, you aren't reading my notes, but there is, "How can habits impact happiness?" a little bit (laughs) further down my notes.

   7. SHSusanna Halonen16:28

      Mm-hmm.

   8. CWChris Williamson16:28

      We're gonna come back to that in a little bit. But, I think the, the litmus test of are you starting to see things during your day that you want to become grateful for or that you, you seek and, um, will, will feature potentially in the journal or in your diary later on in the day, I think that's a, a really nice way to put it. I used this example previously, but, um, one of my friends was talking about his training and he was saying that he was not getting enough sleep and he was not getting enough, uh, food at the moment, and his training wasn't optimal. And I've been journaling for a little while, and his approach to that was, "I'm not optimal, I'm not in my best, uh, I've not prepared myself the best to go in and train."

   9. SHSusanna Halonen17:10

      Mm-hmm.

   10. CWChris Williamson17:10

       "Therefore, therefore, I can afford to write training off to a degree." And we had a, we had a conversation about it and he was a little bit down, and my approach to it, which surprised myself because this isn't my ty- or this wouldn't have usually been my typical way of looking at it, my way to look at it was to say, "Well, look, mate, you have the opportunity here to conduct, uh, training sessions under duress and under non-ideal circumstances. This is an opportunity so that if you go into a competition and-

   11. SHSusanna Halonen17:40

       Mm-hmm.

   12. CWChris Williamson17:40

       ... you know you haven't slept sufficiently well, you know that you haven't eaten well, maybe you've traveled, maybe whatever's happened, you know that you've still got it in the tank, so this is an opportunity for you to be grateful for, yeah, okay, maybe it's not ideal, but how can we flip that on its head and actually make it into a positive rather than a negative?" And I think-

   13. SHSusanna Halonen17:59

       Yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson17:59

       ... for me, that was a very small but really stark, uh, identifier that the journaling practice... I've just completed five months yesterday, actually.

   15. SHSusanna Halonen18:09

       Oh, amazing.

   16. CWChris Williamson18:10

       So, I've finished my first one. I've had to get a new one. And this happens to be the third podcast in a row where we've brought up journaling. So, the one that was released just last week with Dr. Ewan Lawson, author of The Healthy Writer, that he, he sang the praises of journaling. And I think when you've got so many different, uh, so many people from different, um, fields, all of whom are converging over the top of a, a single habit, I think for anybody who's listening who isn't journaling and isn't doing gratitude, I think that that's a-... it's definitely a good place to start. So, you're talking about three things on an evening that people are grateful for, and that is beginning to form the foundation, is that right?

   17. SHSusanna Halonen18:51

       Yes, absolutely. Definitely.

   18. CWChris Williamson18:53

       Great. And where do we go from there?

   19. SHSusanna Halonen18:56

       So, from there, I think, like you said, we can start... Once we've done it for a couple of weeks, we can start looking at those patterns, and then we can start actually exploring those two questions about, what is it that actually makes you feel joy in those s- short-term moments of positive emotions? And on the other side, what is it that gives you that sense of meaning? Because especially when it comes to sense of meaning, and that why, and that purpose, a lot of people tend to get overwhelmed with the idea that in order to have purpose in your life, you're supposed to be curing cancer, abolishing poverty-

   20. CWChris Williamson19:29

       (laughs)

   21. SHSusanna Halonen19:29

       ... or solving some massive humanitarian cause. And it's like, "Well, no, actually the definition of purpose is just you knowing why you do what you do." So, as long as you understand why what you're doing has actually some kind of outcome, or purpose, or is- is somehow meaningful to you, that's good enough. And I think, yes, it's still good to explore the whole, if you want to have some kind of positive impact, you know, you wanna leave your mark on the world, but we have to start small because those big questions can be really overwhelming, especially-

   22. CWChris Williamson20:01

       (laughs)

   23. SHSusanna Halonen20:01

       ... if you haven't really explored it before.

   24. CWChris Williamson20:03

       I agree.

   25. SHSusanna Halonen20:03

       So really, just start by looking at your daily actions, you know, brushing your teeth. "Oh, why do I brush my teeth? Oh, well, so I can have healthy teeth." (laughs)

   26. CWChris Williamson20:12

       Yeah. (laughs)

   27. SHSusanna Halonen20:12

       And it's like, you know, "Why do I go to the gym or go for a walk in the park? Well, it's good to exercise. Okay. And it makes me feel good. Okay, I get it." Right. You go into work mode. "Okay. Why am I doing, I don't know, this report for my manager? Oh, it's because he needs it to show to the board or the team or whatever. Oh, okay, so that's the why behind that." Because once you just start asking yourself, right, "Why am I doing this?" then you start to connect to all those different actions on a daily level in your life and at your work, and you can actually start to create more of that sense of meaning and purpose without daunting yourself with that massive question, "Ooh, what's my life purpose?" No-

   28. CWChris Williamson20:48

       End goal, right? Yeah. I think.

   29. SHSusanna Halonen20:49

       Yes, (laughs) exactly.

   30. CWChris Williamson20:50

       To- to bring it back to the listeners (laughs) , the listeners are gonna know what I'm gonna say, to bring it back to Jordan Peterson, one of the, um, exercises that he uses is clean up your room. I'm not sure if you've heard him talk about this.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah. …

   1. CWChris Williamson30:00

      we've got the gratitude that we're doing on a daily basis. We've started to look at the, uh, things that we know can give us- the small things- that we know can give us purpose day to day.

   2. SHSusanna Halonen30:11

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson30:11

      Where do you take it from there?

   4. SHSusanna Halonen30:13

      So then, I would really encourage people to practice resilience. (laughs) And again, that's something that both of these things fuel anyway. So, the more grateful you are, the more optimistic you are, the more resilient you tend to be. And when I talk about resilience, it's- it's not about being stubborn-minded and things like that and just sticking with things that you know aren't right for you. No, it's about understanding that, when you are faced with a setback or a challenge or some kind of failure, it's there for a reason. It's there as an opportunity for you to check in with yourself, for you to grow, for you to push yourself out of your comfort zone, for you to develop. And when I talk about resilience, I talk a lot about, um, Growth Mindset by Carol Dweck. Have you heard of that?

   5. CWChris Williamson30:59

      I've heard of it but not read it.

   6. SHSusanna Halonen31:01

      Yeah, so basically yeah, it's, I, it's one of the, I think one of my favorite books, um, from my studying times. It was incredible and it really completely shifted my mindset. And she talks about basically these two ways to approach life when it comes to your mindset, so you can have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. And if you have a fixed mindset, you basically think that your abilities, your traits, your intelligence is fixed and that's it, that's what you've kind of been gifted with and that's what you have to work with, and you just carry on with that. Whereas somebody with a growth mindset sees their traits, skills, intelligence, abilities, something that they can always develop and that they oh, they can always evolve and they can always grow in. Now, when it comes to you facing different situations, obviously there are certain situations that can maybe put you more in a fixed mindset and other ones that can push you more into a growth mindset. But the important bit is to really try and again, be aware of this and see kind of where you think you fit in the scale when you are faced with a challenge. Because if you are able to harness a growth mindset, that's when you start seeing those challenges as opportunities to grow and learn, you start seeing other people's success as inspiration, not threat, you really start taking feedback in a positive way and realize, okay, this is an opportunity for me to grow rather than taking it personally and thinking this is just an attack on you. And that's why I think when it comes to resilience and really being able to face all the challenges and all the unplanned surprises that we have on a daily basis pretty much- (laughs) Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson32:36

      That life, life inevitably flows, throws at us, right?

   8. SHSusanna Halonen32:39

      Exactly. So I think it's really important to try and harness that growth mindset. And whenever you are faced with that challenge or that, uh, some kind of setback, just have a look at it, you know, think of it, okay, how am I starting to approach this challenge right now? Am I going more into the negative or the positive? Am I thinking fixed mindset or, you know, fixed mindset way or growth mindset way? And then start diving into it and I'm like, no, okay, this is an opportunity for me to grow, this is an opportunity for me to learn, this is an opportunity for me to kind of really step in and, and, and be a better version of myself. And one thing that can also help you kind of get more comfortable in a way, in feeling more resilient is also looking back on some of your past setbacks and failures. And then ask yourself, you know, how is your life or how are you better because of those setbacks? Because in some way, in one way or another, there will be some kind of learning and growth in them. And taking the time to really pause and reflect on that can, can help kind of bring more of that growth mindset in and also help you to change, uh, face future challenges in a better way as well.

   9. CWChris Williamson33:49

      Okay. So that's taking it a little bit of a step further than just the gratitude, it's a reflection period generally.

   10. SHSusanna Halonen33:56

       Yeah. I-

   11. CWChris Williamson33:57

       So do you encourage your clients and your patients to, um, to take these, to periodize reflection?

   12. SHSusanna Halonen34:05

       Yeah. Well, I encourage, if you can, at the end of every week to basically answer three questions. Um, and again, you can do journaling or you can talk to somebody about it, you can just think about it. I mean, again, I'm a huge fan of journaling, so I always recommend that 'cause also putting stuff out on paper kind of helps you digest them in a more effective way. Um, but the three questions are, is basically one, what was the one thing that I'm most proud of from the last week? The second question is, what is one learning that I've had in the last week? And the final is, what is the most beautiful moment I've had in the last week? So it kind of, again, touches on all those different elements of, okay, what is it that I'm proud of, how can I connect to that sense of achievement and, and connect to my myself and my truth and feel more of that compassion? And the second is all about that learning. So really about understanding, okay, was there a setback or a challenge or something that really helped me to learn?

   13. CWChris Williamson35:02

       Mm-hmm.

   14. SHSusanna Halonen35:03

       And what was that learning that I can now take forward with me? And the final, just reflecting on one beautiful moment from that week because I think we just generally don't take enough time to just pause and reflect on all the kind of amazing things that are happening around us and just picking one moment that you're kind of gonna spend some time, extra time savoring after it's happened can really help to, to boost not only those positive emotions, but also that sense of fulfillment.

   15. CWChris Williamson35:32

       Yeah, I think so. The, the time that you can spend to ruminate over something which gives you pleasure inh-

   16. SHSusanna Halonen35:39

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CWChris Williamson35:40

       ... i- inherently is, it's very liberating, and it's like-

   18. SHSusanna Halonen35:43

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson35:43

       It's like f- free happiness presuming that ... Do you know what I mean? Like, you've already done it. You've put the investment in, the activity has gone, and you're now able to just revisit that in your mind-

   20. SHSusanna Halonen35:54

       Mm-hmm.

   21. CWChris Williamson35:55

       ... and elicit the same emotions again.

   22. SHSusanna Halonen35:57

       Yeah, absolutely.

   23. CWChris Williamson35:59

       Um, so I wanted to ask a question that I think a lot of people will think.

   24. SHSusanna Halonen36:05

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson36:06

       Is tackling unhappiness the same as making people happy? So in CrossFit there is a spectrum of sickness to wellness to fitness.

   26. SHSusanna Halonen36:16

       Mm-hmm.

   27. CWChris Williamson36:16

       Or sickness to health to fitness. So is this the same?

   28. SHSusanna Halonen36:22

       So it depends pretty much how you define unhappiness, because obviously if you have been diagnosed with clinical depression, it's a little bit of a different ball game, and there are y- you need to kind of be a little bit more cautionate about what kind of exercises you do and, and, you know, work with a clinical psychologist to help kind of yourself work, work on yourself with the right tools 'cause sometimes depending on how, in what kind of place you are, some of the tools, if you struggle with them, they can make you feel worse. (laughs)

   29. CWChris Williamson36:54

       I'm gonna guess a reflection period if you-

   30. SHSusanna Halonen36:56

       Yes.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Yeah. Sleep is massive…

   1. CWChris Williamson45:01

      What about sleep? What sort of an impact does sleep have on mood?

   2. SHSusanna Halonen45:04

      Yeah. Sleep is massive as well because the only time that your body has the time to recover is, is during sleep. You know, that's when your cells are regenerating if you've, you know, done hard workouts and things like that, your muscles are recovering and recuperating, and also whatever you've kind of gone through in the day before, you know, learning or challenges or creative thinking, at night when you're asleep, your brain is actually hard at work because it's digesting all of that, it's creating new neural pathway, there are new neurons forming. So, your brain is also, again, it's a time in that time when you are asleep in your mind, physiologically, your body is actually working quite hard to get everything back in place and recovered so that you're ready for the next day. So, I mean, research kind of suggests that ideally on average you should be getting between seven to nine hours of sleep every day. Um, now, it does vary individual to individual, but that is the ideal on an average, and they also recommend that you should try and have a similar sleep time routine to basically go to bed approximately same time and get up in the morning the next day approximate the same time because that's when your body, again, going back into habits, your body starts to understand when it needs to start kind of winding down and getting ready for bed, and equally in the morning, then it knows, "Oh, okay, we're approaching, I don't know, 7:00 AM, and okay, it's time to start kind of awakening and, and getting alert."

   3. CWChris Williamson46:33

      Yeah, definitely.

   4. SHSusanna Halonen46:33

      And again, the more you can follow also the, the kind of natural cycle of light, the better-

   5. CWChris Williamson46:40

      Yeah.

   6. SHSusanna Halonen46:40

      ... because of, um, your cortisol levels being highest in the morning winning- when you get up, when the sun has come up. That's also when you're your most alert and your most kind of creative and productive. So, if you can, you should try and really use as much of the daylight as you can. And obviously it depends where you are and how much daylight you have. I mean, I come from Finland, and in the winter in the north, I think there's about two hours of daylight. (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson47:04

      Oh, wow.

   8. SHSusanna Halonen47:05

      So, you can't really sleep the rest of the time. (laughs)

   9. CWChris Williamson47:07

      Yeah.

   10. SHSusanna Halonen47:08

       But, but yeah-

   11. CWChris Williamson47:08

       It's gonna be a short day at work.

   12. SHSusanna Halonen47:09

       Yeah. (laughs) Yeah, exactly. Um, but as much as you can, you should try and kind of look at nature as well and look at that cycle and see if you can match with that as, as, as much as possible.

   13. CWChris Williamson47:19

       Yeah. Throwing, throwing your circadian rhythm into chaos is a, a surefire way to start to decrease your mood.

   14. SHSusanna Halonen47:26

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson47:26

       I know, um, I'm a, I'm a club promoter and I have been for 12 years, which means that for probably for the last six to seven years, at least three nights a week I've gone to bed after 4:00 in the morning-

   16. SHSusanna Halonen47:38

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CWChris Williamson47:38

       ... and the- that's a, a non-negotiable. I can't change that about my job.

   18. SHSusanna Halonen47:43

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson47:44

       So, it's been a, a long and arduous process for me to work out strategies of how I can mitigate that.

   20. SHSusanna Halonen47:51

       Yeah.

   21. CWChris Williamson47:51

       And it's for a very, very long time I was, I was very harsh on myself about, "Why are you getting up late? Why are you so tired? Why are you unable to, uh, perform at the level that you want to either in work or in, uh, relationships or in the gym or wherever it might be?"

   22. SHSusanna Halonen48:08

       Yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson48:09

       When not giving myself enough credit for the fact, "Well, you went to bed at 4:00 in the morning after working a 20-hour day, like give yourself a break."

   24. SHSusanna Halonen48:18

       Yeah. Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson48:18

       Like it's, it's sleep, sleep is one of those things I think people always believe, "Oh, well, you can just man up. You know, like, it'll be sweet."

   26. SHSusanna Halonen48:25

       Yeah.

   27. CWChris Williamson48:25

       "I'll sleep, I'll sleep when I'm dead." That's, I mean, that's-

   28. SHSusanna Halonen48:26

       Yeah.

   29. CWChris Williamson48:27

       ... holy, holy terrible advice because you're going to be more unhappy and you're gonna die sooner.

   30. SHSusanna Halonen48:31

       Yeah. (laughs) Exactly. Exactly. And I think you, you, you brought up a really important point there about kind of being kinder to yourself as well, you know, being aware of what's going on in your life and like you're having, like, like you said, 20-hour days. I mean, oh my god, of course, you need to just...... relax, recharge, and recuperate as much as you can. And I think that's, again, another thing, especially in today's society where I think we seem to be rewarded by busyness and the more we do, and, you know, the, the, the better we seem to look to the outside world, and just having a packed schedule and running from one place to another. And it's like, well, no, that's, that's not what life is about. It actually, we need to kind of take more time to nurture ourselves and spend some quality time with ourselves and make sure that we are in a happy, healthy, and fit state, because otherwise, we don't really have much left to give to others either.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:03:22

   Mm. …

   1. CWChris Williamson1:00:00

      I, I enjoy, I enjoy reading personal development and, and self-help books which are conceptual and leave the door open for you to apply the principles yourself, but I also like being... I like having things laid out. The mobility routine that I do, ROM WOD, which I do every morning, that is every single day all I do is put my phone on and I press a button and I do what the pho- I do what the video tells me to do.

   2. SHSusanna Halonen1:00:27

      Mm.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:00:27

      I like, I like that element and I find that when you're beginning a practice and, you know, um, positive psychology and taking moves, people taking active moves to make themselves more happy-

   4. SHSusanna Halonen1:00:40

      Mm.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:00:40

      ... for the, for the sole goal of being more happy, not for it being because I'm gonna profit off it, not because I'm gonna be, uh, more, um, successful at work or whatever, it's for the sole goal of being happy, that's gonna be a big departure for a lot of people from probably what they would...... what they do on a daily basis. I can't imagine that the, uh, a large majority of people will wake up and think on a morning, "Well, today I'm gonna work really hard on being happy."

   6. SHSusanna Halonen1:01:06

      Yeah. (laughs) Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:01:07

      Which, which is actually, you know, probably quite the wrong way to think about it. But yeah, the, the prescriptive element of it, the, the rock hard takeaways, I really, really like.

   8. SHSusanna Halonen1:01:16

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:01:16

      I think some of the things that we've gone through today, I love the framework that we've got. Um, hopefully we can, uh, uh, well, some of the listeners will be able to employ these strategies, and if they want to take this further, Happiness Is Here, I'll make sure that the link is in the show notes below. Can you tell the listeners where they can find you online?

   10. SHSusanna Halonen1:01:38

       Yes, of course. So, uh, you can find, uh, me on my website, which is happiologist.co.uk. I'm also on social media, um, as @thehappiologist, so The Happiologist basically on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And, uh, I also do a free newsletter, so if you wanna sign up, you can do that on my website, and, uh, yeah, so come and, come and have a chat basically. (laughs)

   11. CWChris Williamson1:02:03

       You also do coaching, online coaching for clients as well, right?

   12. SHSusanna Halonen1:02:06

       Yes, yes, I do online coaching. Um, I've got a new online course actually coming up. Well, I'm working on a couple ones and, uh, yeah, and also those workshops and talks for organizations and different types of conferences and events.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:02:20

       Oh wow, fantastic. So thank you very much for your time, Susanna. I'll make sure links to, uh, happiology.co.uk, your socials, to the book, Happiness Is Here Plus Screw Finding Your Passion, which I know we, we didn't even get round to. Maybe we're gonna have to do ano- another one and we can talk-

   14. SHSusanna Halonen1:02:36

       Yeah. (laughs)

   15. CWChris Williamson1:02:36

       ... we can go on talking about that. But thank you so much for today. It's been a fantastic chat. I think a lot of p- people will have taken away some really, really good concrete bits of advice that they can implement in their lives.

   16. SHSusanna Halonen1:02:49

       Yeah, no, thank you so much for, for having me. It's, it's been a blast and, and, I mean, this is my mission, so I really love, I love sharing insights and yeah, I really hope that it's been helpful to your listeners.

   17. CWChris Williamson1:03:00

       I think we've definitely had an impact today, so thank you again.

   18. SHSusanna Halonen1:03:03

       Thank you. Thank you so much.

   19. CWChris Williamson1:03:05

       Cheers, Susanna.

Episode duration: 1:03:20