What comes first, happiness or success?

Does success make you happy, or do you need to achieve a desired level of success to be happy? Will success make you happy? What is the relationship between success and happiness? Positive psychology researchers run studies to elucidate this relationship. If you often say, "I will be happy when…", this is definitely a research result you should pay attention to. 

Since the rise of positive psychology, many studies have examined different aspects of happiness and the relationship between career success and happiness. Psychologists Lisa C. Walsh, Julia K. Boehm and Sonja Lyubomirsky collected and analysed the results of hundreds of such studies to verify whether the hypothesis that happiness precedes career success was true.

They defined a happy person as someone who frequently experiences positive emotions such as joy, satisfaction, contentment, enthusiasm, and interest. The studies measured different aspects of career success, such as productivity, income, performance evaluation results, likelihood of finding a job, and coping with challenging tasks.

Here are a few examples of study results:

• Happier people were more satisfied with their jobs, performed better at their tasks and received better evaluations from superiors.
• A study concerning the performance of sales agents showed that happier salespeople's sales results were 37% higher than those of their less happy peers.
• A study involving college graduates showed that happier students were more likely to be invited to a job interview.
• A study following 18-year-old people over 8 years found that happier 18-year-olds were more likely to work in a prestigious job, be financially more successful and feel more satisfied with their work.
• According to other studies, happier employees were more productive, had better social support and got better evaluations from their supervisors.
• Experimental studies showed that people who experienced more positive emotions set higher goals, were more perseverant in the case of challenging tasks and were more confident they would succeed.
• When negotiating, happier people were more likely to find mutually beneficial solutions. 

The research concluded that being happy increases the potential for success and enhances career success, while it is not the only determining factor of professional success. These results do not imply that unhappy people cannot be successful, but happiness enhances the probability of success. 

The relationship works in the other direction, too. Success contributes to happiness because achievement is one of the 5 factors of happiness according to Martin Seligman's PERMA model. Why do we still see unhappy successful people? There are two main reasons:

• Achievement is not the only determinant of happiness. In the PERMA model, four other factors influence happiness.
• Happiness is influenced by a person's perception of achievement and success. If you recognise and celebrate small achievements, you will positively influence your happiness. If you consider achievement only when you accomplish an important goal, you might feel unhappy most of the journey toward your goal because you miss the sense of achievement and progress along the way. 

It is up to you to decide whether you want to be a happy, successful person who finds joy and satisfaction in daily tasks and enjoys the journey, or you'd rather work your way to success while hoping that you'll be happy when you achieve your goal.  

What can you do to maximise the bidirectional positive relationship between happiness and success?

Here are five tips to start with:

1. Break down any important goal into partial, monthly or even weekly goals. Review your results regularly and acknowledge them. This way, you can track, acknowledge and celebrate your progress toward your goal, and increase your sense of achievement.
2. Journal for 5-10 minutes every evening and recognise your small achievements. For example, acknowledge that you did something better than the day or week before, you spoke up in a meeting, your idea was accepted for discussion, etc.
3. Review your definitions of achievement and success. When do you feel successful: when you make constant progress towards your goal, or only when you achieve that final, big goal? Make each step forward a result to celebrate.
4. Uncover any negative beliefs you have about your success, what success means and how big an achievement should be to count. If you find any negative belief, change it into a positive, empowering one.
5. Track your self-talk for at least one week. Check how you talk about yourself, your abilities, achievements and success. Do you belittle your results or attribute them mostly to other people or "luck"? If yes, it is time to revise and change your self-talk and increase your self-confidence.

For more tips to be happier at work, download the workbook

"How to Become Happier at Work? - 7+1 Tools to Increase Your Happiness at Work"

Sources used in this article:

• Julia K. Boehm, Sonja Lyubomirsky: "Does Happiness Promote Career Success?" in Journal of Career Assessment, Vol. 16, No. 1, February 2008
• Lisa C. Walsh, Julia K. Boehm and Sonja Lyubomirsky: "Is happiness a consequence or cause of career success?" LSE Blog Post, August 2018