Do you have a list you have to remember quickly? Take first letters and form an acronym.

For example – you have to remember to send Fred, Lisa, Ethel and Andrew cards. Yes, their first initials form word FLEA. Imagine itching (your head?) because you have a flea – you know first letters of their names.

Going to supermarket? Bread, butter, ketchup, onions, tuna, olive oil– BBKOTO. Not too promising? Try rearranging them – you have TB BOOK. Think of a book going through last act of ‘Camille’ – dying of consumption. Silly? Yes. But remember – sillier better, it will force it to stay in your head. Now you have all letters.

If you don’t have enough letters to form a word – try to find one that comes close. PROMPT for PRMT, FAULT for FLT and so on. You already know items you’re have to remember, what you are trying to do is create a reminder – once your memory is jogged, words will come back.

When you are devising acronym, remember to picture items visually in your head, visualization is a strong memory technique.

Forming A Story

If you have a longer list of seemingly unrelated items, that automatically becomes a good candidate for a story.

For example:

-Glass -Horn -Cat -Onion -Melon

These words may be unrelated, but that is point – you can combine them easily with a story that will be outrageous enough it will stay in you head – change order if necessary – A cat is playing with a melon and all of a sudden it’s repelled by smell of an onion that was used to season melon. The cat got all excited and ran away – racing through a glass window and landing inside a big French horn.

It’s silly and childish – but that’s point, it’s silly enough to be remembered. Think story through and key words – cat – melon – onion – glass – horn – come to mind.

If you're into professional development, you've heard of Martin Seligman, Ph.D., who developed theory of Learned Optimism. Optimism is facilitator of emotional intelligence (EQ), which matters more to our success and happiness than IQ. Seligman’s research has established that optimists are more productive and accomplish more, i.e., are more successful, but what about happiness?

Recently, Seligman has started studying Authentic Happiness. In "Pleasure, Meaning & Eudaimonia," he looks at common conception of Americans that pleasure equals happiness, which he calls “the hedonic view” -- happiness equals most positive feelings with least negative feelings. He thinks there are two things wrong with this idea, and that there are in fact three paths to happiness.

WHAT’S WRONG?

1. That cheery countenance we equate with pleasure, "positive affectivity," is hereditary. Therefore it's normally distributed in population.

Therefore about half of us just aren't that way, and aren’t likely to become that way, no matter what. So, don’t insist on a bright façade in yourself or your employees or your kids; it doesn’t indicate much.

2. The hedonic view has not proven to bring happiness. What apparently does is Aristotle’s "Eudaimonia," Good life – pleasures of contemplation; that deep absorption we now call “flow.” You can already see that this fits right into our work lives!

THREE PATHS TO HAPPINESS

The core thesis in Authentic Happiness is there are three paths to a happy life:

1.The Pleasant Life (having as much pleasure as you can) 2.The Good Life (knowing your signature strengths and crafting your life around them, for maximal flow) 3.The Meaningful Life (using your signature strengths for something that’s bigger than you are)

NEW RESEARCH CONFIRMS: PLEASURE DOESN'T ADD TO SATISFACTION

Two recent research studies, done independently, have confirmed that hedonic motives don't correlate with happiness, but eudaimonic motives do - pursuing personal growth, development of your potential, achieving personal excellence, contributing to lives of others.

SO WHAT'S A GOOD PLAN FOR HAPPINESS?

1. Find out what your unique Strengths are. Take StrengthsFinder™ Profile (www.susandunn.cc/courses.htm). Once you discover your top 5 innate strengths (in order) from 34 possibilities - Activator, Focus, Maximizer, Intellection, Deliberativeness, Futuristic, etc.- if you recraft your life around them, you will have Good Life!

The StrengthsFinder™ Profile, incidentally, is a wonderful tool for managers. I’ve found it to be true that some people don’t know what their strengths are, while some know those traits very well, but have been conditioned to consider them weaknesses.

There are innate strengths – things we were born with and will always have --unique ways of viewing world, making decisions, relating to people, and doing jobs.