How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

by Caroline Webb

Can you offer a practical, concrete suggestion before anyone else does? If so, you’re likely to significantly influence the outcome of any discussion that follows. Even if people don’t end up choosing your idea as a handy default option, your first suggestion creates an easy anchoring point in people’s minds.

If you’re talking numbers, try giving a range that spans your desired outcome and an even better (though still reasonable) outcome.

In the absence of any information to the contrary, the brain’s automatic system takes another of its infamous shortcuts: “If someone seems to believe in what they’re saying, they’re probably right.” Scientists call this shortcut the confidence heuristic. And in organizations, study after study shows how people tend to accord high status to confident individuals, giving special value to their contributions.

According to the research, one trait commonly associated with confidence is being proactive. When we see someone speak up and take initiative, we tend to assume we’re dealing with a person of substance, someone with the power or expertise to have an impact.

we have a tendency to overestimate the personal impact of every life event, good or bad. Even with the worst that life can throw at us, we have a remarkable capacity to adjust to new circumstances and get back to our former levels of happiness.

affect labeling. Years of research suggests that if we can name the negative emotion we’re experiencing and describe succinctly what’s causing that feeling, we can reduce its hold on us.

Countless studies suggest that when we make our breathing more relaxed—deeper and slower, taking in plenty of air each time—our body seems to take that as a signal that the threat has passed.

Why do we prefer to avoid situations where we lack information? One reason is that they make our brain work especially hard, as we’re forced to assess many possible scenarios—and we know how much our brain’s automatic system likes to save us mental energy. Not knowing what’s going on also makes us more sensitive to negative experiences; it seems to enhance the sense of threat.

Reappraisal involves exploring alternative explanations for what we’ve observed, acknowledging that it’s possible we may not have the full picture. It sounds simple, but research by many psychologists and neuroscientists has shown it to be one of the most powerful things you can do to improve your emotional resilience.