Let's Be Happy with the Law of Pre-Celebration!
This article explains how you can make your daily life more enjoyable and achieve your goals more easily by reversing the order of the "mountain you must overcome" and "happiness."
By adopting this approach, you can rethink the traditional mindset of "earning a reward after effort" and instead "create enjoyment first," which will increase your daily sense of fulfillment and happiness, and help you maintain motivation for long-term goals.
In this article, I will explain the benefits of this way of thinking and specific methods for implementing it.
Our Usual Way of Thinking
In our daily lives, when we have a task in front of us that makes us think, "Okay, I'm going to do my best now," it is common to vaguely think about the "happiness after overcoming it," such as "Let's go for a drink with everyone after we get over this mountain" or "If I can work hard on this, I'll go see that movie I've been looking forward to."
For those who think, "Isn't that obvious?", I would like to introduce three methods that might change your worldview by trying the reverse order.
1. The Candy Effect: A way to boost motivation with small rewards
First, let me introduce a method that is easy to do.
In meetings or gatherings, we often see things being handed out, like, "Thank you for the discussion so far. Please have some sweets during the break..." After using your brain in a long meeting, eating something sweet can be a relaxing time.
The "Candy Effect" proposed by Shawn Achor overturns this conventional wisdom. Rather, it suggests that distributing small sweets or similar items before tackling a task to increase happiness will improve motivation and efficiency.
In other words, it is the idea that by feeling "happiness" first, your engagement with things becomes more active. It is obvious when you think about it, but since it is the reverse of the usual order, some people may be confused.
Note that this method is not limited to "handing out sweets." As Shawn Achor states in "The Happiness Advantage," anything that brings positive feelings, such as being kind to others, exercising, or decorating your desk, is fine.
I have also linked a few reference articles on Note regarding the Candy Effect.
2. Pre-celebration (Yoshuku): Celebrating the future to attract success
Next, I will explain a slightly more advanced method of "changing how you direct your consciousness."
According to author Kotaro Hisui, for Japanese people, cherry blossom viewing and Bon dances were part of "pre-celebration (Yoshuku)," where people wished for a bountiful harvest in the autumn and celebrated it in advance, anticipating that harvest.
The theory of pre-celebration is that this ancient Japanese method is being used by top-tier athletes and celebrities to produce high results.
The details are written by the author himself in the linked article, but by "vividly visualizing a successful future in advance and celebrating it with those involved," your consciousness becomes more focused on things that lead to that success in your daily actions, making it easier to achieve your goals.
For more specific methods, please read Mr. Hisui's book, "The Law of Pre-celebration." It is full of encouraging content, including how current perception affects the future, the use of affirmations, and practical methods and examples of pre-celebration.
3. Goal Vision Construction Method using NLP: A way to clearly visualize the future
Another method you can think about quietly on your own is a slightly adapted version of outcome construction from NLP, a psychological technique. This method aims to draw out the power to take action toward your goals by clearly visualizing your future in your mind.
By answering the following questions, your vague 'ideal self' should become clearer, and feelings of joy, motivation, and happiness will well up. Furthermore, this can be expected to increase your own motivation and improve the consistency of your actions.
1. What kind of state do you want to achieve?
2. Around when do you want to achieve it?
3. Once that state is achieved, how will you and your surroundings change?
4. What kind of emotions or feelings do you think you will have at that time?
5. Where will you be at that time? Is anyone around you?
6. What is the atmosphere of the place like? What are the people around you saying?
7. Once you have obtained what you want, what do you want to do next?
When actually conducting coaching, I flexibly change the content and order of the questions while listening to the story, and ask more specific questions. To verify whether the above is sufficient for self-coaching, I practiced it myself following the question list above, and I was able to concretize my image of the future. I think it would be helpful if you try it as well.
By vividly visualizing the future in this way, I think you will find it easier to take action toward your goals and feel that your motivation for action is increasing within yourself.
In addition, the following note article may be helpful regarding the concept of outcomes in NLP.
Summary: There was an unexpected connection!
Actually, when I started writing this article, I only intended to write about the 'Candy Effect.' However, as I continued writing, I realized, 'Hey, this and that are connected too,' and the content of the article expanded more than I thought. As a result, I feel that it has become an article that can convey various themes in a connected form.
The methods and ideas introduced in this article are, I believe, the core parts of the psychological techniques used in coaching. By practicing these, I think it will help you create a 'happy and fun' daily life and promote self-growth. I hope you will incorporate this content into your daily life and feel the positive changes.