Here’s a link to my December contribution to Positive Psychology New Daily – given that 2010 is nearly here, it seemed appropriate to write about ‘future mental time travel’ (MTT). This particular research suggests that practising future MTT every day can increase your level of happiness if you focus on positive events.

If you can’t think of any positive future events to savour, even thinking about neutral events in the future can be beneficial, by reducing your level of anxiety. So as you start planning for 2010, why not try your own experiment, and see if future MTT works for you?

As usual your thoughts and comments are welcome here and on the PPND site!

Image: thanks to lepiaf.geo

Just to update you all – Ilona and I are delighted to see that The Happiness Equation has been published in German. According to my MAPP colleagues, Drs Marina Fiedler and Lars Fend, there are two books on the topic of happiness and well-being in the top ten at the moment – let’s hope The Happiness Equation joins them!

Can you change people’s behaviour for the better by making tasks more enjoyable? Car manufacturer Volkswagen seems to think so - they’ve been running a competition looking for new designs or inventions which prove the ‘Fun Theory‘, i.e. that having fun is the easiest way to get people to do the right thing. Examples include  the bottle bank arcade machine,  the world’s deepest dustbin, and the piano staircase, which is my favourite.

I don’t know what the positive psychology theory is behind behaviour change and having fun (perhaps linked to Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions?) but on the basis it’s worked with the majority of kids since time began, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work with the majority of adults too.

The competition closes on 15th December, so if you want to enter your idea, and have the chance of winning 2500 euros, you need to get your skates on.

Thanks to Neil Ashley for the link