As with any happiness or life satisfaction league table, who comes top depends on exactly what’s being measured and how. In this article by The Observer journalist John Carlin, Iceland is referred to as the happiest country in the world. How can this be? We all know that it’s Denmark!

Carlin’s conclusion is based on Iceland’s ranking in the Human Development Index (HDI), one of the four United Nations assessments of human potential – it measures three basic dimensions – a long and healthy life, education and a decent standard of living.

1. Health is measured by life expectancy at birth,
2. Education is measured by a combination of the adult literacy rate and the combined gross enrolment ratio in primary, secondary, and tertiary education,
3. Standard of living is measured by Purchasing Power Parity (PPP US$).

So the HDI isn’t actually quantifying either happiness or life satisfaction, and it’s questionable (in Positive Psychology terms) whether health, wealth and education significantly contribute to happiness anyway.

In fact there are some elements of Icelandic society which would contradict the conclusion that it’s one of the best countries in the world to live in, for example, the highest divorce rate in Europe. However, this doesn’t mean they have unhappy families – in fact writes Carlin, “The kids will be just fine, because the family will rally round them, and likely as not, the parents will continue to have a civilised relationship, based on the usually automatic understanding that custody of the children will be shared”.

The article provides further insights into those character traits which might explain why Icelanders are generally happy people (if not the happiest), for example, optimism, resilience, self-confidence and a can-do attitude. That said, if we follow Lyubomirsky’s “Happiness Pie” model, after genes (50%), what we chose to do with our time is the largest contributor (40%) to our happiness – do we have any readers who could comment on how the average happy Icelander spends his/her time?

Whether or not it’s the happiest country, Iceland takes first place in the 2007/08 HDI, followed by Norway, Australia, Canada and Ireland. The USA is in 12th position, Denmark 14th and the UK 16th. At the bottom , not surprisingly are the West African countries of Guinea (175th), Burkina Faso (176th) and Sierra Leone (177th). For the full list, see here.

Image: Gúnna

A new campaign,Growing Strong, has been launched by the children’s charity NCH to raise awareness of the importance of children and young people’s emotional well-being to their ability to improve relative life chances and fulfill their potential.

In NCH’s survey of over 2000 adults in the UK, 6 out of 10 said emotional well-being (having empathy, confidence, resilience,self-awareness, good social skills and being able to manage your feelings) was important or very important in deciding what they themselves had achieved in life. Other key factors were education and family stability. In fact, emotional well-being was more important that IQ, physical health, family income, where you live or social class.

These findings support the view that there is a growing need to ensure emotional well-being in order to maximise people’s life chances. At 10 Consulting, we believe that this applies to adults as well as children: building emotional well-being is a key feature of our positive psychology coaching.

As I was doing some research on the web today I came across a coaching website which had this unusual strapline:

“Step inside your comfort zone  -  there are no prizes for being uncomfortable”.

Hmmmm…..It’s well known in the world of personal development and coaching that if you want to grow and develop, you have to take small steps outside your comfort zone from time to time. By doing this you expand your capabilities and come to the realisation that, yes, actually, you can achieve more than you have done in the past. You need not be bound by your limiting beliefs.

In our coaching we see far greater results from those people who do stretch themselves out of their comfort zones. Coaching gives you the time and space to reflect, to learn, it increases your self-awareness, and gives you the confidence and support to take positive action that you would never have dreamed of doing before.

For a coach to claim that it’s fine to stay where you’re comfortable seems to me to be quite crazy…On the other hand, perhaps I’m just taking it all too seriously…

I caught part of The Choir (BBC2 9pm) on Monday night (11/12/06) – in a nutshell, 160-odd kids from Northolt High School (total roll about 1300) in West London audition to join The Phoenix Choir, to enter an international choral competition, the World Choir Games which will take place in China.

Like many choirs, the girls outnumber the boys; they don’t have enough Tenors and Basses to balance the Altos and the Sopranos so the conductor, Gareth Malone (who usually conducts the London Symphony Orchestra’s Community Choir and Youth Choir), tries to rustle up more interest, but he gets only six new names from asking everyone he sees in the playground.

So he asks the school’s music teacher where he’s likely to find some hidden talent; she is dismissive – according to her it would be highly unlikely to find any , in all the schools 1300 pupils. Richard is disappointed but not a man to be beaten (well, there wouldn’t be a programme if he couldn’t find enough singers…) finally, he ventures with some trepidation into the sixth form common room. He coaxes and cajoles several young men into being auditioned. One or two of these 16-18 year olds are pretty confident about their abilities, but in a self-effacing kind of way; surprisingly, most are pretty modest and lacking in confidence – in fact Gareth comments on how much more arrogant he was at their age.

Thankfully though, the school music teacher is mistaken – it’s obvious from the auditions that there is a whole host of latent talent at Northolt School, talent which is just waiting to be recognized. Let’s hope other teachers don’t write off their pupils quite so quickly.

Having got 39 kids in total, these must be whittled down to 25, and 4 reserves to meet the competition rules. It is heartbreaking to see the disappointment of those kids who don’t get through the second audition; you have to hope that they have a loving parent /family /friend /teacher to help them pick up the pieces afterwards.

Having spent a few months practising after school, one of the first major tests for the newly formed Phoenix choir is to sing in front of a live audience. These kids are absolutely terrified at the prospect, and even more so when they discover that their first live audience is to be the dreaded Year 11s; the fear that this induces is palpable. But, give them credit, they do their warm up and breathing exercises and give one of their best performances of Vivaldi’s Gloria to date. And to give the Year 11s credit too, they soon stop giggling and snickering, they really listen, and give the choir a fantastic round of applause at the end.

What brought a real smile to my face though was the visible increase in the confidence of the kids in the choir when they finish this performance; they seem to have grown a couple of inches in the space of five minutes. They’re relieved it’s over, yes, but they have just done something they never thought they’d be able to do, they pulled it off, survived and feel more confident as a result. So here I think is an important lesson for all of us – in a nutshell if you want to gain confidence, you have to get out of your comfort zone. The results will be well worth it I promise you.

Watch next week’s episode to see how they get on at the World Choir Games.