Everywhere I look it seems people are turning away from their 9-5 desk jobs in favor of making real positive impacts in this world. There is a growing number of happiness apps, workplace well-being programs, and books on how to live a better life. But are these efforts really enough to decrease the amount of loneliness, burnout and depression?
I’m not so sure.
If we really want to stop these things, we need to change the culture, because right now, American culture breeds loneliness, burnout, and depression. Here are 3 possible steps we could take.
1. Change social norms
Changing culture requires changing socio-cultural norms. For example, if I work at a company where everyone works 80 hour weeks, I quickly learn that I should work an 80 hour week. If I go to a grocery store where everyone pushes people in the aisles to get by, I learn that I should push people in the aisles to get by. And if I spend time with friends who are always telling me how stressed they are, I will start to act in ways that make me more stressed just so that I feel like I fit in.
It is our nature to conform to group behaviors, even if we know those behaviors are bad for us.
To change the social norms, we all have to intentionally start living in ways that promote happiness. For example, I could smile at people I pass in the grocery store. Or I could tell people that I’m not stressed, that I only work part time, and I’m happy about it (by the way, I only work part-time and I’m happy about it).
2. Rewrite internal scripts
Another thing that contributes to our not-so-happy culture is our internal scripts about how to behave, think, and feel. For example, scripts like, “the American dream”, “Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps”, and “If you work hard, you can achieve anything”, have driven us to aim for power, prestige, and profit – goals that have hurt our happiness as individuals and as a nation.
It’s time we created new powerful messages – messages that redefine success as living authentically, purposefully, and healthfully.
3. Teach others the new social norms
We’ll need to be deliberate about teaching new social norms. For example, let’s say Billy and Joe both went to the same elementary school but now they are assigned to different middle schools. On Billy’s first day of school, he is given a locker and schedule. He is told he must figure out the rest on his own. This school may not have deliberately been trying to teach Billy about the school culture, it just happened. Billy is being taught to operate independently at his new school.
On Joe’s first day of school, he is assigned a “first-day” buddy to help him learn the culture. The buddy introduces Joe to people and teaches Joe about lunchtime activity groups. Every single person Joe meets introduces themselves and asks him about himself. At the end of the first day, the school organizes a big gathering for all the new students. This school is deliberate about teaching their students that the school expects students to be supportive, kind, and collaborative.
The point is that if we aren’t deliberate about creating the culture that we want, some other culture will emerge on its own. And given the mess that we are in now, we know that something needs to change.
—
Previously published on psychologytoday
*******************************
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want to join our calls on a regular basis, please join us as a Premium Member, today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
Talk to you soon.
*************************
Photo credit: istockphoto