Try the QOL - X Recipe for Expat Happiness

What is your personal recipe for happiness as an expat?

Would you describe it as a salad, full of fresh crunchy greens, juicy tomatoes, and splash of vinaigrette? Or are you creating an exotic stew, simmering with earthy spices. In the kitchen of our lives, we each get to choose from life’s basic ingredients the ones we want to emphasize in order to realize our needs, wishes, and goals.

How satisfied are you now with your expat “dish”? Would you give it five stars? Four? Fewer?

If your expat recipe rates fewer than four stars, first, I sympathize with the frustration you are probably already feeling and would like to offer some solutions. I also know that most expats don’t want cookie-cutter solutions that don’t honor their freedom and particular circumstances.

So please allow me to recommend a very special “cookbook,” an evidence-based perspective that does honor your individuality that will open up an entire pantry of applied positive psychology “spices” to enrich your life wherever it takes you.  It is a powerful, proven, comprehensive approach that works where simplistic "get happy" admonitions do not.

The Real Secret to Expat Success

 As my seventh year in Argentina comes to a close, I am receiving more frequently letters from other expats who are having a hard time getting settled and feeling at home.

They wonder how I have managed it myself, given the tremendous challenges of having left family, friends, career, church, language, and culture.

Of course I could say it is a SECRET, and if they want the answer, they could buy my book or coaching services. But it really isn't a secret. Creating a good life requires the same ingredients as creating a good life anywhere:

Expats are More Creative!

Living abroad increases your creativity.
Fast Company writer Cliff Kuang suggests a simple question for employers who want to hire the most creative employees: "Have you lived abroad?"
We’ve always suspected it, and now the results are coming in. Even if you are not looking for a job, you've got one more reason to justify or love moving or living abroad. Here’s the story:

Research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology by William W. Maddux and Adam Galinsky, found that subjects who had lived abroad did better on various traditional laboratory tests of creativity.  Why might this be?

You Are What You Feel

“We are what we eat. . . and we are what we feel. Our futures can depend on our emotions.” ~ Dr. Barbara Fredrickson

Are you serious about flourishing abroad? Then you need to keep your “positivity ratio” at 3:1 or better, says the research. In other words, for every negative experience you have, you need three positive ones to counterbalance them in order to thrive.

Changing emotional habits can be like changing the course of a river, says positive psychologist Barbara Fredrickson. In a recent live interview, Ben Dean, President of MentorCoach, asked her what would be her single best recommendation to achieve that ratio.  What did "the genius of positive psychology" answer?

How To Prevail in a Chaotic World

“How can we keep a positive outlook at a time like this?” many are wondering. Every day just brings bad news and more uncertainty.

Everywhere I hear folks despairing the very real the mushrooming global economic crisis, and expats are certainly not immune.

Even those who have found a haven abroad, far from failing US banks and plummeting stocks and house prices, are affected.

Many of us non-First World expats have been nervously watching the value drop of our investments, often relied on for daily expenses or mortgage payments. The credit crunch is going to affect those who hoped to invest in a home or business abroad as well as those looking for work or used to the little luxuries of living abroad. Our countries of residence are beginning to feel the shock, and as investment drops, joblessness will rise, leading to more poverty, hunger, and crime. Even those expats who choose to go home will find fewer job opportunties.

In such chaos, it becomes even more critical to maintain our balance. How can we use Positive Psychology techniques to energize us and give us hope?

Terms of Endearment: Mi Amor, Mi Vida...

As an expat, learning a new language can be a major challenge--and at the same time can be revealing, fun, and even moving. I've been mastering "castellano," which is what Argentinians call their Spanish.

One thing I really love is the way folks here call each other the most endearing names regularly, in ordinary conversation, between intimates, between friends, from adults to children or younger adults, and other combinations:

Mi querido/querida: My dear/my darling

Mi amor: My love

Mi corazon: My heart

Mi vida: My life

My dear, my love, my heart, my LIFE! Wow!

Adding those few words seems to make what follows gentler, kinder, be it a hello, a request, an affirmation. The very words are an affirmation of affection and are pronounced with a smile (and often a tender gaze).

Seeing Home with New Eyes

One of the best things about being an expat is the chance to return to one's native country and see it in a new way.

Given the way things work (or don't work) here, I have learned to relax when schedules get changed, and in general go with the flow more. (My son has congratulated me on this, by the way.) I've also gotten used to warm, social interactions while shopping here in this small city, where I see the same shopkeepers and cashiers, restaurant owners and waiters, day after day, week after week. This relaxed, hospitable atmosphere is something that I really enjoy about living here.

So it was really a pleasant surprise in my April trip to the US East and West Coasts to experience episodes of generosity and hospitality that were "Argentine" in its warmth and delight. Not surprisingly, food was often involved!

So here is a sampling of how going with the flow while visiting "home" led me to some very pleasant and memorable experiences, ones that I could have easily missed by sticking to my "To Do" list and scheduled stops:

While trying to find an AT&T cell phone shop before our Bethesda conference began, my friend Cat and I chanced to stop at the Heineman/Myers Contemporary Art Gallery. A a cheery comment to its owner, Zoe, about the cake sculptures (see photo above)