Author: Senia

Not-Perfect

Posted on by Senia

Not-perfect is real.

Imagine two stories:
STORY 1: A girl lives on a farm with her Aunt Em and her Uncle. Everything is pretty outside. She goes to sleep. She wakes up. Her dog jumps into her arms. Everything is fine. Oh, yes, a little boring maybe.
STORY 2: A girl lives on a farm with her Aunt Em and her Uncle. Everything is pretty outside. There is a tornado. She finds herself in another world and her house has killed the wicked witch of the west. She needs to get away, and there are bad guys, and crazy monkeys, and three adventurers who come with her. The man who is supposed to get them out of there is frightening. Everything seems lost, and then she finds the wizard of Oz, clicks her heels and comes home and wakes up.

A little more drama in story 2, eh? I want to make sure I keep drama in my blog posts. I want to make sure I show you in writing what I think the cool parts are and what the issues are. I don’t want to be too didactic. I don’t want to be too simple and obvious. I want to write a mystery, like Haidt in most chapters of The Happiness Hypothesis. I want to write a love story, like The Dot and the Line, and I want to write what’s fun!

But sometimes, I want to write and write and write and do more and more research before presenting it. This is the leftovers of junior high school perfectionism. Actually, everyone who knows me would say that I am not a perfectionist. I’m not. But in some things, I have the leanings of one.

And there are other bloggers out there who say similar things! That’s why I’m writing this down and why I made the repeated goal of writing daily! It’s about a hint of an idea. It’s not about a thesis! (…um, that’s an exclamation sign to me, not to you).

I have such a mini-struggle with blogs sometimes. There are so many fascinating ideas in the positive psychology literature, and I’d like you to see them all! Or, well, the really interesting ones anyway.

Here’s what Charlene Li of Forrester says about losing – and finding – one’s voice:

So I’ve vowed to follow Nike’s mantra and “just do it”, or in this case, to “just blog it”. Damn the idea of quality and depth of analysis — I’m better off getting something out there and getting your reactions to it. So here I am, writing a stream of consciousness and finding my voice again. … So hang on, I’ve got a lot of pent up ideas that I want to explore. I don’t promise well-formed ideas or deep insights in every post, but it’s the best that I’ll be able to do.

Christine Lane writes about the 17 things she knows about creativity. I like number 11 and 17:

  • 11 – Blogging is creative. I think blogs have become so popular because bloggers get to just write. They get to see the big deal of not making it such a big deal. …
  • 17 – Creativity is about showing up, not perfection. If you want to be more creative in your life, if you crave a more artful life, start small. Make cards for people. Make ugly cards. Call them “Ugly Cards, Inc.” Write bad poems. Call them “Bad Poems, Inc.” I bought a thank you gift for a friend of mine recently. And it sat on my desk for weeks because I was waiting to find “the perfect card.” Knowing what I know about Energy Drains and Creativity, I finally got so frustrated with myself and my perfectionist that I just ripped a piece of paper off a Kinko’s notepad. I folded it. On the front of the “card,” I wrote: “Beautifully crafted card with the perfect sentiment expressing exactly how grateful I am for your presence in my life.” And I opened the “card,” and on the inside I wrote: “…with the perfect little punch-line inside to make you laugh and feel good about yourself.” And I sent the card and package. And it brought my friend great joy. She loved the card.

And, of course, I am a fan of the dailyness of Fred at AVC, whom I first read about on Evelyn’s blog.

Cool, see you soon.

Posted on 12-15-06 for Mon, 12-11-06.

Q: Which is your seesaw balance?

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One should see the world, and see himself as a scale with an equal balance of good and evil. When he does one good deed the scale is tipped to the good – he and the world is saved. When he does one evil deed the scale is tipped to the bad – he and the world is destroyed.
~ Maimonides

People have different axes along which they find balance. Most people feel when they are in balance about many axes in their lives. The above quote is about feeling the moral balance, and leaning in the good direction. People can also feel balance, for example, in these parts of their lives:

  • Physical
  • Mental
  • Emotional
  • Adventure
  • Alone-time
  • Fun vs. Work

And in each case, people can lean towards the good direction of balance. For example, if you wanted to feel YOUR OWN VERSION OF BALANCE (and I think balance is very personal) in “Fun vs. Work,” then you might resonate well with these words:

Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
~ Robert Fulghum

If you wanted to keep your balance in the physical part of you, you might aim to get to the gym more, to eat more healthy foods. Different people have different needs for balance.

Today’s Question:
In which part of your life do you feel it is most important for you to have balance – and then after that, other things fall into place?

Specifically, your answer might be “stress balance” – when you have enough stress to keep you challenges but not too much so that you go nuts, that may be the optimal stress balance. It might be “alone-time balance,” a good balance between doing things on your won and with friends. Your answer might be “mental balance,” a good balance of being challenged mentally and being calm mentally. It might be “moral balance,” a good balance of making the correct and right decisions in your life.

For me, as long as I do good things physically, and as Maimonides said, “with the scale tipped to the good,” then the other parts of my life fall in line. Which balance is most important for you?!

And let’s end with some very important thoughts on balance! Especially as the temperature is going to be in the 30’s in the Northeast, in the U.S..

The balance of nature is reached when heating the house costs as much as going south for the winter.
~ James H. McGavran

When 95% of Your Brain Says Yes

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When everything else says, go, doubt says, stop.

A friend of mine has a big belief that people don’t do those things that they fear. He thinks fear is the most dangerous of all the beasts. Like an addiction, fear moves slowly, taking over a little bit, then a little more. When you are 95% sure, then the remaining 5% is doubt. Doubt is ok. Doubt and weighing options is why we can advance. Doubt, worry, caution – they all have a role in life.

And then at some point, you just have to let all of them go.
Just let the other 5% go.
Just let it go, man.

The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision.
~ Maimonides

Just decide. When you are 95% sure of your decision, then let me tell you something, you are sure of your decision. It’s better to make the hop. It’s better to act than to spend the day, the hour, the minute CONCERNED about not deciding. Concerned?! Who wants to spend his life concerned?

“What did you do in your life?”
“Well, I spent a lot of time beign concerned… and, um, I spent a lot of time worrying too. Some good worrying time. And then I accomplished this, this, and this.”

Who wants to spend time being concerned? Yes, yes, yes, YES! There are things that take a long time to figure out, but then once you’ve figured them out…
JUMP.

Do. Act. Live.
That’s all I mean. Don’t spend a significant part of your brainspace worrying about the 5% outlier effect. Act. Live.

Making a decision was the most important thing that my favorite professor in business school always told us as students to do, “Make a decision. The CEO needs to make firm decisions fast.”

And the most important thing after you are at the 95% sure threshold, and you are about to jump… don’t look back. Don’t WASTE your life in saying, “Well, I did have that 5% that I wasn’t certain about, so maybe that’s why this entire project went wrong.” No, that’s not why.

Once you make the decision to go, then just go. It’s as if you mentally rip away from all the disputing quotes in your head that are holding you tied to the mental torture cahmber of doubt and concern. Just go. And make an active decision that if you look back on this decision, it’s something you wanted to go into. It’s a path you want to take. Don’t sabotage your success by turning back, and looking over your shoulder. You will turn into salt if you’re looking back and not forward. Even the peacock faces forward these days. :)

Will Smith on Aristotle

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Will Smith is starring in “The Pursuit of Happyness,” and in this article, he says that he read a lot about happiness in preparing for the movie. Will Smith says he liked best what Aristotle said about happiness:

“I’ve been reading a lot about what is happiness, and I feel Aristotle had the best idea,” the 38-year-old actor said while seated in the stately wood-paneled McCormick Room atop Tribune Tower. “He broke it down in the Nicomachean Ethics. Like for me it feels directly and inexorably connected to self-esteem.

“So I always explain it as: Think of yourself as two people, and one of them is inside of you, and he’s a scorekeeper. And he keeps score of your idea of the world. … And when you have a conflict with your scorekeeper, that’s unhappiness. Happiness is being completely in sync” — he slapped his palms together — “with your own perception of goodness.”

Agreed.

What’s your motto?

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Here are some great mottos from Motto Magazine’s “What’s your motto?” contest:

Pam
“We don’t attract what we want, we attract what we are.” – Anonymous

Peter Gouveia
My motto: “Live your life with passion so your epitaph will read ‘No Regrets.'”

elizabeth
Life is not greener on the other side.
“life is greenest where you water it most”

Stacie
There is no good or bad, just done and not done.
This is to motivate me to get started when I’m frozen with the fear whatever I do won’t be good enough. If I do it, it can’t be bad.

Skip Reardon
1. Actions speak louder than words.
2. We are what we repeatedly do.
3. Attitude is everything.

Ming Wong
I have two mottoes actually,one of which is attributed to Confucius: Find work which you enjoy, then you wouldn’t have to work a day in your life!
The other one: Everything’s relative. Truly.

And I’ll end today’s quotes with this delightful one that made me smile just to read it!

David R.
Allow room for good things to run wild.

The Three Sentences of A.P.E.

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Now that we know how to get out of a bad mood, here is the shortcut below.
Bad moods most often start in the head. With a thought. About something bad. A person can decide to either allow that thought to grow or to nip it in the bud. Here is what nipping a bad-mood-creating thought in the bud looks like:

This is something a friend of mine asked me about recently. Suppose the thought is “she hates me” about a person that you know who may be acting less friendly towards you recently. This is what might be running through your head at the time:
“Why is she acting less friendly? What did I do? Why doesn’t she like me? I haven’t changed. But maybe something I said offended her. Maybe she thinks I’m rude. Or mean. What did I do?”

Using the A.P.E. method, here are the three phrases that will be he most effective to quickly nip the bad mood in the bud. First of all, address the Alternatives:

Alternatives: “A more accurate way of seeing this is…”

“A more accurate way of seeing this is … that maybe she is having some personal issues and is more tense, and maybe that’s coming across as not friendly.”

Then the Perspective:

Perspective: “The most likely thing to happen is … and I can …”

“The most likely thing to happen is … that she won’t talk to me for a few days and then her mood will blow over and she’ll be friendly-friendly like before, and I can … just give her space in the meantime and wait for her to get there.”

And finally, Evidence:

Evidence: “That’s not true because …”

“That’s not true that she hates me because … she passes me an extra pen today during class, and she held the door for me after class, and she didn’t NOT speak to me – she was just curt in her words.”

So, there you have it – the three A.P.E. sentences to turn to when in a bad mood … or when a bad run-on, negative dialogue gets stuck in your head like an Alvin-and-the-Chipmunks tune.

ENJOY trying these sentences out!

How to Get Out of a Bad Mood – the A.P.E. Method!

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Our first question was, should you get out of a bad mood? Suppose that our answer is already, YES. Now, what do we do? (Update: After you read this, you may want to keep handy the three sentences for the A.P.E. Method.)

Karen Reivich, co-author of The Resilience Factor, suggests some concrete steps. In a talk she gave at our Positive Psychology classes, Karen gave the best three suggestions I’ve heard for getting out of a bad mood. These are practical and immediately usable.

The problem with bad moods is that they stop you in your tracks, they hinder you from doing other things that can lead to continued small successes and that can move you forward in life. Additionally, as Dave Seah points out, you can’t always be waiting for the muse. Most often in life, you need to do things whether you’re in a bad mood or a good mood. For example, compare a person who takes actions to move his life forward only when he’s in a good mood (or when the muse strikes him) to a person who takes actions to move his life forward no matter what mood may have set on him temporarily. Who will likely be more productive?

Here are the three principles Karen Reivich teaches to get out of a bad mood. I remember these as A.P.E.

A – Alternatives
P – Perspective
E – Evidence

Karen Reivich suggests that these are best used “When you need to disarm negative thoughts so that you can stay focused on the task at hand.” At the same time, these are not necessarily the best techniques to use “When you need a thorough, thoughtful and comprehensive understanding of a problem.”

So you want to stay focused on the task at hand, on moving your life forward. What do you do?

A – Alternatives
You can generate alternative beliefs. For example, if the bad mood started with thinking, “I haven’t done anything productive at work in the past year. I haven’t contributed anything. I’ll never contribute anything. And not only do I stink at work recently, but everything else is going down the drain too.”… then what are some alternative beliefs that you could seek?

Karen Reivich characterizes the possible alternative beliefs into three categories (that are introduced with great thoroughness by Marty Seligman here):
Me / Always / Everything.

If your beliefs tend to focus on “me” – “I did this, I got myself into a decade worth of trouble,” then try to look outwards a little bit … not too much – do not rationalize away your own potential contribution to the situation. But do look outward if you tend to blame yourself. Do look at the environment, the surroundings, and provide other possible explanations. (Create an alternative).

If your beliefs tend to focus on “always” – “I’m never good at my work, I always mess up at the office, this never goes right for me,” then train your brain to find the one thing that you consistently excel at during work. Feel that pride – no matter how small – in that one thing that you own, that is yours, and that you can reliably think about to know that you are good at that part of work. (The point is to create one alternative, so it is not always).

If your beliefs tend to focus on “everything” – “And not only am I not good at my work, I can’t meet a great girl/guy, I’m terrible at keeping in touch with friends,” then train your brain to find the one part of life in which you have control. Feel that control in that part of your life – no matter how small that part may be – maybe brushing your teeth, maybe emailing a certain friend regularly. (Create an alternative thought-pattern: not everything.)

P – Perspective
A friend of mine Emma who is also a practitioner of Positive Psychology says that she once heard something say something so visual that she will not forget it.

“Imagine the biggest issue you have – the biggest, most terrible problem or set of problems that you can come up with. Now blow them up – imagine them even bigger and more terrible. Imagine close to the worse that can happen. Imagine all those problems spinning around like the tornado in Dorothy’s Kansas at the beginning of the movie. …

Now take that entire storm and all those issues and shrink it down and put the entire storm into a teacup.”

And that’s exactly how I see it – a white porcelain tea cup on a white porcelain delicate plate, and a small steam above the teacup where the remains of the storm can be seen. It is the super-literal description of the phrase “storm in a teacup,” and talk about perspective!

Do that – put some perspective on the issues. What are the probabilities that everything will go wrong? Usually not 100%. Put the perspective of time on it (probably not as intense if you were to look back on this from 50 years in the future). Put the perspective of seriousness on it (these are bad moods, but nobody should be dying from this). Put the perspective of “me” on this (how impenetrable does my problem look compared to starving children). The perspective of comparison is called downward social comparison… but in psychological studies it has proven to be effective in precluding depression.

The goal in finding perspective is to create flexibility in thinking. It is not to create an excuse for things that may actually have gone wrong, but it is to minimize the impact on your life of certain thoughts.

E – Evidence
Find concrete evidence to the contrary. If you are in a bad mood because you are berating yourself, then create evidence to the contrary. If the argument is that you’ve never done anything good in your work for the past decade, get a piece of paper and list two things that you have done well. That’s it – two things. Two concrete examples.

Lesson & Take-Away: If you’re in a bad mood, and want to switch to being productive and focused, use these three techniques to get out of your bad mood:

  • A – Create Alternatives for why something may be happening to dispute negative, bad mood thoughts,
  • P – Put the issue in Perspective to get out of a bad mood, and
  • E – Use concrete Evidence to discount the bad-mood self-talk in your head.