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Little mouse stories: Little Book of Self-Discipline

Posted on by Senia

Here’s the entire Little Book of Self-Discipline:

Page 1:

Little mouse Jonathan wakes up and wants to play, play, play.
He wants to find his friends, and just play.

Page 2:
He goes to play with his fun mouse friends Sally and Joe and Melanie and Siobhan and Markus. They run around and they chase balls of yarn, and they play hide-and-seek around tree trunks!

Page 3:
Then Sally says, “I’m going home to help my sister do the laundry.”
Joe says, “I’ll be back. I’m going to help my mom make lunch.”
Melanie says, “I promised my brother that I would help him with arithmetic.”
Siobhan says, “I told myself that I would finish twenty more pages of my great book.”
Markus whispers, “Oh, my whiskers, my whiskers! I want to keep them nice and short!”

Page 4:

All of Jonathan’s mouse friends run off to do the things they needed to do. So Jonathan lies on his back and he thinks. Then he gets a little bored. So he walks and he walks and he walks. Then he thinks, “I can go help my sister with the laundry! I can help my mom make lunch! I can learn arithmetic and help my little sister later! I can finish more of the super book I read at night. I can go cut my whiskers!”

Page 5:
Little mouse Jonathan runs home to help his mother, his sister, and to do some things for himself.

Page 6:

In the evening, when little mouse Jonathan goes to bed, he is very very very happy.

Little story book POP-QUIZ: Why is Jonathan mouse content and happy when he goes to bed?

Hint.
Today is Story Tuesday. Enjoy!

Do you LOVE this site?! :)

Posted on by Senia

Here is a new way to show that you LOVE this site! Please do click on it!



THANK YOU! :)

———-
New website Damiga allows you to make a button and put it on your website, in your blog, anywhere – that allows people to express a particular emotion for you! Damiga (meaning: “d’amiga” is “of the friend”) is a really fun site to play with – enjoy it! Damiga!

And please let me know ONCE YOU MAKE YOUR OWN BUTTONS so that I can go and click on them!!!

Thanks!
Senia
seniacom@senia.com

Keywords: positive psychology, coaching, entrepreneurship, button, damiga, new, senia.com, happiness

What are your newest GOOD Constraints?

Posted on by Senia

Hello, welcome to Question Friday!
What are some of your recent, newest GOOD Constraints?

* What are you doing that’s great for yourself?
* Are you keeping to an exercise schedule?
* Are you keeping to a sleep schedule? (The single most important thing to a healthy life, IMHO)
* Have you set a new rule for yourself recently?

Q: What are some of your recent, newest GOOD Constraints?

My answers are in the comments. Look forward to reading yours also!

Technorati keywords: habit, goals, new year’s resolutions, resolutions.

Conscious Decision to Do Something

Posted on by Senia

“[S]atisfaction can arise only by the conscious decision to do something.”
Greogory Berns, Satisfaction

Excerpt from fuller sentence, “While you might find pleasure by happenstance–winning the lottery, possessing the genes for a sunny temperament, or having the luck not to live in poverty–satisfaction can arise only by the conscious decision to do something. And this makes all the difference in the world, because it is only your own actions for which you may take responsibility and credit,” as quoted in this Scientific American article (March 2007).

Furthermore, Gregory Burns says, “satisfaction comes less from the attainment of a goal and more in what you must do to get there.” (From Publishers Review quoted here.)

Gregory Berns’ attitude speaks to me a lot about expertise being trainable and about goals.

Positive Psychology in the news – Feb 28, 2007

Posted on by Senia

Positive Psychology has been in the news recently (full summary here at Positive Psychology News Daily).

  • EU citizens report themselves as 87% happy! From this Reuters news, the Eurobarometer survey asked social questions to nearly 27,000 people in the EU during Nov and Dec 06. While 87% of people on average considered themselves happy, Denmark led with 97% and Bulgaria (which joined the EU in January) was the lowest with 45%.
    FYI, Map of the EU here. FULL RESULTS of the Eurobarometer survey here.

    Conclusion? What’s the point then of happiness research – if it turns out people are pretty happy already? Depends – if you’re happy, do you still want to know how to get happier, more successful, and more productive? Or is generally happy the goal, and no higher? Maslow says self-actualization is one of the main needs of people – always becoming better at who we are. Is he right? I think so.

  • Scientific American writer calls for more historical-based research of happiness. I disagree. I don’t like historical research when your goal is to find out how a person feels or thinks. FYI, historical research consists of looking at old documents, diaries, newspaper clippings to try to evaluate the person’s mindset. A person could be very crotchety on the outside – sayings to friends, even diary – but could be wonderfully content and happy on the inside.

    I believe one of the VERY BEST THINGS ABOUT POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY is that it BELIEVES IN THE PERSON. Positive Psychology believes that a person knows best about himself or herself. There is no “objective measure” of happiness. In fact, the Ed Diener-created SWB (subjective well-being measure) is explicitly a measure of how the person believes he is.

    I do agree with the author that happiness can be time- and context-dependant. But I think the way to make positive psychology and happiness research more universal is not by going backwards, but by going forwards. George Vaillant has made a research life of studying the longitudinal Adult Grant Study. This is a study of people that were generally healthy people at ages 20, and what happens to them over their lives. He studies alcoholism, mature emotional defenses, happiness, success, and all because he had regular interviews and interesting follow-ups with the same people. (For more information, I recommend the immensely interesting read Aging Well.)

    Conclusion? We will get stronger and more interesting conclusions from positive psychology when we study it both in short-term studies and in logitudinal studies.

  • Dissertation of the Year is on Positive Psychology. Very interesting dissertation of the year. Kudos to Virigina Ambler! FULL TEXT of dissertation here, and summary here.

    Conclusions? 1) It’s a very interesting dissertation, and 2) while there so far only one Ph.D. program in Positive Psychology and only one Master’s program, there will likely be more universities offering both Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in the near future since there is an interest in further research in these fields.

Q: What’s your recent self-challenge?

Posted on by Senia

Welcome to Question Friday! We’ve been talking about self-regulation and about streeeetching yourself toward a challenge.

Where are you excitingly pushing yourself? Where are you going to grow? Where are you most alive? Where are you challenging yourself enough to create that “healthy stress” that I love so much – that combination of anticipation and what-if-ness.

Q: What’s your recent intense self-challenge?

I actually think today’s question may be too personal to post an answer as a comment (or you can always post anonymously and just use my email address for the required field – it’s in the upper right under “Email.” If you find it too personal to answer outloud, simply skip the comments section this Friday. Just ponder it for a moment.

Be well, great weekend,
S.

BOOK YOURSELF! The Challenge.

Posted on by Senia

The February 23rd challenge!

I challenge you today to book yourself for an event in the next 30 days (by March 23, 2007) that is just a little more difficult than you are used to. An event where you need to perform just a little more than you are used to!

I challenge you to challenge yourself to play the Book Yourself game with a specific goal and time.

I do my BEST work when I put a goal in front of me – a goal that is just a little higher than I am used to, and then I strrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeetch.

Streeeeeeeeeeeeeetch A woman named Laurie that I know is an amazing volleyball player. She played competitively in college, and I played with her several times in grad school. When she played with us, she was many leagues better than our grad school intramural team, BUT…. but she played as if her life depended on it. She played as if every block, every serve, every hit was the one. Was the one that would make us win. Was the one that would count.

And the single best thing that she did when she played with us was that she would shout out just in time “streeeeeeeeetch” to the person at the net going for a spike. It didn’t matter that more than half of us didn’t jump up when we spiked – we spiked from the ground. It didn’t matter if it was the best player on the team or any player. Laurie yelled “streeeeeeeeetch,” and each of us stretched!

That’s what I’m talking about. Streeeeeeeeeetch yourself. Do that one thing that seems just a little bit above where you are! Streeeeeeeetch and GROW!

Some examples:

  • Exercising a certain number of times a day (that’s self-regulation), and doing a workout that’s just a little harder than is comfortable (that’s streeeeeeeeetching).
  • Booking yourself as a speaker at a conference before you have the full outline prepared (that’s streeeeeeetching). Then working regularly, repeatedly, deliberately on creating a superb presentation for that day (that’s self-regulation).
  • Expanded your business in a direction you’ve never tried before (streeeeeeeeetching), and preparing for each new milestone in the new direction by creating a process (self-regulation) that you can rely on in the future.

So, for the next 30 days, what can you book yourself to do that will challenge you?

(BTW, in case it EVER seems like I have all the answers, please don’t think that could be true. I have a whole bunch of fun questions. I’m changing things about my life and work while I’m writing this website. My answers in the comments. If I suggest something on this site, it’s because I’m thinking about it myself. Streeeeeeeeeeeeeeetch!) :)

Sometimes you need a challenge in order to move yourself into action.
What’s your challenge? :)

CONGRATS for doing this for yourself – for playing this Book Yourself game.

Passion. Authority. Continuity.

Posted on by Senia

Hugh McLeod at gapingvoid has a post on using blogs to boost the bottom line, from a speech he is giving today. I especially liked the section where Hugh describes EnglishCut, a blog by a London Saville Row tailor that from inception has been all about the suits.
Hugh says in his recommendations:

Passion. Authority. Continuity. Without those three, you have nothing.

I ditto that. Fred at AVC first showed me the importance of continuity with this post.

Here is Joel on Software talking about showing Passion. Authority. Continuity. to your customers: Seven Steps to Remarkable Customer Service.

Lesson and Take-Away: All three. Passion-Authority-Continuity. All the time.

————————–
Here’s a little goofiness on being too passionate about email:
“[Recommendation #]10. Reduce the amount of e-mail you receive.
OK, I’ll try. … Would everybody please send me less e-mail? … (Now I have to go see if that worked.)”
Made me laugh out loud!