Category: BEST POSITIVE PSYCH

Best ideas of positive psychology: happiness, intuition, optimism, health, flow, decision-making, mind and body, goals, habits, great living!

More on Steady

Posted on by Senia

Like Judi says here:

“Some people think planning and flexibility are two sides of a coin. I disagree. I think in many respects planning can enhance our flexibility. I’ve always experienced this in Software Development. …

I recently experienced it in my personal life. We go to the Indy 500 every year with a large group of friends. We have been doing this for 14 years, so we have the routine down. This year we had quite a few curve balls thrown at us, and because we had done this so many times before, and planned well, there were no issues. … Because we had a plan to start with, it was easy to adjust.”

Judi also wrote in another post that she had a 3-step daily method for blog writing at one point this summer:

  1. Spend 10 minutes writing a new post, and leaving it in your “Drafts”
  2. Spend 10 minutes editing yesterday’s post
  3. Spend 5 minutes commenting on someone else’s blog

What I like most about that is there is progress on every level. #1 – Progress in starting something. #2 – Progress in finishing something. #3 – Progress in connecting with bloggers.

It’s a routine, and it’s a routine that moves things forward.

When I coach people, I nearly always make sure to have all the stages of this process: we start with some physical warm-up, then decide on an agenda for the call, then touch on general and specific topics, and we end with actionable steps for the week. It’s a routine. It’s a ritual. It holds a lot of pieces in it. We’re always working on physical and work-focused goals. And we’re always consciously or unconsciously measuring those goals. We always have actionable steps. Nearly always have some mind exercise and some body exercise.

Small steps, Ellie, small steps.

Prize goes to the first person to guess where that quote is from without searching for it online!

Life is about the Slow and Steady. Really.

Posted on by Senia

I routinely think:

  • What is the next big win?!?!
  • Where can we do new, interesting things?!?!

I think about this for my career coaching clients – “Where can they have the most impact? Where can they move to what they most want?”

I think about this for myself – “What’s the most effective thing for me to do this week to move forward for next week? What can I do tonight that’ll make me better during the hoops game? What can I do to make the most exciting experience ever for this community I’m working with?”

Margaret Greenberg showed me some interesting keys to progress recently. You may remember Margaret from her Margaretisms. You may also have seen her journalistically-marvelous article on Toyota’s positive business practices in today’s Positive Psychology News Daily.

Margaret and I and two colleagues did a radio program together a few weeks back. I had sent out the questions for us to answer as a group. One afternoon, Margaret had a little extra time, and she replied to each question in detail, and sent them back to me. “So what?” you might be saying. “Big deal? She prepared for the program.” Yes – a month in advance!

So what happens in your brain when you complete a step of a project?!

Well, ACTUALLY, that was the subject of my Masters thesis at UPenn in ’06. What happens once you get some movement towards a goal is that the goal moves to your subconscious thought. And then, it actually PROGRESSES within your subconscious thought – as long as you have helped it out and put it there with enough ammunition – with enough detail and information for your brain to be able to mull over that thought. Some of that thinking continues to go on under your conscious level.

A lot of that thinking is called Level D thinking, and often when your consciousness meets some of those thoughts that have culled from the subconscious progress of the thought – often, then you have an intuition about the problem at hand.

So, one of the things that Margaret is doing by allowing herself to prepare for something early is that she sets her subconscious brain to help her think about those thoughts. She also REMOVES STRESS at the last minute. Finally, she allows herself to do projects that are very good, and thus actually get them done rather than seeking perfection. Have you heard the phrase, “The great is the enemy of the very good”?

I was once riding on an Amtrak train a decade ago, and came across an article that was titled or subtitled, “Discipline Gets You Freedom.” And I thought about it then, and still believe it now. It’s what gets me to the finish line – the discipline, the slow and steady.

And to me, that means something very practical:
* Doing something for 15 minutes to two hours each day.

That’s it. You may remember it from these posts on how to accomplish anything and on expertise being trainable. Literally, that is the slow and steady. Doing it each day.

So here I am again. :)
Hi.

Happiness Is …

Posted on by Senia

There’s a group I used to visit a lot that’s stopped having discussions recently (the Happiness Group), and in that group, there were a lot of discussions of what Happiness is. FYI, here’s an overview of the group’s best hits (Favorite Posts 1 and Favorite Posts 2)

I know there’s a lot here – choose one or two to check out. I just wanted to get the phrases and the links out for reference and because they’re about a time and a place.

Here are some oldies but goodies about what people said:
Happiness Is … PLAY!
Happiness Is … Flow
Happiness Is … Learning from Adversity
Happiness Is … Endorphins
Happiness Is … Knowing It’ll Work out in the End – fun little one!

Happiness Is … Doing New Things – see articles by me, Kathryn Britton, and Sherri Fisher
Happiness Is .. Exploring Every Axis (i.e., Expectations Management)
Happiness Is … Having a Tail

Happiness Is… Putting Things In Motion
Happiness is Memorable

Happiness Is… Knowing YOUR Boundaries

Happiness Is.. No Drama
Happiness Is… Listening to Your Body

Happiness Is … A Study
Happiness Is … Your Own Darn Behaviors
Happiness Is… Being Curious

Tomorrow (Th 10-25-07) on Sirius 114 (8-9am EST)

Posted on by Senia

Hi! Tomorrow, I’m producing a one-hour show segment for Karen Salmansohn‘s show “Be Happy, Dammit.” Karen Salmansohn is a great NYer and author of over 25 books. She asked me months ago to produce a segment of her show during which a panel talks about the research findings of “HAPPINESS AT WORK.” I invited a few classmates onto the program. Would love it if you can listen in, and she takes callers too!

On the air: Karen, me, Margaret Greenberg, David Pollay, Doug Turner
CALL-IN NUMBER: 1-866-LIME-114 (She often takes call-ins)

SPECIFICS:

* If you have SIRIUS RADIO, it’s
ch. 114 Thursday (10-25-07) 8-9am live

* If you want to listen ONLINE on Th morning 8-9am,
1) Go here http://www.sirius.com/listenonline
and click “FREE 3-DAY TRIAL.”
2) Then follow the directions in your email to logon and look in
FAMILY & KIDS >>> LIME >>> LIME 114

Look forward to having a fun chat with this great panel!

S.

DETAILS:
PANEL:
Margaret Greenberg, President of the Greenberg Group – an organizational effectiveness consulting and coaching practice.
David J. Pollay, Syndicated columnist with the North Star Writers Group, and president of TheMomentumProject.com, an international training and consulting organization.
Doug Turner, Vice President of HR for the Washington, DC division of Balfour Beatty Construction company.

PRODUCED BY:
Senia Maymin, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of PositivePsychologyNews.com, and Instructor at the University of Pennsylvania in positive psychology.

Positive Psychology Reading List

Posted on by Senia

I gave an intro course on Positive Psychology a few days ago, and folks asked me for recommended Positive Psychology books. Here are my TOP TEN recs.

Recommendations for Books on Positive Psychology?

Number 1 – This is the definitive MUST READ:
Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman

Number 2 – This is where a lot of the original research came from:
Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman

Number 3 – This is like the non-textbook textbook on the field.
A Primer in Positive Psychology by Chris Peterson

Number 4 –
Flow by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi

Number 5 –
The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt

Number 6 –
Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar

Number 7 –
The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz

Highly recommended:

* What You Can Change and What You Can’t by Martin Seligman

* The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky

* Stumbling on Happiness by Dan Gilbert

* Mindset by Carol Dweck

* Positive Psychology Coaching by Robert Biswas-Diener and Ben Dean

* Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain by Sharon Begley

* The Resilience Factor by Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatte

* Aging Well by George Vaillant

* Handbook of Positive Psychology edited by C.R. Snyder and Shane J. Lopez

* The Appreciative Inquiry Summit by James Ludema et al.

Business Game #006: The Miracle Question

Posted on by Senia

What if tonight while you were sleeping, a miracle occurred? And that which appeared to be a problem went away.

How would you know in the morning that the miracle had occurred? What would now be different?

Try this with a friend. Each of you tell each other what problem you’d been having. Then ask each other, “What if a miracle occurred, and overnight it went away? What would be the immediate signs the next morning that it had gone away? What would the world be like? What would you feel like?”

Try it. This one works best when I don’t explain it but you just give it a shot.

Also try it here in the comments – what would the world feel like today if something wild had occurred during the night and your problem suddenly went away?

Wonderful Friday to you!
Senia

—–
I first heard this question in the context of appreciative inquiry at a conference a couple of weeks back.

skillfully combining the simplicities

Posted on by Senia

“What is a Teacher? A Teacher is the special person who has the responsibility to provide the “Eyes” for a student, and helps the student to “See”. A good Teacher directs the student’s eyes to the simple parts first, and slowly, bit by bit, gently guides the seeking hands along a proven path. He carefully points out the next bits of knowledge, skillfully combining the simplicities, until the top of the mountain unfolds, not as a “complexity of facts”, but as a workable system, perfectly understood and usable by the student.”

~ Violin method book by Eden Vaning-Rosen

One of my favorite people in the world emailed me this today. I absolutely love it. So often, I say, “life is easy. it really is. I can choose the easy way to do something or the hard way. what if it were easy?” And the easy way needs to also be the right way.

I love too that this is in a violin book:
* Directs the student’s eyes to the simple parts first
* Points out the next bits of knowledge
until …
* a workable system
* the top of the mountain

I also like that the end result is not a “complexity of facts.” By the time you get there, you’re not memorizing facts; you’re using parts you understand. This is how I want to be as a teacher.

I Care vs. I Don’t Care

Posted on by Senia

I’ve been giving some thought to why I think self-regulation is so important, and it comes down to one simple thing:

What are you telling your body? “I care” vs. “I don’t care?”

When I …

  • Haven’t sorted my laundry
  • Haven’t done the dishes
  • Haven’t exercised
  • Haven’t had fresh vegetables
  • Haven’t had enough water and feel dehydrated
  • Haven’t accomplished my goals

… then I feel pretty terrible.

And why is that? Why do I feel terrible when I’m not doing small simple things? Because those little things are signs. Those little things are signs just like Bandura’s mastery steps are signs… if you want to become an expert at something, practice, practice, practice. Each time I have a clean kitchen and watered plants and have done exercise that day, I FEEL GREAT THAT DAY.

They are all little markers in my progress. All these little accomplishments are reminders of my self-valuable habits. They’re reminders of which habits are useful to me.

It’s like me speaking to myself and saying, “Body! I’m the boss here.”

“Who, you, up there? Nah, I got you beat. I just throw a few TV shows and heavy food at you, and you’ll dose off.”

“Yes, you used to, you did, but now I’m in charge, cleaning things up, exercising, keeping things orderly and on time. Sorry, body, you better shape up.”

“I thought you didn’t really care.”

“News for you: I care.”

5 specific techniques from Positive Psychology – more productive, more successful, happier

Posted on by Senia

Here are five specific techniques from Positive Psychology that you can do regularly (I brought these up in today’s call):

Positive Thinking: Read the APE Method to get yourself out of a bad mood.

Positive Emotions: Do the “Three Great Things” exercise.

Positive Authenticity and Strengths: Go online to www.authentichappiness.com and take the Signature Strengths Questionnaire. It’s one of the best exercises I do with my clients. Then choose one strength and use it more this week. Doing this for one week has been shown to increase happiness six months in the future.

Positive Choices: Check out this article and consider limiting yourself reasonably, creating some GOOD constraints.

Positive Habits: Decide to make a great habit this week. For example: exercise a certain number of times this week. Tidy up one of the rooms in your home.

I’ll be on a FREE call tonight – please join us! – talking about Positive Psychology

Posted on by Senia

Senia Maymin, MAPP, MBA, is the Editor of Positive Psychology News Daily, and an assistant instructor to Martin Seligman for the master’s positive psychology course at UPenn. Senia is also an executive coach and presents workshops on productivity and engagement at work. Senia Maymin will be interviewed by Dr. Cynthia Barnett.

LINKS: Senia’s coaching website, Senia’s workshops website, Senia’s bio.

DETAILS:
Date: Monday, September 24, 2007

Time: 7:00 – 8:00 PM, EST in the USA.
Phone number: (712) 775-7000
Your Access Code is: 122856#.

This call is presented by the Virtual Happiness Club, and is free while normal long distance charges apply. Everybody is welcome to participate. The first 90 callers may participate. The Virtual Happiness Club meets one night each month from 7:00 – 8:00. PM, EST in the USA.

Past Virtual Happiness Club interviews include Tal Ben-Shahar, Chris Peterson, and Rabbi Zelig Pliskin. To listen to past interviews, click here. Here are past announcements on PPND for the Peterson and the Ben-Shahar calls.