Positive Psychology
The squeaky wheel gets the oil – why
does bad triumphs over good most times?
Our brain gravitates to looking at glass half empty, it
helped us cope, service.
We look at what
went wrong, rather than what we did well. We focus on what did not go well.
Here comes the role of
Positive
Psychology. What we need to realize is that, what we don’t want is not
equal to what we do want?
Imagine your life as a garden, can you think of something
that you need to pull to make your life more positive. Did what you once
remember as a negative turn out to be a positive? Do you remember the pleasure
of doing something for others over what we did for ourselves?
How do we live well? What is human flourishing? How do we
ensure healthy mindedness? Maslow spoke about our desire to self-actualize.
Foundations of
Positive Psychology
Martin Seligman
shared his coming across ‘learned
helplessness’, in 1967 wherein while working with dogs, Pavlov conditioning
responded over time, and in new situations how the dogs responded.
Nothing I do matters! When it’s inescapable we do nothing.
And learned helplessness is the result.
How does one escape shock. How much control do we have over
‘bad events’ in our lives. Can we control external forces? It all depends on
escapable ‘bad’ or inescapable bad. What
makes some people immune from helplessness? It all depends on early or first
experience of escapable or inescapable experiences.
Seligman then started to look at personality. Do you think?
1.
It’s (the issue) about you or the other? Is it temporary
or permanent?
2.
Is it localized or all pervading? Bad at this or
on everything?
3.
Do you believe that bad events are controllable
– optimism index
How does optimist responds to situations: they do better. From
here he developed the theory of Learned
Optimism.
How many of these nine
symptoms of depression do you exhibit? (5 in a fortnight is valid)
- ·
Sad mood
- ·
Loss of interest
- ·
Weight loss
- ·
Sleep disturbance
- ·
Psychomotor slowness
- ·
Fatigue
- ·
Low self esteem
- ·
Indecisive
- ·
Suicide / thoughts of death
Only optimism can help one reduce risks to depression. Studies of children followed on optimism
index. Can you teach someone optimism?
In 1997, while weeding his garden, he noticed his daughter
playfully engaging with the weeds. And he remonstrated with her. She pointed
out that he had a stuck past, and that if he worked with that he could turn out
positive! This got him to think about the psychology not of eliminating
‘negatives’ but one of focus on well-being.
DEFINING WELL BEING
What does well being mean? He introduced the acronym PERMA –
the five routes to well being.
P – positive emotion (what are you energized about)
E - engagement and
flow (when time stops for you, total immersion)
R - relationships (we
are selected for group selection, where love exists)
M - meaning & purpose (to serve something bigger).
A - achievement
& mastery (control, self discipline and grit)
Is any one of this more important than the other four? Human
well-being depends on all of these. How do you leverage what matters most for
you? IQ and Talent give way to discipline and grit.
Thank you for reading so far. So what can you do to make
a start?
The role of gratitude
Reflecting on the three blessings ‘what
three things went well today and why?’ each day is an exercise that demonstrates it
can create very positive changes, and is positively addictive.
Try it!
