Have trouble achieving your goals in life? Having trouble achieving the level of success you desire? Not as productive as you wish? This short piece from NPR yesterday put a smile on my face for the rest of the day.
It is an interview under 2 minutes. I don't want to give away the story. Trust me, if you have every had trouble achieving a goal in your life, this is a vision you should hold. Or maybe hire?
This is the third question in the series provided by Robert Biswar-Diener. Have you been writing out answers to each of the questions?
3. With
whom do you share responsibility for your own happiness?
It is easy to get lulled into
a sense that happiness is an individual pursuit. Nothing could be further from
the truth. You are connected to other people in a complicated web of loyalty,
obligation, generosity, protection, and mutual support. Your own happiness is
not simply a product of your mind, but of your decisions concerning other
people. You can ask support from others to boost your happiness; you can
sacrifice some personal happiness in favor of helping others. Who are the
primary stakeholders in your happiness and how do they affect your moods? What
does this tell you about your own pursuit of happiness?
By simply asking these new
questions you will redirect your attention and take stock of your own happiness
in a different way. We hope that the very act of questioning wakes you up to an
invigorated sense of pursuit of happiness. We recommend taking five (5) full
minutes aside and actually thinking or writing answers to these questions in
detail. We would love to hear from you about how asking these questions affects
you. Please drop us a line or post to our Facebook site.
To learn more about the authors of these questions and their
work:
And Dr. Biswar-Diener’s most current training for coaches
starting October 29, 2012 Hope you enjoyed these questions. Thank you trying to improve your life satisfaction, Andrea T. Goeglein, PhD www.ServingSuccess.com
2.How much
unhappiness should I have? Feelings of sadness, guilt, and anger act like radar, scanning
and providing information about the quality of our lives. Negative feelings can
signal that problems are occurring and that action must be taken to change
courses. It wouldn't be sensible to try to eliminate negative feelings
entirely. How frequently do you experience negative feelings, and how
frequently do you think you ideally would like to? To learn more about the authors of these questions and their
work:
In a continuing effort to support the high integrity of
Positive Psychology, my next three posts will be republished questions from the
renowned author, researcher and scholar Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener.Look below for information about his newest
class starting on October 29.
Have you ever questioned happiness?
Twice a year I meet with Project Plus, an international team
of happiness experts that includes Mathieu Ricard, John Helliwell, and others.
Currently, we are drafting the introduction to the Bhutanese Gross National
Happiness paper, which will be used by the United Nations as a kick starter for
setting happiness policy around the world. In our discussions last week in New
Orleans the members of Project Plus talked about the possibility that
individuals who are trying to achieve more personal happiness may be asking the
wrong sorts of questions. Here, for your benefit, are alternatives that you
might find provocative and useful in your own quest for happiness:
1.How much happiness should I have?
People often simply think they should be happier than they
currently are without giving due consideration to whether or not this is true.
Take stock of your current happiness. Where in your life are you satisfied and
where is there room for growth? How happy would you ideally like to be? What is
it you are shooting for, emotionally speaking? When have there been periods of
your life when you have achieved, or been close to, this ideal?
Dr. Success Challenge:Answer the questions!
For those interesting in building a coaching practice, this
is a great place to learn:
This is the last week to register for class!
Our Practice Building Accelerator course is fast
approaching! In this six week course taught by Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener,
students will explore the fundamentals of starting and growing a coaching
practice, including marketing and client acquisition. Class starts October
29th. To learn more about our program please visit us at PositiveAcorn.com.
By Brock Bastian, University of Queensland
Western culture places an extraordinary emphasis on happiness – and continuous happiness – as the goal each of us should strive for in our lives. But we’re increasingly realising this goal may actually be making us unhappy.
Television advertising shows people becoming happier with every new acquisition, alongside national campaigns promoting a take-no-prisoner’s approach to encouraging happiness. Barbara Ehrenreich captures this fixation well in her recent book simply titled “Smile or Die”.
Of course, feeling happy is a good thing. But happiness is only one aspect of the full range of human emotions. People also regularly feel gloomy, anxious and stressed. Despite the commonality of these negative emotional states, they are generally regarded in a quite a different light to happiness.
Normal levels of sadness, depression and anxiety are commonly pathologised and medicalised: viewed as deviating from the desired norm. Even common malaise is often diagnosed as an illness. Such negative emotions are treated with a wide array drugs and interventions designed to quickly and efficiently return us to “normality”.
Meanwhile, the many benefits of negative emotions – such as their creative potential, importance for interpersonal relations and role in achieving a rich and meaningful life – are rarely appreciated or talked about. Negative emotions are inevitable – and stigmatising them can be harmful. Joe Penna/Flickr.
So what impact does a cultural obsession with happiness, and a relative devaluation of sadness, have on people when they inevitably do feel sad?
Social norms which place a singular focus on happiness as desirable and sadness as undesirable may increase perceived social pressures not to feel sad, with detrimental consequences for emotional functioning. This possibility was supported by research my colleagues and I recently published in Emotion, the journal of the American Psychological Association.
We found that perceived “social expectancies” not to feel sad were associated with increased negative emotions, depression and reduced well-being. When people think society generally doesn’t accept sadness or that other people expect them not to experience or express their sadness, they have more negative emotions on a weekly basis. They’re also more likely to report symptoms of depression and lower satisfaction with their lives.
In this research we also explored whether the effects of social expectancies may be more apparent in Western culture, where a higher premium is placed on happiness, compared with Eastern cultures, where emotional balance is considered more important.
What we found was that although the effects of social expectancies were evident in both cultures, they were more pronounced in Australia than in Japan. Not only did Australians perceive greater social pressure not to feel sad, they also evaluated themselves more negatively when they did feel sad, and in turn experienced a greater intensity of negative emotion on a daily basis.
We also found that social messages that reinforce these social expectancies serve to increase negative emotional responses when people recall past negative emotional events.
Don’t force yourself
Social pressures to feel happy make people feel like they’ve failed when they do feel sad, which in turn this makes them feel worse. Such negative reactions to our own negative emotions have been termed “secondary disturbances” within clinical psychology. Trying to force happiness when we feel sad can make us feel worse. shawncampbell/Flickr.
A “new-wave” within psychotherapy has begun to focus on the concept of “acceptance”. Accepting unpleasant emotional states is demonstrated as an important pathway towards reducing secondary disturbances and improving emotional and psychological functioning. Sadly, increased acceptance of a variety of emotional states is not readily supported by salient social norms.
On top of that, when people are collectively focused on feeling happy it creates social pressures that produce more sadness. A collective focus on the goal of feeling happy may lead to a kind of “pressure-cooker” effect where the mass pursuit of happiness serves the mass production of sadness. People subsequently feel that they have failed to meet both their goals and the standards set by society.
So what should we do? Wear hessian cloths and devote our lives to the pursuit of misery and gloom? Clearly, this is not good advice!
What we can do, however, is to aim a little more for that “golden mean” noted by Aristotle in all his wisdom. The good life is found between the extremes of deficiency and excess, and is therefore best served by a mixture of both pleasure and pain. Brock Bastian receives funding from the ARC.
This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.
I have been contemplating submitting a proposal for a TEDx talk to be held in Las Vegas in December. I am not sure I will yet, but in doing some research I came across this TED talk I felt was worth sharing.
A good thought -- and I could see this as an inspirational project for downtown Las Vegas.
Hope you will enjoy your day thinking about this too.
Negative reports of positive psychology show ignorance isn’t bliss
By Adam Barsky, University of Melbourne and Michael Zyphur, University of Melbourne
Perhaps because the word positive automatically brings to mind the insufferable yellow smiley face, the field of positive psychology is struggling to get the respect that it deserves. Two articles in the Fairfax press this year – (30 March and 1 September) – have reinforced common misconceptions about positive psychology – in terms of both what it is, and how it is applied.
Positive psychology is not and has never been a “positive thinking” movement. Rather, it’s the study of what allows people to operate at the peak of their potential: to live longer and healthier, participate in more satisfying friendships and marriages, and have more engaging and meaningful careers. It’s also the study of what makes communities and institutions stronger and more resilient.
In contrast to the way positive psychology is portrayed in the media, research within the area has explicitly debunked the notions that “putting on a happy face,” pursuing short-term pleasures and external rewards, or boosting self-esteem are effective means of creating long-term well-being at home, at work, or in schools. Positive psychology is more about finding meaning and lasting fulfilment.
But books such as The Secret and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People have bastardised positive psychology and regurgitated it into a crowd-pleasing and a multimillion-dollar “positive thinking” industry. And misunderstanding and ill-informed commentary have compounded the problem and produced a bitter backlash against the science. The source of this backlash’s power is easy to identify – it is ignorance about the field.
Positive psychology is focused on understanding what enables us to flourish and achieve our potential at home, at work, and in schools. The field contrasts with the majority of work in the discipline of psychology which has traditionally focused on the goal of reducing illness and negative states. While understanding and alleviating sickness and depression is a worthy goal, it only addresses part of the well-being equation. The pursuit of money does not make us happy. Madeline Puckette
Some of the findings are exciting and challenge our thinking on what it takes to live a happy and healthy life. One key set of findings is that the pursuit of money and status that so pervades our culture and political discourse is unhelpful in making us happy. People adjust very quickly to something that gives them pleasure or pain. A famous study of lottery winners and victims of spinal injuries found that while those who won the lottery were briefly much happier and those who became quadriplegics and paraplegics were briefly much less happy, everyone soon returned to their original levels of happiness.
Seeking extrinsic rewards, such as money and status, doesn’t build lasting happiness, it simply sets us up to run on an addictive “hedonic treadmill”, which keeps returning us to where we started. Positive psychology research has found that long-term well-being is driven by cultivating trusting and nurturing relationships, having interesting and engaging work, and setting meaningful goals and feeling yourself progress towards achieving them.
Another clear set of findings suggests that individuals gain at least as much, if not more, from building on their strengths as improving areas of weakness. Management research has found that even though problematic employees demand more attention, managers who invest the most time with their best people perform between two and three times better than managers who spend more time with their worst.
Similarly, managers who create environments allowing employees to regularly exercise their talents have more productive workers and lower turnover. The findings don’t suggest we ignore negativity but create conditions where individuals and groups can thrive.
These are only a few of the numerous findings from positive psychology that inform how we can arrange our lives, schools and workplaces to be more engaging, productive, and resilient. The express goal of the field is to bring an evidence-based approach to helping individuals cope with and grow from disengagement, isolation, depression, stress and trauma and take advantage of their collaborative ability, creativity, vitality to build wellness and to flourish. Putting on a happy face is not effective for creating long-term well-being. Chantel Beam
People who know the field know that it is not a positive thinking movement and that it doesn’t even focus exclusively on the positive but extends to the study of adaptability, strength, and growth out of hardship and failure.
There are certainly legitimate critiques of positive psychology: the field is still relatively new and evidence is still being generated and integrated. And its focus to date has been on the individual and primarily in Western contexts. But most critiques have been levelled at the ways positive psychology is applied. As with any emerging movement, the tendency for some to sell services or write books under the guise of positive psychology but with only a cursory understanding of the field is ever present.
And as with any field, there are increasing numbers of poorly-trained practitioners and consultants claiming to practise positive psychology without truly understand the research or the challenges of implementing its conclusions. Such consultants are likely to promise too much, deliver too little, and create resistance to change that could have been beneficial if positive psychology principles had actually been understood and implemented.
But a few bad apples shouldn’t damn an entire field or the many qualified and competent researchers and practitioners who are implementing well-validated positive programs or testing new interventions to address some of the most pressing issues of the day. Adam Barsky is affiliated with Applied Research Consulting which consults in the area of Positive Education and Positive Leadership, both are informed by Positive Psychology. Michael Zyphur does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.
This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.
When I created the Random Acts of Kindle Kindness to celebrate the one year anniversary of the events that became Don't Die with Your Song Unsung, I had some strategic goals for the book and the campaign.
I did not achieve those goals.
Instead, the campaign is achieving goals I could never have planned to achieve -- that is why success is so difficult to define. This is a note I received today:
Hi Andrea . I wanted to share with you what fun we had today
at school. In keeping with our delivering happiness core value, I was
sharing with my students our chance meeting, synchronicity, Gary's video and
about the book.
We had a few guests visiting and decided to give them a wow
experience by telling them the story and gifting them with the electronic book
that you were so kind to donate. I even ironed the dollar bills so they
would look nice and crisp!! We then asked them to pay it forward and
deliver a smile to someone else.
They loved the experience! It was a great day!
Thank you Thank you Thank you a hundred (or two :) times over!
Have you ever wondered what you are telling yourself when you are drawn to a quote? In my never ending attempt to keep my desk somewhat organized, I collected up some pages I had torn out of here and there with quotes that must have caught my spirit on some day. Here is what I found:
"There are no guarantees. From the viewpoint of fear, none are strong enough. From the viewpoint of love, none are necessary." Emmanuel
"We all have the extraordinary coded within us, waiting to be released." Jean Houston
"There is no process of healing, but there is generally a process in healing. This process is the time and effort which we undergo in our realizations of Truth." Ernst Holmes
"People cannot live gracefully or peacefully, joyfully or justly, without celebration in their lives, without awe." Matthew Fox
What am I telling myself? There are no guarantees. Yet I can be and achieve more than I have to date. As I heal my past, I will more easily see and celebrate the awe that is all around me.
Moment-by-moment, I can work with that. Love, healing, awe -- sounds like positivity to me. What about you? What are the quotes you are attracted to trying to help you see?
The difficult part of finding my voice is that I feel called
to lovingly communicate differences (generally more than others wish I would –
and I know that).
Our current political cycle has allowed me ample opportunity
to practice communicating my opinion in a respectful way to someone or some
institute that I feel is potentially using their position of power to inflame
emotion instead of build resolution.I
am not big into 50/50 thinking, or consensus thinking.I am big into working on resolutions that
give a place to begin the real work.Some of the time that means I get more than I give – other times that means I
give up or contribute more than I get.
What follows is an excerpt from an email I wrote a local business
leader after observing the content of Facebook comments, cartoons and jokes he
posted.I felt they left no doubt how he
was voting, and I additionally felt they left no room for solution
building.I wrote this note privately
and share parts of the content to give you an example how you might approach a
difficult conversation.
“Dear Person,
I wanted to take this conversation off line. I have been
surprised how you have been using this political cycle to lead your XXXXXX through
posts on FB. I take it from your posts, that you would not allow a non-RNC member to
work for or with you. That surprised me. You know I led a successful business
before. My employee base was a very diverse
group – especially during our last election when the hotels Richard and I owned
were in Arizona.I think it would be fair to
say that most of our employees differed on their opinion of not only who should
be President, but on how to resolve the great concerns that faced our nation in
2008.I also think none of them felt
isolated by or from us for our differences.
I saw my role as teaching them to stay in conversation long
enough to hear where they shared values and to build a solution from that
point. A chapter heading from a book I was reading today says it all: Walking
Our Talk -- What We Allow We Teach. I am deeply devoted to life success. I have
vowed during this season to not work to convince others to vote as I might --
but to listen with care, hear what they want fixed, and finds ways to work
together to fix it. My RNC friends (to which I have many as you would expect) are
amazed how calm I remain when we have coffee and discuss politics.
They know we want only great things for our country and my
response allows them to see how they could be heard better (that is what they
have told me). You are in an important leadership position in our community. I
hope you will consider facilitating conversations aimed at solution. Wishing
you continued success…”
P.S. I just took the photo on this blog.As my Facebook page showed, I attended my
first ever political rally when President Obama was in Las Vegas.I kept wondering where to put the ticket I
saved as a memento.As I was cleaning up
my bookshelf in my office this last week I found what I thought was the perfect
place:In the souvenir box from the only
other political event I attended – the second inaugural of President Ronald Reagan.Both experiences are ones I will
cherish forever.
I hope you join me in thanking the men and women who serve so that I/we can share deep differences and yet know that the most I will suffer is a hurt feeling -- not be killed for what I shared. That is true freedom. All we are missing is a bit more courtesy.
Thank you and may Peace be with us all, Andrea T. Goeglein, PhD
Oh, yes it will if you follow the attitude of the man in
this story!
In my post, It Won’t Last, I described the shocking attitude
of a fellow walker I met on a beautiful Las Vegas morning.
I discussed my post with editor extraordinaire, Katherine
Armstrong, who is an accomplished runner currently training for a half marathon.A few days later on a 12 mile run with two of
her training buddies, she was discussing the experience I wrote about in my
blog.Within minutes, the energetic threesome
encountered a jogger who appeared to be in his 70’s or early 80’s.Katherine greeted him with an enthusiastic,
“Good morning!”
To Katherine and her friends’ surprise, the gentleman paused
and responded, “And it is even more beautiful now that I have crossed paths
with such beautiful women.”
So few words exchanged. Such a huge difference in attitude. There is no doubt that man has found the way to make good feelings last.
Dr. Success Challenge: See how easy it is to "make it last" -- or realistically at least extend the moment? My challenge to you is this: Do one small thing to extend the good moments in your day today.
To seed the Acts, I gave the executive director of the
Fredrick Douglas Family Foundation $10 and told him to send copies to 10 people he
thought would benefit from receiving the gift.A few weeks later, I started receiving messages from the people he had
gifted books. One lucky recipient was an administrator of a high school for inner city girls.The administrator and
I exchanged a number of emails.We brainstormed
possible ways to work together to bring Gary Russo and the message of the book to her girls,
and possibility their parents.
I followed up with some ideas and received this message
back:
“I
must share with you this story. I am reading my student's journal and she
writes:
JOURNAL
REFLECTION QUESTION:
"When
I look in the mirror, am I happy with what I see?"
RESPONSE:
"Sometimes
when I look in the mirror, I am not happy with what I see. I see a girl who has
been hiding the passion for singing for years, and it kills her inside..."
Talk
about synchronicity!I sent her your
book...will let you know.:)”
One of the 24 Values In Action from Positive Psychology
research is Persistence (Perseverance and Industriousness)(p.229).This weekend I stopped to buy a glass of
lemonade from two children in my neighborhood.I had backed out of my garage and did not notice the lemonade stand
until I was about turn the corner.I
pulled over – not because I needed lemonade – but because they had taken the
time to ask their parents to set the stand up for them.
Lemonade stands are not something parents force a kid to
do.Generally, kids ask for help to put
a stand together.Asking for a lemonade
stand does not mean you are necessarily industrious, but it does help you learn
in a safe environment what it might take to succeed in life.I live in a gated community.I do not live on a heavily trafficked street,
yet these two children decided to try, in the 100 degree heat, to sell their
tasty libation.They could have been in
the pool, in an air conditioned family room watching television, or on the
computer playing games.Instead, they
chose to put themselves ‘out there’ and try their hand at a small
business.
I like that for whatever the reason we live in a country
with a ‘lemonade stand’ metaphor.When
some business person wants to prove they were industrious from a young age,
they like to talk about the newspaper routes and lemonade stands they started. As
they get older and traverse greater challenges in less safe business environments,
there are lots of stories of turning ‘lemons into lemonade.’The metaphor of turning something naturally
sour into something sweet and enjoyable is the perfect metaphor for teaching resilience.Resilience is the attribute that supports
persistence, perseverance and industriousness.We are never too young, or too old, to learn to build such great
attributes.
Today, September 5, 2012 marks an anniversary of sorts.Today is the one year anniversary of the day
I stood up in a church as an officiator was spewing hatred from the pulpit and
slowly and repeatedly kept saying, “Father, please stop speaking.”
Eventually, he stopped.The security guard came to remove me, which was unnecessary since my
husband and I were ready to leave.As we
departed, it appeared the congregation was a real-time representation of our political
consciousness – about half agreed with my position, and half were yelling that
they were ‘against’ my position.One
Black woman asked me to stay and fight.I paused, and said, “I did not come to church to fight.”Many people followed us out of the service
that day.I doubt few were changed as
much I have been by that action.
Dr. Success Challenge:What action are you willing to take to find your voice, speak your truth
respectfully, and move your spirit forward?
Today I am thankful I leave in a nation that is diverse in
thought, free to express that diversity and united in our desire (if not our
opinions) to preserve that freedom of diversity and speech.
Peace be with us all today and love show us the way, Andrea T. Goeglein, PhD
As August, 2012 comes to a close with the light of a Blue Moon, I wanted to re-post this offer that expires this Monday. Have a safe and wonderful Labor Day Weekend. If your travels take you to Queens, NY Resorts World New York, Gary Russo will be performing free at the 360 Bar, Sunday and Monday 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. You will have more fun that a person should outside of Las Vegas!
Growing up on the East Coast my Dad and Uncles had a fun habit. When we were caravaning to some family outing, the lead car generally paid for the cars behind. When I began to drive, I continued the practice with total strangers. Well, maybe if truth be told, as a teenager if I spotted a car driven by a hot guy, I would pay his toll! Never got a phone number, but did get lots of hot smiles.
Since smiling started theDon't Die with Your Song Unsung story, I decided to create a Random Act of Kindle Kindness. First, I priced the Kindle edition of the book at a silly .99 cents for the month of August 2012. Happy anniversary Gary Russo! Then I started going through my address book and randomly sending a copy a day to someone in one of my many, many circles. In the gift message box I put this message:
You have received this book as a random act of Kindle
Kindness celebrating the anniversary of the events in the book.If you can, please pay-it-forward by
purchasing a Kindle edition for a silly .99 cents for someone.If not, please remember to smile as you enjoy
this gift.Thank you.
I just started yesterday...and it has been so much fun -- and cheaper than a toll costs today. Disclaimer: I developed this process to help drive the SEO on the book. If you can, try it. At a minimum you will see how little it takes to smile and elevate your mood.
Nothing brings back your vitality than vacation. So that is what I am doing for the next eight days -- mixed with just the right amount of business connections and re-connections each day.
Most of all I plan to keep up my Random Acts of Kindle Kindness. It has been a delight to hear the responses no only to the book, but to how nice it was to hear from me (or the troops of others doing the same thing). Such a inexpensive way to make people smile.
While I am gone, enjoy this interview with Susan Brender of V is for Vitality
This TED video is going to make you Thank God It's Monday. Shawn Achor is an incredible presenter. He had me hooked with the title: The happy secret to better work, but when he said the line, "The reason I am here today and the reason I get up excited each morning is Positive Psychology!" I was sold. Great investment of 12 minutes of your time. Thank you, Andrea
Marissa Mayer's appointment as the CEO of Yahoo! has created a lot of conversation. Initially, I was saddened at the focus. I felt the stories were paying attention to Marissa's personal life in a way that would not have happen if a 37 year old male had been appointed to the position. Then I needed to find some good -- which of course I did -- in the way of Fast Company looking back at women who helped to open doors of opportunity by widening the conversation to include the entire population. Well done, short, retrospective.
Want to share a 4x4 that Ben Dean of Mentor Coach used in our Blue Sky Thinking class last week. This 4x4 is known as the Covey Time Management Matrix. See https://www.stephencovey.com/ for more about work Stephen Covey and his company has developed.
The question I will put to you is simple: How much of your life is spent doing things that are urgent and unimportant or not urgent and not important?
Cannot help but then ask: Is that serving your desire to achieve your goals?
Posts
When I created the Random Acts of Kindle Kindness to celebrate the one year anniversary of the events that became Don't Die with Your Song Unsung, I had some strategic goals for the book and the campaign. 
The difficult part of finding my voice is that I feel called
to lovingly communicate differences (generally more than others wish I would –
and I know that). 
Forgive
