By Louis Alloro - September 29, 2009

I am driven to distraction. It’s just what is and what it’s always been.

“No grass grows under his feet,” my mom used to say of me as a small boy, because I was always moving, always doing. Even now as an adult, I have trouble sitting still. In sitting to write these first paragraphs, I was led to the refrigerator (twice), to check for notifications on Facebook, to email. Ding, ding – a text message on my phone! I wonder who’s on The View today? Sirens out my window; hope all is okay.

This story, albeit mine, gets in the way of my productivity and performance. “I am a Gemini, so it’s okay” I used to tell myself – but this default mechanism of excusing an unwelcomed behavior has self-limiting consequences.

Focus as Weakness or Strength

Conscious of this predisposition, what do I try to tell myself now? That I sometimes love to focus, that I’m good at focusing, that focusing is my friend. I find examples of times where I have focused successfully, to remind myself that I am not my weakness.

I also remind myself that I am not alone. Many people have problems with focusing. According to NIMH, AD/HD, one of the most common mental disorders in children and adolescents, also affects an estimated 4.1 percent of adults, ages 18-44, in a given year.

The Mayo Clinic reports that “children with ADHD also struggle with low self-esteem, troubled relationships and poor performance in school.”

Let’s not forget that these children inevitably become adults, often with similar struggles. This is why it’s so important we teach strengths- and evidenced-based strategies to help people change the story, change the habit, and change the reality.

Starting Basic – ABCs

Affective, Behavioral, Cognitive

As a coach, I like to think of interventions across three dimensions: Feeling (Affective), Doing (Behavioral) and Thinking (Cognitive). These cognitive drills above such as finding where I have been good at focus stem from my experience with the Penn Resiliency Project and Seligman’s work on Explanatory Style. The voices in our head can be tamed, especially if they’re saying “You’re bad at this.”

And the affective. Let’s use this article as an example. My deadline is fast approaching. I know I do not want feelings of anxiety or disappointment. What I do want: feelings of serenity and success, which will contribute to my overall happiness. Knowing how I want to feel means I will have to work intentionally to break old patterns (like a tendency I have to drift attention) that could prevent me from experiencing the good feelings that come from publishing.

Finally, the doing. Changing behavior is key. But in considering how habitual most of our behaviors are, we must always keep in mind the cognitive and affective pieces as we begin to shift behavior. When it comes to change, Prochaska urges us not to jump into action, but to spend time preparing (feeling and thinking).

Here are a few ideas based on Positive Psychology that have worked for me in terms of changing my ability to focus:

• Prime the Environment. This can be as simple as putting post-its on my computer screen that say “commitment” and “focus” or as subtle as setting out a vase of flowers by my computer when it’s time to work. When work time is over, I put the vase in the cupboard, so that my brain can be primed for Facebook and personal email.

• Clear Space. Is your space clean and organized? I know for me, when I spend some time tidying and filing the physical space, I create psychological space too–consciousness in a different dimension.

• Mindset. Simple: are you ready to change?

• Be/Quiet. It’s so important we take time to quiet our minds. Too much thinking, not enough being. The benefits of meditation have been made clear. Start slowly with three, five, eight minutes of silent breathing. Email me if you’d like some guidance and accountability with that.

• Savor. We can be mindful and in the moment through savoring. At your next meal or during your next walk down the street, see if you can activate all senses. This will require you slow down and enjoy the process of eating or walking as not just a means, but an end.

• Broaden & Build. Another way to build the capacity to savor is to set up a positive portfolio: a collection of artifacts (pictures, quotes, souvenirs, etc.) that elicit positive emotion. Spend time in this space every day. For me, an expansive mind and heart allow me to focus on the things that are important.

• Say What You Mean. Pay attention to language. If I say I am Louis, the guy with ADHD, then guess what? . . .

• Do What You Say. Only put on today’s to-do list what you can accomplish today. Don’t let the urgent take the place of what’s important. Block out time to meditate, exercise, and spend time with your positive portfolio just as you would schedule time for business meetings.

• Self-Regulate. Like any muscle, self-regulatory resources require exercising and conditioning to make them stronger. Go on a media diet and allow yourself Facebook, email, or other distractions only during certain (and limited) times.

Or . . . If you need to be allowing yourself more time to spend on Facebook and email, do that too. Super-productivity can have its own consequences. Everything is relative.

Seek Your Correct Balance

We are always in relationship.

Speaking of relativity (see how my mind works?)–keep in mind that our attention and time are limited too. With no time or space to see new or different things, we may fail to see patterns (often habitual in nature) that are getting in the way of us being our best selves. There are so many parts of life that make it worth living, a super strong career is just one of them–no career at all is another one. If you work too many hours, see if you can cut down by 1 hour each week until you reach a more healthy load. If you do not work any hours, start by 5 minutes at a time, volunteering even. Remember, baby steps: life is about progress not perfection.

In The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle says, “Virtue lies in the mean between the extreme.” From this Facebook junkie, I can tell you, turning it off to let the grass grow a bit under my feet and in different directions feels good. Maybe you’ll give it a try, whatever that means for you, too?

Author’s Note: If too much or too little distraction are getting in the way of you being your best self, contact me for a free coaching consultation. I am not a life-coach, not a career-coach, not a happiness coach. I’m a coach-coach, always in your corner, helping you find harmony, holding something for you.

Images:

Grass/Feet: creativecommons.com, damork

Affective/Behavioral/Cognitive: freeclipartnow.com

Computer/Flowers: creativecommons.com, 1happysnapper

Always In Relationship: Louis Alloro

Feel free to reprint this article on your website as long as the following phrase appears at the bottom:
This article is © 2009 PositivePsychologyNews.com. To see the original article, click here. To join the discussion on this article, click here.

TWEET This Article!

Del med andre på FACEBOOK

By Laura L.C. Johnson - September 25, 2009

Counterclockwise

In Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility, Ellen Langer, a psychology professor at Harvard, says that “knowing what is and knowing what can be are not the same thing.” Langer’s research over the past 30 years has focused on how mindfulness – defined by Langer as actively noticing new things – can lead to new possibilities and allow us to improve our health and well-being. The psychology of possibility assumes “we do not know what we can do or become.”

BOOK REVIEW: Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility (Ballantine Books, 2009).

If One Dog Could Yodel

Langer writes that the mission of “the psychology of possibility” is to see if an outcome is possible, and then figure out how it can be pursued. Traditional research is based on probabilities and a fixed view of what was studied. We’d need to show that the majority of subjects have an effect in order to conclude the effect is real. In the psychology of possibility, only one participant is needed to prove something is possible. “If I can make one dog yodel, then we can say yodeling is possible in dogs,” writes Langer. Instead of trying to prove what is true for the majority, we look at how exceptional performance becomes possible.

Our Mindset Determines What Is Possible

In the counterclockwise study of 1979, Langer and her research team set up an experiment where two groups of men lived in a replicated world as if it were 20 years earlier. The “experimental” group lived as if 1959 were the present – they spoke in the present tense, wrote an autobiography as if it were 1959, and exchanged photos of their younger selves. The “control” group lived in the same replicated world one week later, except they wrote their bios in the past tense, their photos were of their current selves, and they reminisced about the past. It turned out both groups got “younger” but the experimental group had greater improvements on many measures of physical ability, health, and intelligence – and the experimental group was judged to look younger by people who were unaware of the study. Langer concluded that it is not our physical selves that limit us but, rather, our constricting mindsets about our physical limits, health and well-being and our social construction of what aging means.

Noticing Change Can Enhance Control

In another study, Langer and colleagues wanted to see if people could be taught to regulate their heart rate after focusing their attention on how it varies. They set up four groups: a “stability group” where participants measured their heart rate upon going to sleep and awakening; a “moderate attention to variability group” that measured their heart rate at two predesignated times; a “high attention to variability group” who measured their heart rate every three hours and were asked to pay attention to how it varied and what they were doing; and a control group that did not monitor their heart rate but did monitor their activities. The study found that the most mindful group, the “high attention to variability group,” did significantly better at controlling their heart rate. Langer concluded that noticing change can foster the learning needed to bring physiological responses, emotions and behaviors within our control.

Don’t Believe Everything You Hear

Mindless learning can get us to mindlessly accept ideas that we have been primed to learn outside of our awareness. For example, cultural stereotypes can work as primes. In one study of math testing, when female Asian women were primed on their gender identity, their scores plunged but when they were primed on their ethnic identity, their scores soared. In another study, a group of female room attendants were primed to view their work as exercise. After only four weeks, the “informed group” lost an average of two pounds and showed reductions in body fat and increases in muscle mass compared to the control. Langer suggests these findings might be explained as the direct influence of the mind on the body.

Expand Possibilities by Asking “How”

Counterclockwise is filled with thought-provoking ideas based on research studies that ask questions about what can be. Langer’s work shows that when people think mindfully about what they are doing, they adopt more positive and empowering beliefs about themselves and they feel and perform better. Langer says that questioning presumed limits is the essence of the psychology of possibility: “if instead of asking whether we can change, we ask how we can do it, we can begin finding out.”

References:

Langer, E. J. (2009). Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility. New York: Ballantine Books.

Feel free to reprint this article on your website as long as the following phrase appears at the bottom:
This article is © 2009 PositivePsychologyNews.com. To see the original article, click here. To join the discussion on this article, click here.

TWEET This Article!

Del med andre på FACEBOOK

By Marie-Josée Salvas - September 24, 2009

596 words, 2  minutes reading time

I was headed to a conference last week and I knew it would be a long drive, so I brought an audio tape. This time I listened to an older one, curious to see if business had changed. The author of the 1985 publication promises to deliver street smarts and to train listeners on “what they don’t teach you at Harvard business school.”

One of his recommendations in particular didn’t shock me because it is somewhat typical, but it really is shameful when considering its full and inadvertent consequences.

This executive declares, “I like it when I call the office at 10 at night and people pick up. I like it when I call on a Sunday afternoon and people are there. I like it when I come to the office on Monday morning and people know the results of sports team in distant parts of the world [his business is sports-related]. To me, this shows commitment.”

Counter-Productive Expectations

Employers still holding such expectations are in for a rude awakening. When individuals are encouraged to work virtually every waking moment, there is little opportunity for them to get a nutritious meal or enjoy a workout – two ingredients that can help boost productivity. No surprise our country is plagued by simultaneous epidemics in obesity, in physical inactivity, bringing along with them a long list of serious diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and atherosclerosis – to name just a few. The US Surgeon general declared that over 300,000 Americans die prematurely each year due to lack of physical activity and poor nutrition.

Being overworked also impedes the ability to get sufficient sleep. According to  scientist William Dement, “sleep deprivation is now the most common brain impairment.” Hence, when work impedes sleep, the unintended consequence is reduced performance.

Personal lives also suffer from work-life imbalance. Feeling depressed is now so common that the World Health Organization finds depression to be a leading cause of disability. Anti-depressants are now the most common drug prescription. Since psychological well-being is a good predictor of productivity, lack of work-life balance is clearly counter-productive in the long-term.

For the CFOs and other “show me the money” readers, let’s take a look at the numbers. Right now in the US, health care costs are increasing faster than inflation, incomes, GDP or average organizational revenues. Hiring more employees therefore weighs heavier on the wrong side of the balance sheet and enterprises have a hard time growing as a result. As if this weren’t enough, Dr. Ron Goetzel, Director of Cornell University’s Institute for Health and Productivity Studies warns that presenteeism costs can outweigh an employer’s medical costs – ever been on Facebook during work hours?

Downward Spiral

With increased costs and reduced productivity, employers are hard-pressed to increase performance, which seems to reinforce the need for long hours. Employees get blackberries so they can respond to email 24/7. Multi-tasking is now the name of the game, but it augments stress more than it does productivity. As anxiety increases, so do our depression rates, our waist lines and, our health care costs.

Now of course overworked employees are not solely responsible for these conditions, and clearly there are times where a little extra push is necessary. But overall, employers would be better served being part of the solution, not the problem.

Sustainable Success

For an organization to be successful and sustainable, contributors at all levels have to thrive long-term. To the extent that everyone’s contribution is necessary, everyone’s physical, emotional, mental and relational energy matters.

Good health is an intrinsic part of good performance. That’s what I’d like to see added to the curriculum of business schools.

Images:
Images are courtesy of Marie-Josée Salvas for one-time use with this article.

References:

Blair, S. (2009). Lecture presented at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Boyle, M.A. & Long, S. (2007). Personal Nutrition, Sixth Edition. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.

Dement, W. (2000). The Promise of Sleep: A Pioneer in Sleep Medicine Explores the Vital Connection Between Health, Happiness, and a Good Night’s Sleep . New York: Random House.
Quote above from p. 231.

Loehr, J. & Schwartz, T. (2003). The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal. New York: Free Press.

Ratey, J. (2008). Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

Wright, T.A., Cropanzano, R. Denney, P.J. & Moline, G.L. (2002). When a Happy Worker is a Productive Worker: A Preliminary Examination of Three Models. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science.

Feel free to reprint this article on your website as long as the following phrase appears at the bottom:
This article is © 2009 PositivePsychologyNews.com. To see the original article, click here. To join the discussion on this article, click here.

TWEET This Article!

Del med andre på FACEBOOK

By Yee-Ming Tan - September 23, 2009

Conventional wisdom says we gain strengths from overcoming adversity, which I don’t disagree with. However, I also believe that tapping into our strengths helps us deal with adversity while going through it.  From this perspective, strengths are not an outcome of adversity but can also be the means to get through adversity.

Alex Linley and Stephen Joseph of the University of Warwick, UK, report in a review of 39 studies of adversity that some studies show that – among other factors – positive reinterpretation coping, optimism, and positive emotions were associated with greater adversarial growth.

Elsie Smith of Temple University writes in an overview on strengths-based counseling, “The paradox of adversity is that we become stronger by confronting it.”  Smith further mentions that strengths-based assessments are measurements of those skills, competencies that allow, in part, one to deal with adversity.

One Man’s Vision to Make Someone’s Day

Let me share an inspiring story of someone who turns to his strengths in the darkest moment of his life when battling cancer. Watch this video (3.32min) first before you read on. (Remember to turn up the volume and click the PLAY button)

Faces of Cancer

David Wagner is an inspiring stylist, owner of JUUT salons and spas in Minnesota and California, a celebrated author and the founder of the Daymaker movement. He coined the term Daymaker for his philosophy of making the world a better place through intentionally making someone’s day.

At the age of 26, Wagner found out that the care and attention he gave to one hairstyling client saved her from going through with her plan of killing herself. He was glad to have made such a difference, but the experience also left him with an enormous sense of responsibility. He started living with the idea of being peoples’ “Daymaker hairstylist,” and as a result was able to change his clients’ lives so much that it gave him confidence in choosing to be a Daymaker in the other roles he plays. He became a Daymaker boss, a Daymaker husband, a Daymaker dad. He also applies the Daymaker philosophy to his business (voted Top Salon in 2008) and the community.

This is how Wagner introduces himself: “I am a daymaker warrior. My life’s work is to serve others, and influence them to do the same. This means that no matter what I face each day, I remain determined to find a way to bring joy and hope to people around me. I focus on having calmness, compassion, humor, and a positive attitude.”

Last April, Wagner was diagnosed with cancer. While undergoing rounds of chemo treatment, he decided to capture his journey of cancer in a series of photos. He turned to his strength of creativity. He said in an interview with Salon Today: “Throughout the process, I felt all the emotions—the anger, the ‘Why Me?’, the looking at the bright side of things, and we decided to capture that in a series of photos that bring people through the journey of cancer. We started right after the first round of chemo, and we chronicled the treatment, losing the hair, getting my head shaved, regaining strength.” This video above is the first of a series of four, taken when he was just diagnosed.

Strengths to Battle Adversity

What are his character strengths, I wondered, and how do these strengths (apart from creativity) serve him on this difficult journey? I contacted Wagner, and he made my day when he said yes to my invitation to contribute to this article. He sent back the completed VIA results within 30 minutes of my first email to him!

“When I look at my strengths I can say I called on all of them anytime I faced with adversity especially death,” Wagner says.  His top 5 character strengths are:

1. Creativity, ingenuity, and originality - “I wasn’t able to work on my business or be involved in the marketing, and I missed the creativity. Doing this project helped me heal emotionally.”
2. Appreciation of beauty and excellence – “I take advantage of my ability to see beauty in life, even the crappy stuff. I see beauty in people, things, instances (I call them perfect moments), nature, and my own existence.”
3. Perspective (wisdom) – “When I was first diagnosed with cancer I feared I may only have 3-6 months since I was deteriorating so quickly and I knew that what I would miss most was my daughters turning into young women. They are 10 and 12. Then I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, which has a life expectancy of 3-5 years so I thought how lucky I was to see my daughters through another 3-5 years and into their teen years. Then I found out that it was a misdiagnosis and I had lymphoma, which is treatable. Now I feel as if the whole journey including the misdiagnosis was part of the lesson.”
4. Spirituality, sense of purpose, and faith – “When faced with darkness I look at what the meaning of it is for me and what spirit is teaching me. I felt content that I had been doing what I was put on earth to do which was very comforting to me. To know that I found my purpose of Daymaking at such an early age and know that I live it everyday was what gave me peace in my mind.”
5. Bravery and valor – The raw emotions shown in the video says it all.  Courage in the face of adversity!

From Wagner’s life story and accomplishment, we can see that this is someone who has spent a lifetime building on his strengths. Elsie Smith quotes psychologists Greenstein and Breitbart who describe the famous Victor Frankl belief in the importance of life meaning: “Having a feeling of purpose and meaning can also help alleviate the distress caused by these painful facts of life [illness] in the first place.”   The strengths, so well honed for Wagner now, serve as an inner resource to help him through the darkest moments while living with cancer. Through this experience, the strengths, now amplified, will no doubt bring him to the next level of enlightenment.

Author’s Note:  Please join me in wishing David a speedy recovery. David, thank you for being a Daymaker to me.

References:

Linley, P.A. & Joseph, S. (2004). Positive change following trauma and adversity: A review. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 17(1), 11–21.
Smith, E.J. (2006). The strength-based counseling model. The Counseling Psychologist, 34(1), 13-79.

Feel free to reprint this article on your website as long as the following phrase appears at the bottom:
This article is © 2009 PositivePsychologyNews.com. To see the original article, click here. To join the discussion on this article, click here.

TWEET This Article!

Del med andre på FACEBOOK

By Derrick Carpenter - September 22, 2009

I over-think. A lot. And I bet many of you can relate. My over-analysis rarely takes me to a higher state of being. In many cases, I get caught in spirals of “What if…?” and “If it wasn’t for…” that spin me around until I’m exhausted but still standing in exactly the same place. Most therapy and coaching practices ultimately focus on shifting energy from self-defeating thoughts to more self-serving ones. This is the foundation of cognitive-behavioral therapy. Lately, however, I’ve been thinking (obviously) that thinking less may be an equally viable alternative. We spend our days focusing on problem solving, multitasking, relating, and reading the latest facebook update. Maybe our minds just need more rest!

The Importance of Rest and Recovery

Our brains weren’t designed to think non-stop. They naturally shut down to recover and consolidate information while we sleep. According to David Dinges, Ph.D., a sleep expert at the University of Pennsylvania, if a research subject who’s been awake for 22 hours gets behind the wheel of a car, he will have the same ability as someone with a .08 blood-alcohol level. For those students reading this, remember that the next time you contemplate an all-nighter. Practitioners of meditation achieve additional rest as they aim to quiet their conscious minds, and anyone taking part in an activity inducing flow may experience the same results.

Roger Federer

Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz train executives using models that have proven successful with high-level athletes. One of the key components of their model involves cycles of rest and recovery. A top-level athlete would never train non-stop. Intense training is completed within a carefully constructed timeframe of rest, replenishment, and recovery. The body needs these breaks in order to make the biggest gains from training sessions. They claim our minds work the same way. An over-scheduled CEO whose brain is constantly on its feet will benefit tremendously from incorporating mental rest periods throughout her day and week. Shifting energy from the business-minded left brain to the creative right brain provides an oscillation of energy that stimulates and rests the whole mind.

Is Thinking Always the Best Approach?

Research by Dutch psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis and his colleagues has shown that shutting down analytical thought may be advantageous in solving logic-based problems. They fed research participants in three conditions a ton of information about a series of apartments and asked each to choose the optimal apartment. Those given time to work out the solution performed better than those asked to respond right away. But the interesting finding was in the third case. These participants were pulled away immediately after hearing the apartment data to focus on another task. After working on that task a while, they were immediately asked for the optimal apartment. Although they had no time to consciously work out the numbers, they outperformed both of the other groups.

And these mental shifts may be more powerful than just solving logic problems. Author of A Stroke of Insight, neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor describes the experience of having a stroke after waking up one morning. The hemorrhage in her left brain hemisphere quieted that part of her mind and opened her attention to her right brain which was filled with feelings of peace, connectedness, and oneness with the universe. While she knew she was in trouble and needed help, she was in awe of what the other half of her brain was capable of. Her talk on TED is incredibly compelling.

Meeting Your Needs

So if our analytical brains need a rest, and we can benefit greatly from that rest, how do we achieve that? I think that may vary from person to person, but any creative outlet that limits your thinking may provide the rest you need. My current choice is to reconnect with musical creativity in the form blues guitar lessons. I’ve been inspired lately by many of John Mayer’s insightful song lyrics and figure getting lost in consciousness playing bluesy guitar riffs a couple hours a day might provide me the same enlightenment. I’ll keep you posted.

Please share your favorite creative outlets for resting your analytical mind in the comments.

Images:
Over-thinking courtesy of striatic
Roger Federer courtesy of y.caradec
No-thinking zone courtesy of chris.corwin
John Mayer courtesy of  P.Kelgan

References:

Dijksterhuis, A., Bos, M., Nordgren, L, & van Baaren, R. (2006). On making the right choice: The deliberation-without-attention effect. Science, 311(5763), 1005-1007.

Dinges, D. (2006). The neural basis of inter-individual variability in inhibitory efficiency following sleep deprivation. The Journal of Neuroscience 26(27), 7156-7162.

Loehr, J., & Schwartz, T. (2001). The Making of a Corporate Athlete. Harvard Business Review, January 2001, 120-128.

Taylor, J. B. (2006). My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey. Lulu.com.

Feel free to reprint this article on your website as long as the following phrase appears at the bottom:
This article is © 2009 PositivePsychologyNews.com. To see the original article, click here. To join the discussion on this article, click here.

TWEET This Article!

Del med andre på FACEBOOK

By Denise Clegg - September 20, 2009

Is optimism related to better cardiovascular health?  Yes. Can positive emotions protect against the common cold?  Yes.

A growing body of research shows that positive emotions and relationships improve immune functioning and may be protective health factors against our most devastating diseases and illnesses.

For the first time, U.S. health policy makers are considering comprehensive well-being targets that recognize the important relationship between positive psychology and physical health. You can learn more and participate by visiting the policy initiative website for Healthy People 2020.

New Health and Wellness Goals

Every ten years, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in collaboration with other organizations, re-evaluates and sets health and wellness goals based on new scientific evidence and public health trends and challenges. The current initiative – happening now – is called Healthy People 2020.

The new health targets will translate into federal, state, and local action plans, future research, and influence how hundreds of millions of dollars in public and private funding will be used.

Research on Positive Psychology and Physical Health

Why would policy makers care about human flourishing and positive emotions when faced with epidemics and disease?  Because research shows positive emotions and relationships are related to good health and longevity. Positive mental and emotional states are associated with faster recovery from illness and injury and lower rates of disease.  People with high levels of well-being are more productive at work, more engaged at home and with friends, and more likely to contribute to their communities.

For example:

• Optimism and emotional vitality are strongly associated – and may predict – cardiovascular health and lower risk for cardiovascular disease (Giltay et al, 2004; Kubzansky & Thurston, 2007)
• Positive emotions have been linked to better recovery and quality of life after a major cardiac event (Leedham et al, 1995)
• Positive emotional style may be a protective factor against infections such as the common cold (Cohen & Pressman, 2006), stroke (Ostir et al, 2008), and rapid progression of HIV (Taylor et al, 2000)
• Optimism and cynical hostility are inversely related to cancer-related mortality (Tindle, 2009)

Happiness, healthy habits, meaning, and engagement may even be contagious (Fowler & Christakis, 2008). And we know that those positive states can be built through awareness, practice, and positive interventions.

What is Health People 2020?

The current well-being objectives are currently under evaluation and open for public comment.  If you would like to be involved and support these objectives, you can:

• Join the initiative’s listserv
• Visit the Healthy People 2020 public comment website
• Attend public meetings
• Represent your organization in the Healthy People Consortium

As we see from the above findings about positive psychology measures and physical health, positive psychology research and interventions not only contribute to increased happiness and health – they may also help prevent, treat, and support recovery from physical and mental illness.

Images:
Healthy Mom and Baby from Pink Sherbet Photography’s photostream
Vivian and grandpa from Quole Perjorian’s photostream

References:

Cohen, S. & Pressman, S., (2006). Positive affect and health. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15(3): 122-125

Diener, E., Lucas, R., Schimmack, U., & Helliwell, J. (2009). Well-Being for Public Policy (Positive Psychology). New York: Oxford University Press.

Fowler JH, Christakis NA (2008) The dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network. British Med J 337:a2338

Giltay EJ, Geleijnse JM, Zitman FG, Hoekstra T, Schouten EG (2004). Dispositional optimism and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in a prospective cohort of elderly Dutch men and women. Arch Gen Psychiatry, 61:1126 –1135.

Kubzansky, L.D. & Thurston, R.C., (2007). Emotional vitality and incident coronary heart disease: benefits of healthy psychological functioning. Arch Gen Psychiatry; 64(12): 1393 – 1401.

Leedham, B. et al, (1995). Positive expectations predict health after heart transplantation. Health Psychology, 14(1): 74-79

Ostir, G., et al, 2008. Associations between positive emotion and recovery of functional status following stroke. Psychosomatic Medicine, 70(4): 404-409.

Taylor, S., et al, (2000). Psychological resources, positive illusions, and health. American Psychologist, 55(1): 99-109.

Tindle, H.A., et al, (2009) Optimism, cynical hostility, and incident coronary heart disease and mortality. Circulation; 120: 656-662.

Feel free to reprint this article on your website as long as the following phrase appears at the bottom:
This article is © 2009 PositivePsychologyNews.com. To see the original article, click here. To join the discussion on this article, click here.

TWEET This Article!

Del med andre på FACEBOOK

By Timothy T.C. So - September 18, 2009

Friends are approaching me with great interest in my preview article on the coaching conference and asking what’s so special about employing positive psychology in coaching. That triggers me to write a bit more on this expanding topic.

Two Backbones: Theoretical and Scientific

Coaches help people live out their potential. Coaches differ tremendously in terms of academic qualifications from none at all to a Bachelors in almost any subject, to a Masters in positive psychology (MAPP), counseling, education, clinical psychology or social work, and to a Doctorate in psychology, medicine, philosophy or even psychiatry. Positive psychology, with its short history, offers a new direction for coaching.

According to Martin Seligman, positive psychology offers two backbones to coaching: one theoretical and the other scientific and evidence-based. These backbones provide a useful guidance to the coaching practice. Theoretically, topics such as happiness, well-being, and the good life used to be regarded as unmanageable and unwieldy by coaches. Theories developed in the field of positive psychology about positive emotion, positive relationship, engagement and meaning, etc., have already in many ways regulated training, accreditation, and practice in coaching. On the other hand, evidence-based research has allowed nearly all these theories to be backed up by data. For example, we can now measure and have exercises (interventions) for clients in coaching practices.

With the two backbones, positive psychology techniques then give a coach the theoretical and evidence-based tools to augment the traditional “fix what’s wrong” approach with a “build what’s strong” approach.

Positive Psycholology Coaching vs. Other Types of Coaching

Scholars such as Robert Biswas-Diener, author of Positive Psychology Coaching; Carol Kauffman, Harvard psychologist and founding director of Harvard Coaching Institute; Alex Linley, founding director of Centre for Applied Positive Psychology; Anthony Grant, Director of the Coaching Psychology Unit, University of Sydney, and author of the Evidence Based Coaching Handbook, have been dedicating to developing positive psychology coaching. (If you want to know more, please refer to the further readings at the bottom).

I am frequently asked about the differences between positive psychology coaching and other approaches to life coaching, business coaching or self-help. The above leading people share this acumen within their coaching: being SCIENTIFIC. Positive psychology is based on vigorous scientific research whilst most other modes of coaching or self-help offer solutions without the science behind them.

According to Biswas-Diener, positive psychology is a branch of science that “shows tremendous potential as a natural interface with the profession of coaching. It is grounded in sophisticated scientific methodology, as an applied science.” In other words, without sophisticated and systematic evidence, there’s no guarantee that traditional self-help or coaching methods (like solely storytelling or experience sharing) will help clients reach their goals efficiently.

Linley indicates that coaching involves a focus on positive aspects of human nature, and on inspiring growth and change. Adding to that, I would consider positive psychology coaching as a scientifically-rooted approach to help coaches optimize the effectiveness of coaching practices, and to help clients better utilize the positive aspects of human nature.

Kauffman once said, “at the core of positive psychology coaching is a belief in the power of science to elucidate the best approaches for positively transforming clients’ lives.” Indeed, here are three areas in which coaches can easily employ science:

1. Read good positive psychology sources (such as this site or the books referenced here)
2. Use well-validated measurement tools (such as those on authentichappiness.org and happier.com)
3. Research how your clients respond to exercises and interventions

For example, Grant’s Languishing-Flourishing model of goal striving and mental health for coaching populations is definitely one of the brilliant illustrations making use of science in all the above areas.

How Audiences React to Positive Psychology Coaching

Skeptics may say that science is too rigorous and rational to be applied in practice. I nonetheless came across a real life example recently that responds directly to their reservations. I was one of the 50 people in the audience for a master’s lecture by Carol Kauffman in July on positive psychology in coaching. The audience of top leaders in business and education gave tremendously positive feedback for the workshop. The event was organized by Meyler Campbell, an organization that trains senior business people to be good business coaches. Clients fall broadly into two groups: senior leaders, managers, and HR professionals who want to coach well as part of their role; and people from business looking to transition to a portfolio coaching life.

Meyler Campbell is the first business coaching organization I have come across that incorporates positive psychology theories and knowledge into training in their business coach development programs. These include concepts of Flow, Ryan & Deci’s approach to motivation, Seligman’s Learned Optimism tools, the VIA inventory, Snyder’s Hope theory, and many others.

“We strive for excellence, which is to have sound empirical and scientific evidence in everything we teach,” said Anne Scoular, Managing Director of Meyler Cambell. “Though we have no advocacy to a particular approach, we found that positive psychology is indeed highly relevant to coaching and there is good evidence and theory to back this up. Thus, throughout our programme, students are exposed to positive psychology in many different ways – ways that they found dramatically beneficial.”

Organizations like Melyer Campbell demonstrate the success of using positive psychology in coaching practices. Hippocates, the father of medicine, once pointed out, “There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.” I truly believe the science of positive psychology begets knowledge, not only in the academia that catches researchers’ attention, but also in real world that makes a significant impact for the general public. The application to coaching is just one of the many examples.

Summary

Since positive psychology has existed as its own field for just over a decade, we should be careful of how knowledge can be transformed into practice without misunderstanding. In this regard, we should not overlook the insights from the aforementioned psychologists as well as organizations that bring these remarkable insights into action.

Psychology is both a pure and an applied science. And positive psychology coaching is shown to be one of the best usages of applied psychology for building a better community.

References:

Biswas-Diener, R. & Dean, B. (2007). Positive Psychology Coaching: Putting the Science of Happiness to Work for Your Clients. John Wiley & Sons

Grant, A. M., & Cavanagh, M. J. (2007). Evidence-based coaching: Flourishing or languishing? Australian Psychologist, 42(4), 239-254.

Kauffman, C. & Scoular, A. (2004). Toward a positive psychology of executive coaching. In P. A. Linley & S. Joseph (Eds.) Positive psychology in practice (pp.287-302). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Seligman, M. E. (2007). Coaching and positive psychology. Australian Psychologist, 42(4), 266-267.

Stober, D. & Grant, A. (2006) Evidence Based Coaching Handbook: Putting Best Practices to Work for Your Clients. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Feel free to reprint this article on your website as long as the following phrase appears at the bottom:
This article is © 2009 PositivePsychologyNews.com. To see the original article, click here. To join the discussion on this article, click here.

TWEET This Article!

Del med andre på FACEBOOK

By Dave Shearon - September 17, 2009

When I speak to lawyers at continuing legal education (CLE) events, I often mention that we do not accredit topics such as resilience, optimism, energy, strengths, etc., because we want lawyers to feel better. Mandatory CLE (MCLE) is about helping lawyers perform better. The same is true for the work I do with K-12 educators or with the U.S. Army. Positive psychology is clearly involved with productivity.

When asked to quickly define positive psychology, I say it is “the science of human success.” This highlights the scientific foundation at the heart of positive psychology, which distinguishes the field from positive thinking. It also emphasizes that positive psychology is not primarily about “feeling good.”

On the other hand, “feeling good” — pleasure, engagement, positive emotions – matters, too. I care whether I feel good. I care whether the members of my family feel good. I care about these things not because they matter to productivity, but because they matter intrinsically.

But happiness and productivity are not mutually exclusive. I do care about how my friends and coworkers feel, and at least partially because how they feel effects their performance. I want co-workers to be happy and engaged because I know and like them, but also because their productivity matters to me as a manager. When it comes to MCLE accreditation for positive psychology programs, good feelings are very much a sideline issue — we are concerned with productivity.

Current Research on “Feeling Good” and Productivity

A body of growing research demonstrates that positive psychology training increases productivity. In one recent study, financial services sales agents received training designed to change their explanatory style toward a more positive, optimistic outlook (Proudfoot, Corr, Guest, and Dunn, 2009). They then participated in a six week maintenance program and a review session three months later. From a feelings standpoint, these employees experienced significant positive improvements in attributional style, self-esteem, and job satisfaction — even as their organization was undergoing large-scale change which many employees found distressing. From the organization’s standpoint, their productivity increase is indicated by a 66% reduction in their likelihood to quit.

This result is consistent with other work-related research. Psychological Capital by Luthans, Youssef, and Avolio includes an in-depth cost/benefit analysis of the brief intervention to boost PsyCap.  Further, in Positivity, Barbara Fredrickson recounts a large scale study she conducted in a commercial organization that used loving-kindness meditation to boost both well-being and productivity.

These results describe the “What?” of productivity.  The focus is on what was produced and how much production increased.  From an external standpoint, this is a useful question.  I may want to know how many pages I wrote in a day or how many presentations I made last year.  Law firms want to know how much billings increased.  A prosecutor’s office of public defender may want to know how many matters were resolved.  Schools (or, at least, the taxpayers who fund them) want some evidence in the form of standardized test scores that learning increased.   Each of these involve a focus on what is being produced.

The “Why?” of Productivity

There is another question, however, that matters not only to individuals, but to organizations.  Why?  Why am I seeking to be productive in this area?  The lawyer who hates her job and sees it as just “trying to help rich corporations get richer” is likely to remain relatively unmoved when told that positive psychology might be able to help her be more productive.  The teacher who sees his students as untrustworthy learners (see the work of Roger Goddard) and views himself as a baby-sitter is likewise unlikely to respond to calls to be more productive.  Answering the “Why?” question is imperative to long-term, sustainable growth in productivity.

Recently, I was listening to the Army medical unit commander whose unit was sent to Abu Ghraib shortly after the pictures of abuse there were made public.  His command’s job, primarily, was to care for Iraqis, many of whom were injured while trying to kill American soldiers, usually because they had been offered a few dollars.  The medics would patch them up and, often enough, send them back out knowing that they would likely do the same thing again if they received a similar offer.  He emphasized the work he had to do as commander to solicit his unit’s thoughts on “Why?”  Why are we doing this?

They developed detailed answers from multiple perspectives — from the personal level, to the professional, to the tactical, moral, and strategic.  His command demonstrated innovation, resilience, comradarie, and compassion in meeting their objective.  The commander’s instinct that answering “Why?” was important to his unit was validated by the unit’s productivity.

Feeling Good Can Increase “What?” and Answer “Why?”

What if about you or the people you work neither “feel good” nor have an answer to the “Why?” question?  Is working on the “Why?” the place to start?  This has often been tried.

Schools with unhappy, untrusting faculty members may spend time working on a mission statement.  Staff in a toxic workplace may spend a lot of time talking about the business’ values.  Typically, the results remind me of a quote from one of my favorite science fiction from when I was younger.  Robert Heinlein said, “Never try to teach a pig to sing; it annoys the pig and wastes your time.” Of course, people are not pigs, even unhappy people caught in a web of toxic behaviors in a dysfunctional culture.

Rather,  “Other people matter.” Thus, whether with ourselves or with organizations, we should start with the basics, the bottom layer of the Positive Psychology Pyramid:  Resilience/Optimism/Energy, Strengths, and Relationships.  As these increase, individuals feel better, productivity starts to go up, and folks are ready to work on values, purpose, and goals.

It is tough for a leader to focus on helping individuals feel better when an organization faces overwhelming challenges.  But there may be no better time in terms of payoff.  Sir Earnest Shackleton led an Antaratic expedition from 1914 to 1916 . His ship became trapped in an early freeze and the crew lived stuck in the ice for the rest of the winter.  Late in the season, the ice began to crush the ship. The crew had to unload what they could and camp on the ice.   When the ice finally broke up, the men sailed in small boats for eight days through a hurricane only to reach a desolate island covered in penguin manure.

Shackleton had selected his men for optimism. He trained his second-in-command to recognize each man’s daily contribution and to celebrate birthdays, successes, etc.  Then he left the island to go seek help.

He took the ship’s navigator and his two most pessimistic crewmen (rather than leave them behind to poison the rest). After800 miles on the ocean they landed on  an island with a whaling station.  Shackleton began begging and borrowing ships to rescue his crew.  The first two attempts were thwarted by ice, but the third suceeded and not one man was lost.

In fact, Shackleton had done such a good job teaching his crew to care for each other, that one sailor celebrating his birthday on the miserable island noted in his journal that it was, “the best day of my life”!

When we feel good, it’s easier to answer “Why?” (King, Hicks, Krull, Del Gaiso, 2006).  Why are we working to achieve our goals?  Because we feel good!  Because we have energy.  Because it lets us use our strengths and spend time with people we like and care about.  Using this model, when we feel good, we are  more likely to be in touch with our values, find a purpose in our work,  and have intrinsic goals in harmony with our purpose and values. That also promotes the objectives of the organizations we work for.  We are glad to be at work and our work is glad to have us!  That’s a good thing for individuals, for organizations, and for society.

References:
Fredrickson, B. (2009). Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive. New York: Crown.

King, L., Hicks, J., Krull, J., Del Gaiso, A. (2006).  Positive affect and the experience of meaning in life.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(1), 179-196.

Luthans, F., Youssef, C. & Avolio, B. (2006). Psychological Capital: Developing the Human Competitive Edge. Oxford University Press.

Proudfoot, C., Corr, P., Guest, D., Dunn, G. (2009).  Cognitive-behavioural training to change attributional style improves employee well-being, job satifaction, productivity, and turnover.  Personality and Individual Differences, 46(2), 147-153.

Images:
Workit by niels roza http://www.flickr.com/photos/nielsroza/3087176903/
Reminiscing by kevindooley http://www.flickr.com/photos/12836528@N00/3300588532/
Army Iraq hearing exam by army.mil http://www.flickr.com/photos/35703177@N00/3130951774/
Positive Psychology Pyramid (c) David N. Shearon 2009, used with author permission

Feel free to reprint this article on your website as long as the following phrase appears at the bottom:
This article is © 2009 PositivePsychologyNews.com. To see the original article, click here. To join the discussion on this article, click here.

TWEET This Article!

Del med andre på FACEBOOK

By Margaret Greenberg and Senia Maymin - September 16, 2009

Following is a excerpt from our upcoming book “Profit From the Positive.”  Past excerpts are here.
~ Margaret Greenberg (Bio, Articles) and Senia Maymin (Bio, Articles)

———

Muscles built from habit

Suppose you routinely get an hour of exercise five days a week. You have a gym at your workplace that you visit every morning Monday through Friday. Both the location of the gym and the timing of your workout are convenient for you. Now suppose you change jobs and there is no gym at your new workplace. What is the likelihood that you’ll stick to your exercise routine?

Psychologist Wendy Wood of Duke University and two colleagues looked at the results on exercise of students that transfer into an environment different from their earlier environment. Those students for whom the environment was very similar (same distance to the gym, similar class schedule, etc.) reported that they stuck with their exercise habit. Those students for whom the environment changed quite a bit were more likely to drop the exercise routine.

Wood and her colleagues point to the importance of timing and environment in triggering our habit cues. For those students who either had the same context or were able to create one in their new environment, adhering to their exercise regimen was simple. It wasn’t something they needed to think about. It didn’t require additional mental energy.

Habits = Less Thinking, Less Stress

Wood and two other colleagues studied habits in everyday life and found that people who perform habits use less of their conscious thinking and have less stress when engaging in the habit compared to those who engage in a conscious, deliberate goal. Using exercise as an example this means that people who view exercise as a habit do so automatically – they don’t even really think about it; they “Just Do It” as Nike proclaims.

How to Turn A Goal into a Habit

At the office first thing in the morning

In general, if we want to achieve something in our lives, we start with a new behavior to achieve our target result. If we want to be more productive, we have to deliberately plan, “I will spend the first hour of the morning on this important project.” Initially, there is more conscious thinking.

Then, if we create the same time and same place for that behavior – “every morning first thing in the office, I will work on this project” (same time, same place) – then it becomes more routine and requires less thinking and less stress to accomplish it.

That’s in summary the transition from a goal into a habit: a target result starts with deliberate focus, and then because of repetition in the same environment, becomes more automatic.

Wood and her colleague David Neal at Duke University have identified a theory of habit-goal interface. They propose three principles:

1. Habits respond to environmental cues (same place, same time)
2. Habits arise when people use a particular behavior to pursue a goal, and habits will remain even after people stop having that goal as a pursuit (the habit of running every morning can aim towards the goal of losing weight; running will be habitual even when the ideal weight is reached)
3. Habits do not change to meet current goals; they remain linked to the environment in which they were created (running outside in the summer may not be transferable to running inside in the winter)

Sometimes we start by having a goal (like starting to floss everyday after being reprimanded by our hygienist) and eventually it becomes a habit (when I reach for my toothbrush, I also reach for the floss).

Hotel gym

Be aware that sometimes we need a short dose of conscious thought to move from a goal to a habit. For example, although you may intend to exercise on your business trip you may not exercise as much or at all because you are away from your usual routine. The hotel gym is not the natural context for you. You will probably need to focus more conscious thought (such as remembering to pack your gym clothes, asking upon check-in for the location of the gym, etc.), in order to keep to your exercise goal. But keep in mind, even hotel gym workouts can become a habit if repeated often enough.

Goals Becoming Habits at Work

How well do you schedule and prioritize at work? Is this something you constantly need to work at, or is this something that comes habitually to you? For example:

Goal: “I have a goal to clean out my email in-box on the weekend.”
Habit: “I delete or archive each email after reading it.”

Given the above habit-goal interface theory, we recommend that you outsource as much of your life as possible to the unconscious, just get-it-done mental energy. Turn actions into habits.

Make your life easy for yourself. If something is important to you, don’t think about it each and every time. Make it a habit.

Some sample habits:

• Decide on a time to plan your day with no interruptions (some of our clients prefer last thing before they leave for the day, some prefer first thing in the morning).
• Look at your priorities and schedule for only 18 minutes out of the day, but at the same times of the day (a Peter Bregman recommendation).
• Write a list of what you will do and what you will avoid for the day (another Peter Bregman recommendation).
• Check email at only certain times each day, not whenever a new one pops up.
• Read PositivePsychologyNews.com at the same time every day.

When you put necessary actions into habits, you free up your mental energy for other things – like building and deepening relationships at home, at work, and in our communities.

Enjoy cultivating your new habits!

Images:
Arnold Schwarzenegger Abs courtesy of d_vdm
Hotel gym (Twitter 365 Project – Day 62) courtesy of lu_lu
At the office first thing (omg Shiny Trousers) courtesy of SimonDoggett

References:
Wood, W., & Neal, D. T. (2007). A new look at habits and the interface between habits and goals. Psychological Review.
Wood, W., Tam, L., & Guerrero Witt, M. (2005). Changing circumstances, disrupting habits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 918-933.
Wood, W., Quinn, J. M., & Kashy, D. (2002). Habits in everyday life: Thought, emotion, and action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1281-1297.

Feel free to reprint this article on your website as long as the following phrase appears at the bottom:
This article is © 2009 PositivePsychologyNews.com. To see the original article, click here. To join the discussion on this article, click here.

TWEET This Article!

Del med andre på FACEBOOK

Warning: file_get_contents(/home/admin/main/wp-content/bios/eleanorchin.TXT) [function.file-get-contents]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/admin/main/wp-content/plugins/rss-footer-pospsych.php on line 32

By Eleanor Chin - September 15, 2009

What drives productivity for you? Is it visions of success or fear of failure? If it’s the latter, you’re probably a perfectionist.

I admit it. I have been known to set impossibly high standards for myself. Some of you might be saying: What’s wrong with having high standards?

Nothing. But to my mind, a perfectionist is someone who not only wants to do well but is driven to avoid failure at all costs. Perfection is excellence on steroids.

Here’s where language can help or hinder us. Striving for excellence is a positive driver because excellence is an attainable quality that allows for some miss-steps along the way. But striving for perfection 1) is not attainable 2) is based on fear of failure or inadequacy and 3) can actually set us up to fail.

Perfectionism is often a quality of highly successful people, but perfection can be a moving target. When taken too far, we create ever-changing, and therefore, unattainable goals for ourselves. Perfectionists are never satisfied with themselves or others. They are often stressed out or depressed from trying to reach ever-higher standards. They can be chronic procrastinators and control freaks, potentially doomed to pervasive frustration in their search for life satisfaction.

The Price of Perfectionism

Taken to extremes, perfectionism can be the enemy of productivity.

Perfectionists can look productive but a different picture emerges below the surface.  Perfectionists are paralyzed by fear that their work will fall short  when being judged. This paralysis prevents them from finishing projects, as they ponder over them incessantly in fear they don’t measure up.

When performance falls short, researchers have found that perfectionism leads to more than decreased productivity. A perfectionist’s self-esteem is contingent on achievement. Thus, deeper effects include reduced self-esteem, anxiety and depression. Perfectionism can also damage relationships.

Perfectionists can also achieve great successes but often with high costs. Researchers Robins and Wrzesniewski reflect on Michelangelo, who after more than a decade of work  on the Florentine Pieta –  considered his most important work to date — one day shattered it to pieces with a sledgehammer. “Disillusioned and isolated in the last decades of his life, Michelangelo had a heightened sense of perfectionism that was exacerbated by his failure to live up to the expectations of his father, who viewed being a sculptor as akin to being a manual laborer. Michelangelo, it seems, had self-esteem issues.”

Procrastination
For years, I’ve thought of myself as a procrastinator. I can show you a closet full of unfinished projects all neatly packaged and ready to go—the wall hanging for my sister from Christmas 1990, the sweater for my husband, no longer stylish, the scrapbook of baby pictures, etc. etc. Sound familiar?

I now understand that procrastination is related to perfectionism. I was afraid that these highly personal manifestations of my talents wouldn’t measure up, afraid that I would disappoint others. By not completing projects, I neatly avoided being judged by not having a final product!

Perfectionism Research
Research on perfectionism includes the following three categories of automatic thinking: self-oriented (expecting perfection of themselves), other-oriented (expecting perfection of others) and socially prescribed (believing that others demand perfection of them).

Researchers have also identified six major dimensions of perfectionism—extreme concern over making mistakes, high personal standards, the perception of high parental expectations and criticism, doubting the quality of one’s actions, and preference for order and organization. Can you relate to any of these?

Perfectionism is democratic. It can induce anxiety and undermine resilience in children or adults, men and women. Stories abound of high-achieving students who fall apart at the prospect of getting an A- rather than an A+ and of executives who reach a plateau because they are unable to delegate.

Tips for Combating Perfectionist Thinking

We learn to value perfectionist tendencies from our parents, our peers, our work settings, our relationships, and from society. But the good news is that what we can learn, we can also unlearn. How can we help ourselves and our children to be less perfectionist and more productive?

1. Stress excellence rather than perfection. Remind yourself and others about the difference between the desire to excel and the desire to be perfect. Sometimes this distinction can help curb perfectionist thinking with more mindfulness.

2. Cultivate a “learning” rather than a “performance” mindset. With a learning mindset, we think of mistakes as information for learning how to do things differently next time. With a performance mindset, we tend to focus on success or failure of the outcome and miss the opportunities to learn from the process.

3. Focus on “benefit-finding” rather than “fault-finding.” Catch yourself and others doing something right by noticing and shifting your tendencies to be critical. Of course, it’s hard to rewire our critical thinking brains. But you can start by changing the balance of positive and negative thoughts. Look for, savor and celebrate the good things more than you search for things that go wrong.

4. Put it in perspective. Put it into perspective by asking yourself, will this matter in a year? Is it worth the cost of the self-esteem, psychological and emotional health of yourself, your friends, colleagues or your child?

5. Monitor your self-talk when you or others make mistakes. Instead of sending the message “you’re not good enough,” consider actions that appreciate the effort or notice the steps in the process. Create space for imperfection by allowing the effort to be “good enough.” Better yet, celebrate mistakes. Benjamin Zander, Conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, punctuates his musicians’ flubs with a delighted “how fascinating!”

6. Focus on the journey. Set a goal, write it down, and then forget about it by directing your attention to the process of getting there. Focusing on what’s happening in the moment will help distract you from worrying about the outcome. Mindfulness training helps with focusing on the moment.

Ultimately, we are a culture focused on performance,  but we are more than the sum of our achievements. Human beings are also made up of personal stories, values, passions, hopes and dreams. We need to remember to honor who we are as well as what we do. Otherwise, we’d be called “human doings.”

Images: Target, Evaluation Form, and Stones courtesy of author, Streeter Seidell courtesy of Zach Klein, Wave courtesy of thelastminute

References

Besser, A., Flett, G.L., Hewitt, P.L., Guez, J. (2008), Perfectionism, and cognitions, affect, self-esteem, and physiological reactions in a performance situation. Journal of Rational-Emotive Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. 26, 206-228.

Martin, A. (2005), The role of positive psychology in enhancing satisfaction, motivation and productivity in the workplace. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management. 24 (1), 113-133.

Ben-Shahar, T. (2009) The Pursuit of Perfect: How to Stop Chasing Perfection and Start Living a Richer, Happier Life. New York: McGraw Hill.

Zander, R. & Zander, B. (2000). The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life. New York: Penguin.

For a review of  The Pursuit of Perfect see PPND author Amanda Horne’s post this month.

Feel free to reprint this article on your website as long as the following phrase appears at the bottom:
This article is © 2009 PositivePsychologyNews.com. To see the original article, click here. To join the discussion on this article, click here.

TWEET This Article!

Del med andre på FACEBOOK