I've always been a little curious, but with my renewed interest in reading my curiosity has gone into overdrive. A recent gem was a gift from my amazing wife, The Psychology Book. It explores the field of psychology from the founding fathers to modern psychologist in easy to understand language with relevance to everyday life. One of the psychologists featured was Martin Seligman and his book Flourish. His focus is on people's strengths rather than their weaknesses.
Here are a few of his exercises:
Use Your Strengths
- He suggests taking the VIA strengths questionnaire to assess your strengths and then to think of ways to use those strengths more in your daily life. There are several other assessment questionnaires on his website such as the Grit survey to measure perseverance. I took the VIA and my top strength was creativity. It was very enlightening and helped me better understand my current habits. I realized I have been tinkering with my triathlon training to satisfy my drive for discovering new and better ways to do things. Unfortunately it was my only creative outlet and led to too much tinkering. Since taking the questionnaire, I am now exploring other ways to satisfy my desire to be creative such as cooking and encouraging others (exercise #3).
Three Good Things
- Another exercise is to think of three good things, each evening, that happened and why you think they happened. In other words, what went well and why. I've done this exercise before, and I like the twist of exploring why. Research on the traditional Gratitude Exercise has shown improvements in sleep, happiness, illness, and a host of other benefits. The exercise forces me to view each day as a positive and reminds me of the small steps that lead to each accomplishment. I worry less and focus more on the controllable process.
Active Responding
- Exercise #3 is active-constructive responding. It is where you react in a visibly positive and enthusiastic way to good news from someone else. At least once a day, respond actively and constructively to someone you know. Celebrate with them. Ask them to relive the event. This is not an area of strength for me. My focus is typically on myself and making myself feel good. However, Seligman points out that emotions are contagious. When other people are happy and you celebrate with them, you can't help but feel better. It reminds me of Bandura and his research on confidence. Seeing other people achieve success helps you believe you can achieve success. Seligman also points out that being pessimistic is as bad for your health as smoking 2 packs per day of cigarettes. Luckily happiness is more powerful than sadness. So far this exercise is a work in progress, but has given me a distraction from my own worries.
Savoring
- Once a day, take the time to enjoy something that you usually hurry through (eating, showering, walking, etc.). When it's over think about what you did, how you did it differently, and how it felt compared to when you rush through it. This exercise of "living in the moment" has shown me that joy is all around. Sometimes I look for specific "things" to make me happy, but that ends up limiting my happiness to only a few moments in life. Plus those moments don't last forever. I wait and wait for the weekend, only to have it pass so fast. By slowing down I have also improved my patience and self control.
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