Men, change the lens your brain is using, and you can change everything.
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Shawn Achor was only seven when he unwittingly discovered, through his manipulation of his hurt five-year-old sister, what would be not only his career, but what would become “the vanguard of a scientific revolution occurring two decades later in the way that we look at the human brain”: positive psychology. Do yourself a favour and get the full comedic effect of this hilarious psychologists story-telling, particularly the opening story of Amy the Special Unicorn, in his TED talk The Happy Secret to Better Work.
Positive psychology seeks to understand not just how to move you or I up to average, but how to move the entire average up to where the outlier sits.
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Whenever you see a graph of statistics plotted out, there was almost always one red dot above the curve that messed up the data before it was purposely deleted, one weird as Shawn would say. Statisticians, psychologists, economists and business leaders want to find a statistically valid way to eliminate the weirdo, the outlier, the lone red dot. Most researchers will in fact change the original question if needed to excuse that anomaly in the research and uncover how we get to average and ignore the outlier.
Positive psychology is the field of purposely ignoring the average and looking at the weirdo. If we study what is merely average, we will remain average. We can escape the cult of average to rise above, because normal, is merely average as Shawn says. Why are some of us in society so far above the curve in intellect, resilience, creativity, physical ability, or anything really? If you are the outlier, Shawn doesn’t want to delete you from his graph even though you are messing up the data; he wants to study you. He wants to know why you are special. Positive psychology seeks to understand not just how to move you or me up to average, but how to move the entire average up to where the outlier sits.
What those who study positive psychology are learning is it is not reality that shapes our view, but the lens through which you view the world that shapes your reality. Change the lens your brain is using, and you can change everything.
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Shawn applied to Harvard on a dare, and then spent eight years living in the dorms after graduating, counselling the students through the stress of attending Harvard. It takes the average student only two weeks to forget the privilege, excitement and honour of attending Harvard; within that short span of time the brain has re-focused to the stresses, complaints, and competition of the environment.
Author Malcolm Gladwell wrote in David and Goliath about the very topic of the unhappiness Harvard students face when studying alongside so many of their very competent and intelligent peers. It is the big fish in the little pond versus the little fish in the big pond dilemma, and one example of how much of your reality can be affected by the way in which you perceive and dwell on the sensory input your brain is receiving.
The field of positive psychology has discovered that even when knowing everything about your external world, only 10% of your happiness can be accurately predicted. A full 90% of your long-term happiness stems from the way your brain processes the world. Change the way your brain interprets information about the world and you can change your happiness levels without anything else in your physical world actually changing.
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If you want to work harder, more intelligently, more creatively, more accurately, or more productively, you must first train your brain to be more positive.
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As a society, we are starting to grasp that the mere absence of disease is not health; it is the same for happiness and success. We collectively need to reverse the formula we use for happiness and success. The standard operating process used by most parents, business leaders and schools is: work harder = more successful = more happiness. Is that not the American Dream in a nutshell? Positive psychology surmises this approach is actually backwards because of the way your brain works.
The brain at positive performs significantly higher than at negative, neutral or stressed thanks to Dopamine. If you want to work harder, more intelligently, more creatively, more accurately, or more productively, you must first train your brain to be more positive. By incorporating five key activities into your daily routine you help your brain utilize the reversed happiness formula. This will take only a few minutes per day, but if you commit to these activities for 21 days, you can rewire your brain allowing it to work more optimistically. You will literally form new neural pathways in your brain which will allow it to, of its own accord, start scanning the world for positives rather than negatives. This is what you need to do:
1) Write down three new things you are grateful for each day.
2) Journal about one positive experience you have had during the last 24 hours each day.
3) Exercise daily.
4) Meditate daily.
5) Perform an act of kindness daily.
In Shawn’s words, you can use these tips to create ripples of positivity and a happiness revolution.
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I believe deeply from personal experience in the power of the brain to “trick” yourself into positivity. When I was going through crisis after crisis in my life, and after more than one year of traditional therapy, reading self-help books and utilizing western medicine with marginal gains, I instinctively concluded I needed to supplement my efforts with tasks specific to the brain. Through various resources, I came across most of the five tasks Shawn mentions, as well as others, to move my brain from negative to more positive. For me personally, actively practising gratitude, daily meditation, and high-intensity cardio exercise were the three game changers.
Some of the tricks I used came from other TED talks and speakers which I will cover in upcoming articles. Please, come back in later weeks to learn how power-posing and the game Super Better impact the brain and significantly moved me from barely surviving to mostly thriving.
Shawn is the author of several books on positive psychology, the most recent publication being The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work. You can also watch his two-part Oprah Interview on the topic of positive psychology.
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Photo:/Flickr/digitalbob8
Totally legitimate question; I was expecting someone to ask that OirishM. It is a quote from the TED talk. If you watch the talk, you will understand the context. Cheers.
Right on!
What in the world does risky sex have to do with anything here? O_o