Change to a Positivity Outlook

I have been away from writing in my blog due to work and medical tests. This week I am back at it. I am reflecting on a book I read after attending the IPPA (International Positive Psychology Association), conference in Montreal in the Summer. The book is Positivity (Purchase this at Barnes & Noble) by Dr. Barbara Fredrickson. She is a professor of psychology at University of North Carolina. In her book she discusses many of the common topics within positive psychology. One of the many strengths of the book is that she includes the research behind positive psychology in an understandable fashion. I cover some of the same topics in my book, Living More Than OK (Purchase this at Barnes & Noble), but I do not delve into the research as I was writing a personal journey reflection book.

What is positivity? Most people are familiar with negativity. We are inundated with negativity in the news as negative stories draw people’s attention. Over the years working in different environments I remember that most of what people would bring up in the work place was how frazzled their day was or negative events. Dr. Fredrickson at the beginning of chapter 1 in her book she shares an experiential description of two perspectives of starting the same day that sheds light on positivity.

The first morning perspective is a mother who wakes up late as the alarm doesn’t go off. It does not take long to read the all too common negative self-talk we all do when we oversleep on a work day. The reading then shows how that negatively spirals down to harping at her children in getting them off to school. Then a further negative spiral downward occurs as she interacts in a negative manner with her co-workers. If we are honest this is all too common for all of us.

The second perspective shows the same mother waking up late but instead of the initial negative self-talk there is a positive realism on how to make the most of the day. That initial mental change creates a positive upward spiral in relating to her children with a further upward positive spiral with her co-workers. After reading through the two perspectives I thought back to some times in my life where I reacted negatively and could see now if I worked from a positive self-talk and positive actions, things would have gone better.

I read these pages from the book to my College Success students this semester and the two perspectives provided a helpful positive discussion on how our thoughts and perspectives can create better days through positivity. If you honestly think how often we spiral down in our days by reacting negatively in our thinking and responding actions; you can then understand that we have a choice to change our responses in a positive direction. Those few pages are worth the price of the book.

I experienced this thought on perspectives recently after doing a nuclear stress test. The nurses said I did great as I went the max speed and incline on the treadmill. So I felt pretty good. Then a few days later the cardiologist called me and was concerned over the cool down EKG results and pictures of the heart showed a possible blockage. Negativity set in as I had to schedule a heart cath to check for artery blockages. I was not looking forward to it as I asked the doctor to post pone until the end of the semester and his response was I could have a heart attack before then.

So my wife took off time from work and I went into the heart cath expecting to go home that day with no blockages. When I woke up later, I found out one artery was 99% blocked which they stented. Then I would have to go back in again soon for another lesser blockage. As I was resting in the hospital I thought of Dr. Barbara Fredrickson’s book and thought on positivity in this situation. I thought back to 15 years ago when I was in my early 40’s, I had 2 other arteries blocked both at 99%. I thought also how about 56 years ago my father had died when I was at the age of 2 because they did not have heart technology to save him.

So while I laid in the hospital bed, I thought of the concept of gratitude considering that I have missed a heart attack or death twice. I was also grateful for the technology that could help with heart blockages before a heart attack occurs. Also I could be thankful for many friends who offered prayers for me. From my spiritual viewpoint, I also thought over purpose in life that if I have missed a heart attack twice. There must be other purposes for my continued future living. As the saying goes “God isn’t through with me yet.”

Back to Dr. Fredrickson’s book, another important strength of her book is that the last half of the book is filled with interventions to help you grow in positivity. As a therapist I appreciate her listing and explaining the positive interventions. I have used many of them in my own life and with clients. There are practical ideas such as gratitude journals, random acts of kindness, visualizing your future dreams, and focusing on your strengths. She also presents positive themed portfolios to help a person focus in on positive emotions. I will mention one here from page 117 to give you a feel for this activity (purchase her book or find it at a library to do the other portfolios). You answer questions about an emotion using words or pictures or drawings combined. I think of them as collage posters. Here is her “Serenity Portfolio:

1. When have you felt fully at peace and serene, truly content where you are?
2. When has your life felt so comfortable and so very right?
3. When does your body feel completely relaxed with all your physical tensions melted away?
4. When do feel like simply sitting back and soaking it all in savoring the goodness you feel, thinking of new ways to get that feeling in your life more often?

I encourage you to add Dr. Barbara Fredrickson’s book Positivity to your must read list as it will help you spiral upwards in your life journey.

Reflection: Think through a recent negative life situation and how you responded. How could you have changed your thinking, feelings and actions in a positive manner? What are 3 things you are grateful for today?

Gratitude in the Workplace

Work and thoughts of thanksgiving often do not go together. Work and complaining is usually the common duo. I have done my share of complaining about work. It usually leaves me more depressed and agitated. As I have been learning more about the importance of gratitude and the importance of a thankful spirit, in the Positive Psychology course I am taking, it has challenged my thoughts on workplace attitudes.

Does all the complaining about work ever help? Usually it spirals into deeper negativity and turns our work into drudgery and exacerbates the difficulties and levels of boredom in our work. I have read and tried the calculation out with a calculator; that we work about 85,000 hours in our lifetime from age 21-65. The big question is how do we want to spend that amount of time? Do we want to spend it in a negative manner of boredom and long-term complaining? Or do we want a work life with a sense of fulfillment and positive feelings of enjoying our work settings? There are several topics that relate to this such as finding our calling, using flow in the workplace, and utilizing our personal strengths in our work. These will be discussed on a later date. With Thanksgiving this week I thought I would focus on using Gratitude in the workplace.

You would think in our present economic circumstances of over 10% unemployment and most likely 17% real unemployment in the country just having a job would be a cause for thanksgiving. That doesn’t seem to be enough to halt the complaining about work.

First let’s look at what causes the negativity to set in. Each job has its routines. As we begin a new job we are in learning mode and everything seems fresh and new. The learning is a challenge. Then as we get into the groove we start doing everything the same way. The client interaction and paperwork starts moving in a circular cycle and becomes routine. If we focus on the routine then boredom begins to set in. The boredom can then create a sense of restlessness about our work. Negativity begins to be the lens through which we start to look at our work. Day in and day out the negativity can spiral into complaining about the boredom.
A loss of purpose also occurs when letting negativity about our work take over. When we start a new job there is a sense of learning how our work fits into the whole of the company, whether it is a shipping clerk sending finished orders to clients; a customer service representative helping a customer with a problem; or a career counselor helping a college students open their eyes to a major possibility that connects with a personality strength. Becoming more competent in our work then helps increase our purposefulness in serving our customers. If we lose focus on our work purpose and begin to focus on the negatives such as letting ourselves become overcome with boredom or petty comparisons of how other workers are doing their jobs in a complaining manner; what started out as an enjoyable dream job can turn into a hellish nightmare.

What can be done to turn the negativity around? I will discuss a couple of ideas for you to try out. These are ideas I have stumbled upon that have helped me and I am just passing them on. First of all write down a list of 5 workplace duties that are routine to you. These may be reports that you have to do; regular assessments that you perform; or certain work activities you do in a regular manner. It is often these routines that start us complaining. “Oh no, I have to do that again!” That complaining then compounds into other complaints. So find some time to brainstorm new ways of doing your routine activities. If you work with a teammate, brainstorm with them to increase the creativity. Even a small change may be enough to add a positive lift to your work setting. As a Career Counselor I can get into a routine of doing our career assessment with students and the temptation could be to just test and tell the student quickly what to major in to just get the session over with and back to my desk. To fight that I make a commitment to see each student as unique and remembering the importance to opening their eyes to the possibilities in their futures.

Another idea is to make a list at the beginning of the workweek of 5 things you are thankful about concerning your work. One may be as simple as just being grateful to have a job in bad economic times. By building up a list you are thankful for about your work, will be a natural positive arsenal against the negativity of complaining. In regularly building up a list of gratefulness about your work it may also help when you are tempted by co-workers to jump into gripe sessions which just add to workplace negativity.

Then finally renew your passion to be the best in moving towards excellence in your work. Boredom can not overtake you if you are constantly challenging yourself to be your best. If you are trying to promote excellence in the workplace a positive attitude will follow and help diminish negativity in the workplace. Try these ideas out each Monday in your work to try to beat the Monday work blues.

Program Your Self -Talk in a Positive Direction

If you did the exercise in the last posting about comparing your negative vs. positive thoughts and came up with more negatives, don’t start feeling too bad. Dr. Shad Helmstetter in his book, Who Are You Really and What Do You Want? states there is some research that shows for some people up to 70% of their thinking is negative. That is a big chunk of negativity. What can we do to change the percentages in a positive direction?

One key area where we can improve our thinking in a more positive way is what we say to ourselves – our self talk. Yes it is ok to talk to yourself. We do it all the time. You probably don’t want to walk through the shopping mall holding a long dialogue with yourself. You will get a lot of strange looks but seriously, it is important to consider the things we say to ourselves.

I remember years ago in a College basic computer programming class learning the acronym, GIGO, Garbage In Garbage Out. If your computer program is filled with errors, your output on the program will be filled with errors. The professor mentioned that in his opinion the greatest computer ever designed was the human brain designed by God. He exhorted the class to apply the GIGO principle to our lives and thinking. If you allow garbage in to your minds the output into your life will be garbage.

Years after this while I was studying on my first Masters degree in Divinity/Counseling at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL my advisor encouraged me to read the Dr. Helmstetter book, What To Say When You Talk To Yourself. This, along with my appreciation for Cognitive Behavioral theories in my Psychology courses caused me to be awestruck by the power of our thinking in our individual lives.

Self-talk is the internal scripts we say to ourselves in our minds- “Boy, I’m sure having a rotten day!”, “How could I be so stupid”, “I should be able to do this better”, “ I will never be able to remember things!”, “ My mom said I would always be a failure. I guess she was right.” “I just can’t be creative!”. The scripts are programming statements that we consciously and unconsciously repeat over and over to ourselves. These statements program our personal internal computer, (our brain). When the programming is full of shoulds, coulds, can’ts and regrets we are programming major negativity which will produce negativity in our lives.

When I first read What To Say When You Talk To Yourself , I reflected over all the “I can’t” statements that had limited my past from my teen years and negatively affected the present at the time. I was astounded at the negativity and limitations I had placed on myself, almost unknowingly. I would like to say that that realization changed my life to success over night. Mental habits are slow in changing. Even up to this day. Before starting this blog for months I remember arguing with myself, “Why bother writing a blog you have nothing to say. You can’t do it. Who will read it anyways? It won’t help anyone” I finally reprogrammed my self talk with “I have always wanted to work on improving my writing. Doing a blog may be productive writing practice. Even if I only get a few readers, if I can encourage them to live a more than ok existence it will be worth it.”

In the previous paragraph I give an example of the primary way Dr. Helmstetter promotes to change the thinking programs in our minds. Set aside 30 minutes of quiet alone time to think over your self-talk statements you say to yourself on a routine basis. Jot down on a paper the things you say to yourself –
Examples –“Why me?”; “I never say the right thing”; “my room is always messy – I guess I am just a messy person”; “nobody likes me”; “I just can’t lose weight”. Look over the statements. Are they things I really want to be true about myself? Can I have pride in saying these things? Are they helping me be a better person? Then finally think over what you should be saying instead and write the new programming statements out. Here are some examples --change the “ I can’t” to “I can”; “I am having a rotten day nothing is going right” to “My day is starting off rough but I am not going to let it beat me. Look out world here I come!”; “My dad said I would always be a dummy in math” to “Maybe I am not a numbers guy but I need Algebra to get my degree so I will use the campus tutoring and do extra practice to make sure I pass.”

You get the idea. Look at the negative statements you are telling yourself and create a positive new program. Then when you catch yourself saying the negative statement hit the delete button in your mind to erase it and then paste in the more positive statement. Try the 30 minute exercise mentioned in the preceding paragraph and try building some new positive programs for yourself. Let your thoughts move your life in a positive direction!