A typical exchange between my dad and I when I was growing up.
Me: “Dad, wanna play catch?”
Dad: “Sure.”
Then, my dad would get up out of “his” chair and roll me ground balls, pretend to be a catcher receiving my pitches from a make believe mound, or he would be a wide receiver on a made up football field moving his hands to different positions so that I could practice throwing the football to different targets. I don’t really remember if we talked much but I learned how to be present for my own kids.
I’m singling out my dad but both of my parents were ALWAYS there for us. Almost every night, we sat down for a family dinner. My mom would drop what she was doing to help with homework. My dad would watch the Yankees with me every night during the summer but he didn’t push back when I swore my allegiance to the Red Sox. I never felt unloved or that I couldn’t go to them with some big problem. When questionable circumstances presented themselves and I had a choice to go with the crowd or do the right thing, I almost always thought about how my parents would react if they found out. In the end, I chose wisely for most of my formative years.
Keep in mind that my parents were busy coaching sports, carting me and my sisters to various activities, and working long hours. But, they stopped what they were doing to talk to us, help us, or just be with us.
Flash forward 30 years and now we have wireless networks in our houses, Twitter, Facebook, Blackberries, iPhones, and way too many activities for our kids. We’re busier than ever but are we spending enough quality time with those we love? Is it quality time when we’re rushing from place to place with our kids and spouses? Are you truly present with someone else when you answer a question but your face is buried in your Blackberry?
The following are a couple of tips to improve and deepen the relationships you already have with those you care about the most:
- Drop what you’re doing and give your full attention to those around you.
- Avoid the temptation to answer your phone or read an email when talking with someone else.
- When someone brings you good news, learn how to respond actively and constructively. Give them your full attention. Ask follow up questions and show genuine interest.
Shelly Gable’s research shows that how we discuss good events is is more predictive of strong relations than how you fight. It is also the basis for our Active & Constructive Responding exercise that teaches you how to respond to the good events of others and track your progress.
So, the next time your child says, “Wanna play catch?” or your significant other brings some good news to you, put down the iPod and be present.
happier.com is a personal trainer for your happiness. With more than a dozen tools and tests to help you measure, track and improve your happiness, you can trust the happier.com experts to help you reach your goals. Exclusive videos and a popular blog mean there’s something new to learn every day. Download the free iPhone application or find what you’re looking for with the Positive Psychology Practitioner Directory. happier.com is on Facebook, LinkedIn, and twitter and has meetup groups in Washington, Philadelphia, and Portland, with more planned. Click here for a social media press release from our launch.
Last weekend, I decided to teach my kids how to ride their bikes. So, we went out to the garage, took off the training wheels and put on our helmets. Before we started, though, I told both boys, “Just remember, when you feel yourself starting to fall, pedal harder!”
As millions of moms and dads have done before me, I gave the boys some other words of encouragement, put them on the bikes, and held the seat for balance until they were up and running. Then, at the top of my lungs, I yelled, “Pedal harder! You can do it!”
Within seconds, my oldest son decided to ignore my advice and he crashed. No broken bones. No bruises, no scrapes. I ran to him and said, “Nice work! You went about 30 yards all by yourself. Now, bounce back up and let’s try, again.”
For any of you who have taught your kids how to ride a bike, you probably already realized that I repeated this sequence at least a dozen times over the course of that morning. Every time each one of them fell, in a very positive way, I told them to try, again. After a quick break for lunch, the boys were back on their bikes and riding around like pros.
If I had to do it all over, again, I probably wouldn’t change a thing that I said or did (except to have someone else hold the video camera!). While encouraging my sons to keep trying was a good thing, in this case, there are going to be challenges in my sons’ lives where the best decision is to stop trying and give up.
One of the most important lessons that I learned from The Resilience Factor was the idea that resilient people actually do give up. They have the ability to understand that further attempts are not going to change the results of a situation. Resilient people develop a “flexible optimism” that allows them to put their energy, efforts, and resources into the areas of their lives where they stand to gain the most. They look at failing as just another opportunity to learn more about themselves. They then apply this to future situations.
Unfortunately, I do not believe there is a formula that tells you when to give up, but here are some questions you might want to consider if you get the sense that it might be time to move on:
- What resources, experience, or qualities are acquired to achieve this goal?
- Of these resources, experience, and qualities, what am I missing?
- Can I obtain these?
- What is the cost in terms of money, time, effort, etc. to obtain these?
- What are my options if I decide not to pursue this goal?
So, when you find someone telling you to just “pedal harder” don’t be afraid to give up and learn.
happier.com is a personal trainer for your happiness. With more than a dozen tools and tests to help you measure, track and improve your happiness, you can trust the happier.com experts to help you reach your goals. Exclusive videos and a popular blog mean there’s something new to learn every day. Download the free iPhone application or find what you’re looking for with the Positive Psychology Practitioner Directory. happier.com is on Facebook, LinkedIn, and twitter and has meetup groups in Washington, Philadelphia, and Portland, with more planned. Click here for a social media press release from our launch.
This post comes from happier.com expert Todd Kashdan, Ph.D.
While on vacation, I had a pivotal moment with two cousins aged 7 and 11. In a rare moment of conversation (instead of riding ocean waves or playing football), I asked them what they think are the ideal qualities for being successful in life. Without taking a breath, my 7-year old cousin blurted, “Running fast; I can run faster than my mom”. You could see the pride in his facial expression, a little Tigger ready to race anyone, anytime. Now running fast probably lands no higher than 180 on the chart of successful traits but then again, this wasn’t a game of Family Feud and he took this in stride. Being precocious little creatures, they asked me what I meant by this thing called personality that I kept referring to. Little did they know that scientists continue to ask the same question…
If you’re anything like me, you listened to psychologists when they talked about a rigid, unchanging thing called personality. From early childhood to the grave, people remain essentially the same. How did they know? Historically, researchers gave people a slew of questionnaires asking them to rate how much they agree with statements such as “I’m an even-tempered person” and “I try to be courteous to everyone I meet.” A few months or even years later, people were given the same questions and guess what? Their answers were similar to what they said the last time. This oversimplified approach perpetuated the myth that our personality crystallizes into stone by the time we reach our twenties. This might be very satisfying if people describe you as being cheerful, playful, and charismatic. But if people describe you as neurotic, disagreeable, and closed-minded, this could be disheartening―forget self-help books and the gobbledygook of therapists because your personality is bred in the bone. Thankfully, recent research has overturned this oversimplified thinking.
Of course there is some continuity in how we think, feel and behave. Problems arise when we form an idea about who we are, say pessimistic, and then fixate on this idea, ignoring and discarding moments that fail to fit in. The problem is just as bad when we label our lovers, friends, and acquaintances. Nobody wants to be boxed in because you happened to witness them do something silly, annoying, or immoral. Do you want to label children as unintelligent because they fail a test or a single class? Do you want to label an adult as shy because they said little at a party where they barely knew anybody? Researchers have found that we define a stranger’s personality after a mere 10 seconds. With this thin slice of information, we start to think and act differently toward them. If we label them as open-minded and curious, we prefer to spend more time with them; if we label them as disagreeable and neurotic, we prefer to keep our distance. An entire pattern starts to form after a mere 10 seconds!
When we think of ourselves and other people in rigid, immutable terms (“I am not funny,” “She is cold and emotionless”) this paves the way for a self-fulfilling prophecy. But more importantly, it’s simply wrong. Rigid terms can’t do justice to describe a person. I like to think of personality as a series of buckets. Every time you think something, feel something, or do something, there is a moment to be placed in a bucket. Think of moments as something tangible, perhaps a golf ball. When we say someone is sociable, what we are saying is that they have a large number of golf balls in the bucket for being sociable (when they are talkative and comfortable around other people). But everyone (I mean everyone) has moments when they prefer to be by themselves or worry about being rejected or judged harshly by other people. When this happens, a golf ball goes into the solitude or socially anxious bucket. Sure, the majority of golf balls land in the sociable bucket, but don’t forget that in a given month or year, a sizeable number of golf balls are going to fill the solitude bucket and the socially anxious bucket.
What this means is that at any given moment, you “may be” or “could be” sociable, but you also might want to be alone or you might feel uncomfortable around other people. This idea of personality is far closer to the truth about who we are and what other people are about. It also opens up the possibility for all of us to be free, alive, and creative. When we recognize that everyone has a little bit of every personality trait, we become open to change and we become tolerant and accepting.
Try to avoid the trap of using rigid terms for yourself and others. We can laugh and tease friends at “happy hour,” and we can be solemn and assertive when trying to get an errant late fee waived by a stubborn credit card representative. When we recognize the breadth of our personality, we essentially gain access to a greater variety of strategies to get the possible outcome in a situation.
When we believe that traits such as intelligence, compassion, and perseverance are fixed, that there are only so many golf balls we can add to these buckets, we feel powerless to change. We start to view failures as personal flaws instead of stemming from difficult situations or a lack of effort. When we view our personality as a fluid quality that changes depending on what we do and the situation we find ourselves in, we become more energetic, productive, creative, and successful in life.
As a starting point to improving your quality of life: be aware that there is a bucket for every side of every single personality trait that you can conceive and there are at least a few golf balls in each. Each and every bucket is a part of your personality and with certain intentional strategies, we can being adding more golf balls into buckets that reflect characteristics that you admire, strengths that work well for you, or behaviors that energize you.
It’s fun to contemplate the master list of personality traits that enable people to be particularly happy and successful. This includes assessing how many of these traits are in our personal arsenal. However, this exercise is one step removed from reality. Our lives are full of possibility when we are aware of the multiple sides of our personality and that we are still evolving. This flexible mindset sets the stage for a life well-lived.
Interested in specific strategies for how to add more golf balls to particular buckets? Do you want to build strengths and become more psychologically flexible? Discover dozens of exercises based on cutting-edge research in my latest book, Curious?
Dr. Todd B. Kashdan is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at George Mason University. He is the author of Curious? Discover the Missing Ingredient to a Fulfilling Life. For more about his book and research, go to www.toddkashdan.com.
Follow him on Twitter: www.twitter.com/toddkashdan
happier.com is a personal trainer for your happiness. With more than a dozen tools and tests to help you measure, track and improve your happiness, you can trust the happier.com experts to help you reach your goals. Exclusive videos and a popular blog mean there’s something new to learn every day. Download the free iPhone application or find what you’re looking for with the Positive Psychology Practitioner Directory. happier.com is on Facebook, LinkedIn, and twitter and has meetup groups in Washington, Philadelphia, and Portland, with more planned. Click here for a social media press release from our launch.
This article from today’s Philadelphia Inquirer helps underscore the potential for positive psychology to improve the lives of kids
By Carolyn Davis
Inquirer Staff Writer
Gen. George W. Casey Jr., former commander of multinational forces in Iraq, said here yesterday that the Army would work with the University of Pennsylvania to help soldiers better deal with the stress of serving in uniform.
The Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program also will cover soldiers’ families, said Casey, the Army’s chief of staff. A formal announcement with more details is to be made next week.
Casey was in Philadelphia to speak during the first day of the Military Child Education Coalition’s national conference at the Sheraton Philadelphia Center City hotel.
The Army will partner with the University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center, whose Resiliency Project works to give elementary and middle-school students skills in social problem-solving and interpreting stressful events.
“We have to get it right for families and children. We really believe our soldiers draw their strength from their families, and their families draw their strength from their communities,” Casey told the more than 1,000 conference attendees.
The conference’s theme is how to support the two million children of U.S. servicemen and women.
“Military children are America’s children,” said Mary M. Keller, president and CEO of the private, nonprofit coalition. Based in Texas, it includes civilian educators, military personnel who work with children, and parents of military children, about 75 percent of whom are under 12. The conference continues today and tomorrow.
Keller said the idea for the coalition began 12 years ago as a way to help children with a parent on active duty. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the coalition began including children of National Guard members and reservists.
Keller emphasized that not all military children struggle with a parent’s service. For those who do, the conference addresses such topics as helping families deal with a loved one’s deployment and reintegration.
Army veteran Scott Quilty led a session called “Mom/Dad is Home. Now What?” Quilty, the U.S. program manager of a nonprofit group called Survivor Corps, told participants of his 2006 service in Iraq.
Quilty said he was leading a platoon stationed south of Baghdad, in an area called the Triangle of Death for its constant insurgent attacks. He stepped on a buried bomb, which shattered his right arm, calf, and thigh.
A physician’s assistant with the platoon that day saved his life, and doctors eventually amputated his right arm below his elbow and his right leg below the knee. His emotional recovery, he said, has been harder than his physical one.
Quilty didn’t have children at the time. But many soldiers who have suffered serious injuries do.
Children in particular have to make a huge adjustment to cope with a wounded parent’s condition after returning from war, said Michelle D. Sherman, director of the Family Mental Health program at the Oklahoma City Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
Sherman, in a session on teens in families affected by trauma, said military children not only feel the stress of their mobility, but also of deployment of their mother or father to faraway danger zones and of the parent’s return.
Keller said she worries that public attention to helping these children could wane as U.S. soldiers leave Iraq. “When there isn’t a war, that doesn’t mean the stress is gone,” she said. “If my dad came back profoundly changed when I was 10, that still remains.
happier.com is a personal trainer for your happiness. With more than a dozen tools and tests to help you measure, track and improve your happiness, you can trust the happier.com experts to help you reach your goals. Exclusive videos and a popular blog mean there’s something new to learn every day. Download the free iPhone application or find what you’re looking for with the Positive Psychology Practitioner Directory. happier.com is on Facebook, LinkedIn, and twitter and has meetup groups in Washington, Philadelphia, and Portland, with more planned. Click here for a social media press release from our launch.
“I’m an idiot,” I said to a colleague after I had made a mistake on a report that had just been sent to several senior people at our company. “I can’t believe I did this, again. I’m always screwing up like this,” I said, thinking that this had become a habit and that I made mistakes all the time. Immediately, my thoughts spiraled into a mini-panic attack. Additional negative thoughts included:
- I’m going to lose this project.
- My career is in jeopardy.
- Everyone is going to think I am stupid.
- I’m a failure as a father and a husband.
- I have let my family down and I’m going to be out of a job…
My colleague let me finish my rant, and said, “Wow. You’re pretty hard on yourself. Did you listen to what you just said?” If he had only heard what I was thinking…
No, I had not been really listening to myself but his question hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew that much of what I was saying and thinking was completely false but I couldn’t escape the pit in my stomach.
Shortly after this happened, another colleague of mine recommended that I read Martin Seligman’s latest book, Learned Optimism – How to change your mind and your life. Within the first few pages, I came to the realization that the way I was explaining events (both good AND bad) was not very healthy – I was a pessimist.
Dr. Seligman writes that there are three dimensions of your explanatory style: permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization. If you look at my statements from above, there was a certain degree of permanence to them - “always” and “I’m an idiot.”
As for pervasiveness, I took a small mistake at work and ended thinking that I wasn’t a good father or husband. Making a universal explanation for a specific adversity leads to giving up in other areas of your life.
Finally, I personalized this adversity. I didn’t take into account that several people helped me write the report and had actually signed off on it. I took full responsibility for something that I should have recognized was actually shared by others.
After determining my explanatory style, I recognized all the negative consequences that went with it. I was afraid to take risks. I didn’t take on the most difficult projects. I stayed in my comfort zone. When something bad happened, I focused on feeling bad as opposed to solving problems. Most importantly, I realized that I was planting the seeds of pessimism with my kids. (The research shows that there is a very strong correlation between a parent’s explanatory style and that of the child.)
I decided to work on my pessimism, but I wanted to get a more accurate read on my explanatory style, first. One way to to do this is to take Dr. Seligman’s Optimism Test. The test presents you with 12 different situations, asks you to come up with one major cause for each situation, and then asks you to rate the question on three different scales. A higher score indicates an optimistic explanatory style while a lower score indicates a pessimistic style.
The good news is that we can change our explanatory styles (come back next Tuesday for more on that…). All it takes is practice and some patience. But, the first step is to be mindful. Your friends, colleagues, and your kids are listening to your explanations – you should, too.
What is your explanatory style?
happier.com is a personal trainer for your happiness. With more than a dozen tools and tests to help you measure, track and improve your happiness, you can trust the happier.com experts to help you reach your goals. Exclusive videos and a popular blog mean there’s something new to learn every day. Download the free iPhone application or find what you’re looking for with the Positive Psychology Practitioner Directory. happier.com is on Facebook, LinkedIn, and twitter and has meetup groups in Washington, Philadelphia, and Portland, with more planned. Click here for a social media press release from our launch.
