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Tuesday’s Tip – Be present

Doug Hensch — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:52:29 +0000

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.

Tuesday’s Tip – Learn how to give up

Doug Hensch — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:06:03 +0000

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.

Can We Change Our Personality? A guest post from Prof. Todd Kashdan

ToddKashdan — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:07:04 +0000

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

Optimism Training for 2 Million Children of Military Personnel: Positive Psychology Helping America’s Kids

Andrew Rosenthal — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:10:54 +0000

This article from today’s Philadelphia Inquirer helps underscore the potential for positive psychology to improve the lives of kids

Coalition aiding military children meets in Phila.

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.

Tuesday’s Tip – Learn your explanatory style

Doug Hensch — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:53:11 +0000

“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?

Tuesday’s Tip – Teach your kids to be happier & more resilient

Doug Hensch — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:29:45 +0000

Dr. Martin Seligman said something recently that really spoke to me on a very personal level. At a conference in Philadelphia, he asked the audience, “What do you want for your kids?” He paused, then asked, “What do they teach your kids in school?” Dr. Seligman went on to say that when he asks this question he usually has parents who answer the first question with, “I want my kids to be happy” while the second question is met with some silence as we know that happiness and well being are not yet parts of the formal classwork, in most cases.

As a father of two little boys, I spent some time thinking about how I would go about helping my kids be happier. Last week, I wrote about teaching them the basics of gratitude, but gratitude is only one element of happiness. And, at their ages (four and five), they are not yet ready to use the exercises on happier.com or even the children’s version of the VIA Survey to identify their strengths. I wasn’t sure where to start…

I then recalled a conversation with Dr. Karen Reivich (one of the top researchers and practitioners in building optimism and resilience in kids) from several months ago. We were talking about my one son’s temperament and his propensity to get a little down on himself, at times. Because of his age, she mentioned that my best bet was to model the right behavior. Since the research shows a strong correlation between a parent’s optimism or pessimism and that of the child (whether it be a boy or a girl), this sounded like a great idea.

Now, when I play catch with my one son, I will intentionally drop a ball he throws and simply pick it up and throw it back. If we are drawing pictures, I make many mistakes (not all of them intentionally) and just erase them and start over. Occasionally, I ask him what I should do when something bad happens and he’ll answer, “Why don’t you try, again?” Slowly, but surely, I have seen a little bit of a positive change in his behavior after he makes mistakes. He is still very competitive and I don’t expect (or want) him to completely change, but I have seen a little improvement in a relatively short time period.

Just recently, we got a chance to see our favorite baseball team (the Boston Red Sox) play in person. My son’s favorite player struck out and I asked my son what the player should do next. He said, “He needs to try harder, next time.” So, the next time you make a mistake in front of your kids, remember that they’re learning how to cope with adversity from their role model – you.

60+ Videos from Positive Psychology Experts

Doug Hensch — Fri, 29 May 2009 19:36:25 +0000

We have spent the last several months focusing on delivering research-backed exercises and tests to the happier.com community. The feedback has been very positive and we will continue to add more tools like these in the future.

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Today, however, we are proud to announce the addition of a whole new section to supplement your interest in self-improvement. Just click on the Video tab from any page and you will have access to over 60 exclusive videos from some of the top thought-leaders in positive psychology, including Dr. Martin Seligman and Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, among others.

The topics range from education to happiness to optimism and relationships. Those with a paid subscription and those within their free trial will have access to this exclusive library and the ability to rate the videos, as well.

We hope you like this new feature on happier.com and that it is one more tool to inspire you to be happier and more resilient.

Free for Mother’s Day – “The Gift of Gratitude” from your child

happier.com — Thu, 07 May 2009 17:32:40 +0000

Celebrate Mother’s Day 2009 with The Gift of Gratitude.

Gratitude is having a sense that there are things in your life that you are happy you have… Gratitude is knowing what is good in your life and feeeling grateful for that influence. Gratitude is being able to recognize what goes well, and knowing how to say “Thank You.”

This Mother’s Day, give The Gift of Gratitude.

happier.com has developed a free Gift of Gratitude, allowing parents to help their young children build personalized Mother’s Day gifts that are truly from the heart.

Use the widget below to review The Gift of Gratitude.

The Gift of Gratitude – Mother’s Day 2009

View more presentations from happier.com.

To download The Gift of Gratitude letter, click here (PDF).

happier.com builds tests and tools to help people measure, track and improve their happiness online. The company produces the Gratitude Journal iPhone App and has a Gratitude Letter tool, allowing users to send video, text or audio gratitude letters with significantly more detail than the special Gift of Gratitude Mother’s day letter.

Your Children Are Sponges: What Beliefs Are They Absorbing?

David J. Pollay — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 13:49:52 +0000

Many of you are parents. We think this article, from invited author David Pollay, will be of particular interest. Let us know what you think by leaving a comment at the end of the blog post.

Invited Author David Pollay

Here are the highlights from last night’s dinner with my family. When I arrived home from the office, Dawn and the girls were in the kitchen. The first thing I did was hug and kiss Dawn. Then I found Eliana and Ariela – they had gone into hiding when they heard the front door – and I hugged and kissed them too (after a little joyful tickling). I then grabbed my daughters and bounced them in my arms as I sang our special song. (It’s a simple song: I’m so happy to see you! I’m so happy to see you! I’mmmm soooo happy!). Next, we sat down together for dinner. We held hands and said our prayers, and we ended our blessings with a loud, and in unison, “Aaaamen!” We ate the food on our plates – vegetables included – and then we enjoyed a little dessert. And along the way, we talked about the fun and important things that happened that day for each of us. (Real or imaginary, four and five year-olds are fun to talk to!).

Why do we do these things? Why do we perform these rituals every night? Daniel Gilbert, Harvard psychologist and author of “Stumbling on Happiness”, wrote, “Just as we pass along our genes in an effort to create people whose faces look like ours, so too do we pass along our beliefs in an effort to create people whose minds think like ours.” We want our children to share our values and beliefs and to demonstrate them in their behaviors.

“Almost anytime we tell anyone anything,” Gilbert says, “we are attempting to change the way their brains operate – attempting to change the way they see the world so that their view of it closely resembles our own.” I would add that any time we do anything in front of someone, we are transmitting a belief.

I kiss and hug Dawn in front of the girls because I want them to believe their mother is loved, respected and appreciated. I hug, kiss and sing to my girls because I want them to believe that they are loved and that they bring joy to my life. I make sure we hold hands and have fun saying “Amen” when we pray, so that the girls enjoy saying thanks for everything that is good in their lives.

But what did checking my e-mail 20 minutes after dinner say? What belief was I communicating? My diving right into e-mail said that my work was more important than family time. It also said that when my girls get older, it will be OK for them to run off after dinner and plunge into e-mail, Facebook or MySpace. And when I thought about this before I went to bed, I said to myself, “I don’t want my girls to hold these beliefs. E-mail can wait. Family time is more important. From now on, no more e-mail during family time.” I want my girls to see that I value my time with them and Dawn. And I want them to believe that family time is meaningful, interesting and fun.

How about you? What beliefs do you want your children to have? What beliefs do you believe will help make them happier, kinder and more successful? What are you saying and doing to transmit these good and powerful beliefs? Whatever good things that you are doing, keep doing them. Your children need to hear and see them. And what are you doing that undercuts the beliefs that you want your children to have? Make sure that you start removing your contradictory language and behavior from your daily routine.

Our children are sponges. Let’s give them something positive to absorb.

(Originally published elsewhere. Reprinted with permission of the author.)