Psypositive
Positive psychology
Positive psychology is about happiness and other positive concepts.
The difference between positive psychology and self-help guides is that positive psychology uses research and the scientific method: gathers data from samples and applies statistics.
Capacity for happiness
50% of our capacity for happiness is genetic and fixed, 10% is from our circumstances e.g. our income, and 40% is behavioural i.e. from intentional activities.
The common conceptions for how to become happier - more money, more goods, bigger goods, better goods, more services - are in the 10% from our circumstances and don't make us happier for long.
Hedonic adaptation
Hedonic adaptation is the foil to much happiness. We quickly get used to changed circumstances; the happiness changed circumstances bring us soon fades.
Eight approaches
Eight approaches are effective, of which the eighth is a window into a few more approaches. The caveats are: adopt the ones that suit you, choosing from your intuition or a questionnaire (search for one online) or both; try the approaches with an open mind; and be prepared for some work.
Express gratitude
Research shows this approach to be the most effective of all. The person expressing the gratitude becomes happy. So does the other person (if there is one), but that's not the point.
Gratitude has a wide definition. E.g. grateful for the sunset.
Practice optimism
An optimistic outlook makes us happier and healthier, while recognising that there'll be negative experiences too.
What about realism? A realist would say that they base there expectations on past experience, and that if their past experience was negative, their expectations are realistic and negative, therefore they are a pessimist. The counter to that is that an optimist is happier and healthier: never mind realism: expect a good outcome and be happy. I've been experimenting with that approach. If I anticipate a future event in my customary, realistic, pessimistic way, I veer into thinking about bad outcomes. Forced optimism cuts my mind from thinking about the future, which feels free, and makes me wonder, why plan?, when it's easy to come up with something ex tempore when the time comes.
Learned optimism is the idea that a talent for happiness, like any other, can be cultivated. Learned optimism is the opposite of learned helplessness, which is feeling so ineffectual after bad experiences as to be passive whatever happens.
Commit to goals
Set yourself achievable goals, divided into sub goals. Tell others about your goals; think about the good things that will happen; and reward and record your progress.
"People do not wander around and then find themselves at the top of Mount Everest." Zig Ziglar
Seek flow experiences
Flow is what you experience when you do something that suits your talents and desires so well that you don't notice the passage of time. It could be anything: playing a musical instrument, some kind of sport, whatever.
This approach is hard if nothing's arisen for you naturally or if you've experienced flow from something in the past but not from anything you're doing now. For a start, you've got to pick something to put your time into, knowing that you won't feel flow for a while, but how long's a while?, and eventually, while it's still not working, you've got to decide how long's long enough before you switch to something else, but what?
The 10,000 hours rule may apply: the notion that you have to do something for 10,000 hours before it truly becomes part of you. 10,000 hours is a long time: 10 hours a week for 20 years, 20 hours a week for 10 years, or 40 hours a week for 5 years. You'd better get started if you want to be good.
The opposite of flow is apathy.
Practice mindfulness
Experience the moment. Savour the present.
Have plenty of experiences in your repertoire, then you can leave decent gaps between repeats of similar experiences and avoid boredom.
Practicing mindfulness can seem easy once you get the knack. Think though: could you improve?
Meditation helps with mindfulness. Indeed, it's a kind of focussed mindfulness. Meditation is good for the mind and the body, according to much research.
Avoid overthinking
You think you're gaining insights but you're not. You're better to get your insights from dreams, wispy thoughts on waking, and diffused, indirect conversations later on.
Distract yourself from overthinking. Set aside a half hour at a set time for overthinking: you may even find you're not in the mood when the time comes.
Social comparison is another no no. Don't want to be other people or to have what other people have: it won't make you happy.
Nurture social connections
This approach inevitably involves other people so at last there's no escape from getting other people to cooperate with your schemes, which is tricky if you lack social skills.
If you want to fill your head with some theory, have a read of the social psychology notes on a separate page. If the notes help you with your social connections, you're doing better than me.
Having a few good social connections is better than having lots of okay ones, apparently, but the latter is easier to get.
Keep your role count up: involve yourself in different activities with different roles and meet different people in different ways.
A few more approaches
Here are a few that either are commonplace for me or don't resonate for me so I haven't expanded on them much. There might be something in them for you.
- Look after your body. You've read the articles. Good luck if, like me, you're not really that way inclined: e.g. it took me twenty five years of effort before exercising became enjoyable.
- Perform acts of kindness.
- Develop ways to cope with adversity.
- Learn to forgive. You're the one who suffers if you don't forgive, not the other person.
- Practice religion and spirituality.
© Stephen Balmer