Category Archives: Positivity
Being Positive is a Learned Behavior
In a new study published in the March issue of the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, researchers at Ohio State University found that during depression the ability to appreciate positive experiences is diminished. An article about the study is published in the Ohio State University Research News.
I know that this is true because one of the ways I worked through my clinical depression was to print a list of things that made me happy. I made the list of bright yellow cardstock and used many different colored markers so it would be eye-catching and fun. I wrote about it last March and titled it “Good Feelings Action List“.
On the “about page” of Work Happy Now, Karl Staib writes about how he spent years being discontent at work until he learned to enjoy the process. He says that it all stems from communication and the person you communicate with the most is yourself. Being happy is a process that often times takes making a conscious choice to be happy.
In a 1998 study in the Review of General Psychology, Barbara Fredrickson examined “What Good are Positive Emotions?”. She found that the positive emotions of joy, interest, contentment, and love did not fit existing models of emotions. In this study she explored defining these four positive emotions. In the 20 page reprint of her study, she found these benefits for having positive emotions in daily life:
1. Positive emotions broaden the scope of attention
2. Positive emotions broaden the scope of cognition
3. Positive emotions broaden the scope of action
4. Positive emotions build physical resources
5. Positive emotions build intellectual resources
6. Positive emotions build social resources
Staying Focused When You Don’t Know Your Direction
Fambase names by Ethan Hein
With the busy lives we live, it is easy to lose your focus. I spend time in the morning thinking over the day to come. I write down 3 goals for the day. I do what I have on the list if it feels right. If I feel a lot of resistance, I try to determine what is behind the resistance.
Finding my way through my own emotions helps me to stay focused. My brand of procrastination takes the form of resistance when I am unsure of the direction I am going. So I have to especially vigilant when change is my direction.
I am in the space now of being unsure. Planning helps keep me centered and focused. I use the focus–then refocus–and finally review at the end of the day.
9 practical ways to help stay focused–written by Steve Martile:
Choose one or two objectives for the year
Create a daily ritual
Do the most important first
Give yourself daily quiet time
Trim the fat and eliminate the noise
Take care of yourself
Visualize daily
Complete everything you start
Develop your will power
Do You Have A Home Office?—by Lisa Hoover:
“One key to staying focused while working at home is to create a dedicated work space that you can turn your back on at the end of the day. While you may not have the space to set aside an entire room as an office, the kitchen table probably isn’t your best bet either. Try to find a nook somewhere that you can use exclusively for work and, more importantly, turn your back on at the end of the day so your unfinished tasks aren’t staring you in the face during your down time.”
18 Ways to Stay Focused at Work—by Dave Cheong:
- Write out a daily task list and plan your day.
- Allocate time slots colleagues can interrupt you.
- Apply time boxing.
- Setup filters in your email.
- Do not send personal email in the morning.
- Set your IM status.
- Listen to the right types of music.
- Use the headphones but leave the music off.
- Fill up a water bottle.
- Find the best time to do repetitive and boring tasks.
- Bring your lunch and have it at your desk.
- Don’t make long personal calls.
- Clean up your desk.
- Get a good chair.
- Use shortcuts on your computer.
- Close programs you’re not using.
- Limit time on other sites not for work.
- Change your mindset and make work fun.
How to Stay focused on Goals—by Colette French:
“Accomplishing goals can be a very challenging task considering all the daily responsibilities that people have. Yet it is something that people realize is very important and must be achieved in order to be a productive person. New goals are set yearly at the beginning of every new year in the form of New Years
Resolutions, but many people have a difficult time following through on the new goals they’ve set. There are a few things that people can do to help them accomplish their goals.”
How to Stay Focused on Your Goals—by Wings for the Heart
“One of the biggest challenges of achieving our goals is being able to stay focused long enough to see results. Most of us feel excited and motivated when we first set our goals, and that feeling can carry us along for several days, or even weeks. But then, what happens? We begin to lose momentum. We get scattered, we procrastinate, we lose the fire that once fueled our dreams. And we stop working so hard for what we want, even if we still want it.”
“There can be many reasons for our waning interest, such as not seeing visible progress as quickly as we’d like, so we begin to feel that our efforts are a waste of time. Or we lose sight of what we were working so hard for. Or we feel confused about the steps we need to take to make our dream a reality.”
Growing Your Positive Self From Your Sadness
Highlight of Sunrise by eye of einstein.jpg
The feeling I least want to feel right now is sadness. Divorce is generally an emotional tsunami and I have been dealing with most everything except the sadness. I know that I can’t move on until I allow myself to mourn the person with whom I’ve have spent the last sixteen years of my life. He left the marriage to be with a new person so I’m sure that that is adding to my feeling of being overwhelmed by the loneliness. I’m a person who has few people in my life by choice. So whenever one leaves or I leave, there is a void there.
I’m sure my sadness is made bigger because I thought we were friends, but his affair and betrayal was compounded by his complete alliance with this new woman. I mean, when did I become the bad guy? Because he uses mind-altering drugs daily, he is able to live in a world of his own creation.
I am starting to focus on the fact that my use of the 12 steps is leading me to seeing my self as a person with rich and full emotions. With that depth comes a depth of feelings that are hard to face and accept. I am working on Steps 6 and 7 to see my part in the breakup. At the same time, by being around people in the 12 step meetings who are looking to improve themselves, I am making an investment in myself and in my future relationships.
So, when the sadness comes, I allow it to linger for awhile and then I move on to letting go gently. I know anything I leave undone today will return if I don’t accept it. And if I ignore feelings I don’t like, they will comeback stronger than ever.
Five suggestions for growing your positive self from explore life blog are:
(1) Be fully in your body—(feel your feelings). As you wake up each morning fill your heart with light and spread that light wherever you go.
(2) Take back control from your mind. Enter the stillness of your inner peace each day
(3) Develop a relationship with your Higher Self (love that!). Each day do the simple affirmation/mantra, “I Am” with awareness as often as you can.
(4) Relax, take it easy, let go, forgive, have fun, and be playful. Make spreading joy a daily practice.
(5) Appreciate all you can each day. Keeping a gratitude journal is a powerful way to expand your success in life.
