Pursuing the Good Life

100 Reflections on Positive Psychology
by Christopher Peterson | Oxford University Press © 2012 · 368 pages

Christopher Peterson was an award-winning professor at the University of Michigan. He was also one of the founders of the positive psychology movement. He worked closely with Martin Seligman to create one of my favorite surveys: the VIA (Virtues-in-Action) Survey of Character Strengths. This book is essentially a collection of 100 blog posts Chris created for his popular blog on Psychology Today. Big Ideas we explore include: good hope and bad hope, how to truly matter, how to avoid a sub-optimal epitaph and the keys to flourishing relationships.

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
Buddha

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Big Ideas

“Positive Psychology is the scientific study of what makes life most worth living. It is a call for psychological science and practice to be concerned with strength as with weakness; as interested in building the best things in life as in repairing the worst; and as concerned with making the lives of normal people fulfilling as with healing pathology.

Nowhere does this definition say or imply that psychology should ignore or dismiss the very real problems that people experience. Nowhere does it say or imply that the rest of psychology needs to be discarded or replaced. The value of positive psychology is to complement and extend the problem-focused psychology that has been dominant for many decades. …

Positive psychology is psychology—psychology is science—and science requires checking theories against evidence. Accordingly, positive psychology is not to be confused with untested self-help, footless affirmation, or secular religion—no matter how good these make us feel. Positive psychology is neither a recycled version of the power of positive thinking nor a sequel to The Secret.

Positive psychology will rise or fall on the science on which it is based. So far, the science is impressive.”

~ Christopher Peterson from Pursuing the Good Life

Christopher Peterson was an award-winning professor at the University of Michigan. He was also one of the founders of the positive psychology movement.

He worked closely with Martin Seligman to create one of my favorite surveys: the VIA (Virtues-in-Action ← coolest phrase ever?) Survey of Character Strengths. Check it out here and check out our Notes on Seligman’s Authentic Happiness where we discuss it in more detail.

This book is essentially a collection of 100 blog posts Chris created for his popular blog on Psychology Today. The essays are short reflections on a range of positive psychology themes—including positive emotions and experiences, positive traits and talents, and positive relationships.

(Get a copy of the book here. Check out our growing collection of Notes on great Positive Psychology books plus Positive Psychology 101 where I share my favorite Ideas from 10 of my favorite psychologists.)

As you’d expect, the book is packed with Big Ideas. I’m excited to share some of my favorites so let’s jump straight in!

Good hope and bad hope

“And in an interesting experiment, Carla Berg, Rick Snyder, and Nancy Hamilton (2008) used guided imagery in what they called a hope induction. For about 15 minutes, research participants were asked to think of an important goal and to imagine how they might achieve it. A comparison condition asked participants to read a home organization book for 15 minutes. All participants were then asked to immerse their nondominant hand in a bucket of ice water for as long as they could (up to 5 minutes). This is a standard measure of pain tolerance, and it is painful but not harmful. Participants receiving the brief hope induction kept their hand immersed for about 150 seconds, whereas those in the comparison condition kept their hand immersed for about 90 seconds. Hope did not affect reports on how painful the experience was, but it did increase the ability to tolerate it.

… let’s revisit the point from another reflection that the effects of hope and optimism depend on the specific contents of the hopeful belief. Hoping for things that cannot possibly happen is indeed stupid. … But hoping for things that can happen is smart, assuming we are motivated by our optimism to act in ways that make the hoped-for thing more likely.”

Fascinating study.

Want to almost double the length of time you can hold your hand in ice-cold water? Just fire yourself up with hope right before. :)

And… Generalizing to the rest of our lives: Want to hold your head in the game as you create a meaningful life and pursue challenging goals? Just fire yourself up with hope on a daily basis. :)

We just talked about hope (one of the three core “theological virtues”) in our Note on Spiritual Evolution. We reminded ourselves of the even more astonishing research done on swimming rats who—when given hope that they would be rescued, swam 200 TIMES longer than the rats without hope. (Nutty.)

Of course, there’s good hope and not-so-good hope.

Good hope? When we can see an achievable, better future and take action in pursuit of it.

Not-so-good hope? Deluding ourselves with thoughts about stuff that cannot possibly happen. Of course, we want to stretch ourselves and remember that our limits are, as Ellen Langer says, “unknowable” while at the same time keeping our next-step goals in the realm of doable.

How’s your hope?

Focus on your ideal, attainable future. Get fired up seeing yourself becoming immune to obstacles as you pursue your dream.

Then go dunk your hand in the metaphorical bucket of ice water.

P.S. Remember Sonja Lyubomirsky’s #1 tip on how to build our optimism from The Myths of Happiness? We talk about it in Goals 101 as well…

In case you need a reminder: “Whether our optimism is big or little, many of us waver in our expectations of the future. Fortunately, numerous research-tested activities have been shown to boost positive thinking. The most robust strategy involves keeping a journal regularly for ten to twenty minutes per day, in which we write down our hopes and dreams for the future (e.g., ‘In ten years, I will be married and a home owner”), visualize them coming true, and describe how we might get there and what that would feel like. This exercise—even when engaged in as briefly as two minutes—makes people happier and even healthier.”

Character isn’t something you’re born with and can’t change, like your fingerprints. It’s something you weren’t born with and must take responsibility for forming.
Jim Rohn

Other people matter

“‘Other people matter.’ I say that in every positive psychology lecture I give and every positive psychology workshop I conduct. It sounds like a bumper sticker slogan, but it is actually a good summary of what positive psychology research has shown about the good life broadly construed. It is in the company of others that we often experience pleasure and certainly how we best savor its aftermath. It is through character strengths that connect us to others—like gratitude—that many of us find satisfaction and meaning in life. It is with other people that we work, love, and play. Good relationships with other people may be a necessary condition for our own happiness, even in markedly individualist cultures like the contemporary United States.”

Other people matter.

You want the most robust way to boost your mood right this second? Do something nice for someone else.

Want the best predictor of someone’s potential longevity? Find out if they have someone to talk to at 2am on a day they’re struggling.

Other people matter. A LOT.

Here’s another way that Chris puts it: “The happiest places on earth are not the internal ones. They are not the geographical ones. The are the places between us, and the closer they are and the more comfortable, the happier they are apt to be. [Eric] Weiner apparently agrees. He ends his book [The Geography of Bliss] by observing, ‘Our happiness is completely and utterly intertwined with other people: family and friends and neighbors and the woman you hardly notice who cleans your office. Happiness is not a noun or verb. It’s a conjunction.”

Genius: “Happiness is not a noun or verb. It’s a conjunction.”

With whom are you connected?

Optimize that. One Love 2.0 micro-moment of positivity resonance at a time!

Want to truly matter? Build some streaks.

“This reflection is … about ‘streaks’ in any and all venues of life. Some streaks are harder to notice when obvious winners and losers are not tabulated, but they still exist. Like showing up at work every day. Like having a kind word for everyone. Like always remembering your friends’ birthdays. Or my personal favorite: My mother writing me a letter every week without fail from the time I went away to college in 1968 until 2007, when her cataract problems made this impossible.

Positive psychology tells us that other people matter. But truly mattering entails more than just random acts of kindness. Truly mattering takes place over time, over years and even over decades. Truly mattering is gritty and difficult. Truly mattering takes no time off. Truly mattering means showing up and doing one’s best, over and over and over.”

Streaks.

That gem was in the context of Chris discussing some impressive sports streaks.

But that 40-year streak of Chris’ mom writing letters to her son?!

Now THAT is a streak.

What about you?

What streaks do YOU have in your life?

More specifically, looking forward X decades, what ONE streak would you most like to have in place? The streak that would have the most positive impact in your life? The one that you can look back on with pride?

Well, what is it?

This is the streak that would make me most proud: _____________________________.

Awesome. For me? As you know, I’m all about Habits 101-streaks focused on my fundamentals. Things like my meditation practice (I’ve missed one day in the last 8+ years) plus my 1 + 10 + 100 + 1,000 +10,000 movement practice I talk about often. Lately, I’ve been having fun building my “AM Sunrise Hike” streak. <— Pure magic.

But, when I slow down and think about the streak I’d most like to have in place from now until the end of my life, it’s a really simple one.

It’s starting and ending my day with a hug and a kiss with my Wifey.

Alexandra came up with the Idea. It’s so simple but so powerful. I’d like to be able to look back in 50 years and say we never missed a day. (We’ll need to figure out the protocol for when we’re away from one another. :)

Back to you. What’s YOUR streak?

Today a good day to start officially keeping track?

P.S. We’ll be building Habit tracking tools into our Optimize Oasis. One of the things I’m most excited about is being able to keep track of “streaks” and give each other virtual celebratory love high fives as we rock it. Here’s one in advance. Let’s do this!

P.P.S. I’m reminded of a great line from Travis Macy’s The Ultra Mindset: “The thing I’m most proud of is my consistency.” <— Me, too. You?

Inside of a ring or out, ain’t nothing wrong with going down. It’s staying down that’s wrong.
Muhammad Ali
Diligence is the mother of luck.
Benjamin Franklin

Sub-optimal epitaph: “He read all his email”

“Early in my career, I learned that responding quickly to any and all requests paid dividends. As Woody Allen said, 80% of success is showing up, and in my case, showing up meant responding to requests. The problem is that e-mail has allowed the requests to escalate beyond my capacity to honor them. The result is that e-mail is now killing me.

One of the few self-help books I have read cover to cover promised advice about ‘managing’ email. An ostensibly useful bit of advice was dubbed the 3-minute rule. If you can answer an e-mail message in 3 minutes, always do so upon reading it the first time, because if you leave it for later, it will still take 3 minutes plus whatever time it takes to reread it and re-understand what is needed.

The problem with following the 3-minute rule is that it encourages the e-mail sender to send yet another message, usually immediately. Quickly removing the pebble in your shoe that an e-mail request represents only results in more pebbles.

My colleague Martin Seligman has said that to raise roses, you have to pull the weeds. But pulling e-mail weeds leads to more of them. The roses are postponed indefinitely.”

That’s from a chapter appropriately called “I Hate E-mail.” (Hah.)

I’m not sure if Chris is referring to David Allen’s “2-minute rule” in Getting Things Done but I can certainly attest to the boomerang effect of quickly replying to emails. You’re quickly inundated with more. (Notice how that works?)

Much better to drastically change your relationship to your email inbox. (High five if you’ve figured out how to join me by getting 100% (!) out of email. The joy of that is indescribable. :)

Jocelyn Glei wrote a helpful book to address precisely this issue. It’s called Unsubscribe. Check out those Notes and start learning how to more powerfully handle your email (+ all digital info).

As Chris says: “Life is short, and I do not want the epitaph on my tombstone to say ‘He read all of his e-mail.’”

Unsubscribe. Focus on Deep Work that matters. It’s time to grow some roses.

Net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.
Benjamin Franklin

The best furniture: Books

“It was therefore with interest that I read a study showing rather conclusively that books matter. Mightily. Researchers assembled survey data from nationally representative samples in 27 countries and looked at the eventual educational attainment of children who grew up in a home with ‘many’ books (500 or more) versus few books. Across the 70,000 research participants, children growing up in homes with many books stayed in school 3 years longer than children from largely bookless homes. This finding was independent of parental education, occupation, and social class. The finding occurred under communism and capitalism, in North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.”

This is from a chapter called “Books Matter.”

It kicks off with this priceless gem from Henry Ward Beecher: “Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.”

Which reminds me of this all-time favorite: “I like to party and by party I mean read books.” (HAH.)

So, if you aspire to have your children stay in school longer, this study suggests that decorating your house with books (presumably that you intend to read!) would be a good idea.

Let’s party.

You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.
Albert Einstein

A key to great relationships

“According to research by Shelly Gable, Harry Reis, and colleagues (2004), the way couples respond to each other’s good news influences the happiness and stability of their relationships, perhaps more so than how they respond to bad news. This finding is important because so much of couples counseling focuses on resolving conflicts, fighting fairly, and being assertive.

In particular, active-constructive responding is beneficial. When someone comes home with what he or she regards as good news, how does the other person respond upon hearing it? Active-constructive responding is enthusiastic and engaged”

Want to optimize your relationships?

CELEBRATE your partner’s (or kids’ or colleagues’ or…) successes.

When they share something awesome, say, “Right on!! I know you’ve been excited about that and I’m so happy for you!”

Not: “Well, that’s nice. What’s for dinner?”

And definitely not: “Finally. You’ve been working on that forever.”

Remember: Love 101 is all about supporting the other in optimizing and actualizing. So, let’s get really good (practice!) celebrating the small wins.

Be present. Be enthusiastic. If you’re really feelin’ it, throw in a little happy dance from me.

btw: This reminds me of John Gottman’s ideas on “bids.” Check out our Notes on The 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work for more.

Want to appreciate something? Mentally subtract it.

“When Thanksgiving approaches, the thoughts of many of us turn to our blessings. Although counting one’s blessings is a proven way to bolster well-being, one study suggests a useful refinement of this strategy that may make it even more effective. It may matter whether we think about the good things in our lives in terms of their presence (e.g., ‘I have a great job’) or in terms of their absence (e.g., ‘Suppose I did not have this great job’).

This strategy is called mental subtraction, and studies show that instructions to imagine the absence of a good event produce more positive emotions than does the simpler strategy of merely thinking about its presence. Why does mental subtraction have beneficial effects? The researchers proposed that mental substraction works against the human tendency to adapt to the good things in our lives and to take them for granted.”

Want to boost your well-being?

Count your blessings, of course. Then subtract them.

2,000 years ago, the Stoics advocated the same thing. In A Guide to the Good Life, William Irvine tells us: “The Stoics thought they had an answer to this question. They recommended that we spend time imagining that we have lost the things we value—that our wife has left us, our car was stolen, or we lost our job. Doing this, the Stoics thought, will make us value our wife, our car, and our job more than we otherwise would. This technique—let us refer to it as negative visualization—was employed by the Stoics at least as far back as Chrysippus. It is, I think, the single most valuable technique in the Stoics’ psychological tool kit.”

Mental substraction. Negative visualization. Why does it work?

Because, as Abraham Maslow noted, the tendency to take things for granted is the biggest “non-evil” evil out there. Researchers call this tendency “hedonic adaptation.” Combatting this is a VERY good thing. We talk about it a bit in Sonja Lyubomirsky’s The Myths of Happiness. Check out those Notes for more!

For now, what do you appreciate. Imagine your life without them. …

And appreciate them even more. :)

Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.
Lionel Hampton

About the author

Authors

Christopher Peterson

Professor, author & was one of the founders of the positive psychology movement.
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