Tag: Positivity

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Add Values To Your Life

Knowing and acting from your values means you are living an authentic life. Defining you Valid Values and choosing actions based on them — not based on how you feel — is embracing the Excelerated Life™!

Learning A Lesson

As a young husband and father, I believed that family well-being was one of my highest values. However, over time I realized that although I said I valued my family, I was spending a large portion of my time at work. I routinely worked nine or 10 hours a day. On many Saturdays and sometimes Sundays, I was in the office. Slowly I came to realize that I was putting work and career success ahead of my family.

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Develop Your “Weaker” Strengths

Use your Signature Strengths but don’t neglect your lesser strengths — there is potential for growth.

A Journaling Practice

Almost every morning, after I spend some minutes in meditation, I write in my journal. I list my “Eulogy Virtues” – the things I want to be remembered for. Next I write my “Valid Values” – my highest values and the ones I want to structure my life around. Then I write out my Signature Strengths – the character strengths that I scored highest for in the VIA Strengths Survey. Writing them down helps to imprint them in my conscious and subconscious mind. It helps me consider them as I plan my day.

This practice helps to make using my Signature Strengths almost automatic. However, while I want to make good use of these top character strengths, I don’t want to neglect the others that don’t come as naturally to me . . . especially when they could be beneficial in helping me grow and develop.

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Build Your Positivity

Positive emotions have a long-lasting effect on your psychological well-being and lead to flourishing – the ability to thrive and grow. Not only do they feel good in the moment, but they are worth cultivating as a way toward improved well-being.

“Positivity opens us. The first core truth about positive emotions is that they open our hearts and our minds, making us more receptive and more creative.

“Positivity transforms us for the better. This is the second core truth about positive emotions. By opening our hearts and minds, positive emotions allow us to discover and build new skills, new ties, new knowledge, and new ways of being.” [Fredrickson 2009]

Broaden and Build

Barbara Fredrickson was one of the first Positive Psychologists I encountered. Martin Seligman referenced her work a number of times in Authentic Happiness and described the profound impact she had on his thinking about positive emotion. She was the first recipient of the $100,000 Templeton Positive Psychology Prize, awarded for the best work in Positive Psychology by a scientist under 40. [Seligman] Based on Seligman’s reference, I immediately purchased and read Barbara Fredrickson’s book, Positivity. It was an excellent introduction for me to the concept of building the skills that help you flourish.

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Make A Plan And Begin

The setting and pursuing of goals is a “happiness tool”, shown through research to increase positivity. You need only to make a plan and get started.

Flight Plan

When a pilot steps into the cockpit, she has a definite destination in mind and she has created a flight plan to get her plane and her passengers to the right location. However she never flies straight to her objective. Due to various elements beyond her control — weather patterns, cross winds, updrafts, downdrafts, storms, and the earth’s magnetism — she will be off course up to 90% of the time during the flight. Using feedback from her instruments and air traffic control, the pilot and crew make many adjustments during the course of the flight. But in the end they land at the chosen airport, usually within minutes of the scheduled arrival time. The flight plan is essential in aiding the pilot and her crew to reach their goal — the intended destination — successfully. [1]

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Giving Thanks

 

“You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you.” ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

Have An Attitude Of Gratitude

At this time of year, our thoughts naturally turn to Thanksgiving and thanks giving. That is good. However, the act of being grateful, of giving thanks, is too important to relegate to only one day each year. Indeed, gratitude – being thankful – is one of the keys to the Excelerated Life.

The importance of being grateful has been recognized and taught by many people, from the apostle Paul to New Thought teachers to positive psychologists. Continue reading “Giving Thanks”

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When Things Go Right: The Power Of Positive Responses

“People we care about often tell us about . . . good things that happen to them. How we respond can either build the relationship or undermine it.” ~ Martin Seligman

4 Friends React To Good News

Sally was excited to meet her friends for dinner after work. She had received a promotion that day, for which she had worked and prepared a long time. Over dinner, she excitedly shared her good news about her big promotion. Let’s listen in to hear how her friends responded.

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Have A Good Day

Your life is made up of a string of days. String together a succession of mediocre or average days and you build a mediocre, average life. String together a succession of good days and you build a good life. String together a succession of great days and you build a great life! Very seldom do great days happen on their own, without your involvement. You can get a great start on a great day by using the “Golden Hour” – the first hour of the day – to set the tone for your day.

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have a good day

Hyrum Smith called them the “magic hours”, a block of uninterrupted time, usually in the early morning, when you can concentrate on things beyond the normal urgency and routine of the day. This may be a time when you read or meditate or plan the day ahead. Brian Tracy refers to this time as the Golden Hour — the first hour of the day which can set the tone for the rest of the day.

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