Friday, October 12, 2012

HARVARDS POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY LECTURE NOTES


HAPPINESS:
Depends more self esteem,social circles,levels of optimism, gratefullness,physical health,intrinsic motivated achievement
(ex. art), and less on extrinsic motivated achievement,money more than Rs. 30k and external circumstances etcc.
Creativity unlike popular belief improves with happiness.
BEING HUMAN:
Allow ourselves to accept that we are having a negative emotion and that its alright and in our nature  to experience
them..BUT with that info. at the triggering event we can change our decisions for the better. For ex. accepting we are
anxious we can prepare for it and even avoid its effects
BELIEF:
 What we believe ,we perceive ie we find and focus on things that support these and further conform these beliefs ..
Ways to change the beliefs ..
1.Prompting ..previous held information influneces our believes..to break beyond a boundary first we must relaize the
boundary is imaginary ..how use it : stiking inspiring quotes to walls ..listening to positive music,and other media
2. Self talk,convincing ourselves.
3.Imagining..Both destnation and path of a goal ,and making it as real as it gets
4.CBT ;cognitive behavioral therapy : More on it later
5.Learned optimism: Given below
Benefits: Skyrocket motivation,Break boundaries and plateus ,Achieve a state of mind when and where we want to ,to achieve
a desired success,Follow through a goal,etc
GRATITUDE
write 5 things you are grateful about your daily life on a daily basis. Become more happy,more optimistic, more prone to
achieve goals,healthier,be pro-social, increased longetivity
Learned optimism:
Optimism is a way of perceiving reality in a more productive ,positve way..IN learned optimism ,we consciously convince and
talk to ourselves in a way that we can FOCUS on the positves as well as garnering what we have learnt in a negative
event.ITS NOT THAT THINGS HAPPEN FOR THE BEST BUT WE CAN MAKE THE BEST OUT OF WHATEVER HAS HAPPEND.This is pertinent
because we are what we focus on.
Modality of an optimist:
Perceive
Bad event : in a temporary ,isolated manner ex. "It wasnt my day..."etc
Good event : in permanent,repeating manenr ex."People always seem to like me"
NOTE: The lecture suggests us to keep a realistic and flexible optimism ..rather than alter reality in any way
BEnefits : improve health and improive longetivity significantly,improve resillience ,self esteem ,builds a positve beliefs
system,which results in more energy ,work consistency and therefore more success , motivation ,
HELPFUL INFO : crying is a healing mechanism it is helpful and healing to cry,getting angry wont get you destressed it
worsens it .HAVING A SMILE on your face helps even if its "mechanical"