Word-Of-the-Week #625: Connection
July 27, 2016 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word-Of-the-Week #625: Connection
Connection – the act of creating a relationship.
When was the last time you had a meaningful conversation with someone in person? How much time each month do you spend helping others? Do you realize how important relationships are in adding to your overall happiness?
Here are more excerpts on “The Habits Of Supremely Happy People” from The Huffington Post.
Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, theorizes that while 60 percent of happiness is determined by our genetics and environment, the remaining 40 percent is up to us. And he says happy people have habits you can introduce into your everyday life that may add to the bigger picture of bliss.
- They devote some of their time to giving.
Even though there are only 24 hours in a day, positive people fill some of that time doing good for others, which in return, does some good for the do-gooders themselves. A long-term research project called Americans’ Changing Lives found a bevy of benefits associated with altruism: “Volunteer work was good for both mental and physical health. People of all ages who volunteered were happier and experienced better physical health and less depression,” reported Peggy Thoits, the leader of one of the studies.
Givers also experience what researchers call “the helper’s high,” a euphoric state experienced by those engaged in charitable acts. “This is probably a literal “high,” similar to a drug-induced high,” writes Christine L. Carter, Ph.D. “The act of making a financial donation triggers the reward center in our brains that is responsible for dopamine-mediated euphoria.”
- They nix the small talk for deeper conversation.
Nothing wrong with shootin’ the you-know-what every now and then, but sitting down to talk about what makes you tick is a prime practice for feeling good about life. A study published in Psychological Science found that those who take part in more substantive conversation and less trivial chit chat experienced more feelings of satisfaction.
“I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings,” is one of the top five regrets of the dying — a sentiment that hints at the fact that people wish they’d spent less time talking about the weather and more time delving into what it is that makes their heart swell.
- They make a point to listen.
“When you listen you open up your ability to take in more knowledge versus blocking the world with your words or your distracting thoughts,” writes David Mezzapelle, author of Contagious Optimism. “You are also demonstrating confidence and respect for others. Knowledge and confidence is proof that you are secure and positive with yourself thus radiating positive energy.” Good listening is a skill that strengthens relationships and leads to more satisfying experiences. A good listener may walk away from a conversation feeling as if their presence served a purpose, an experience that is closely connected with increased well-being.
- They uphold in-person connections.
It’s quick and convenient to text, FaceTime and tweet at your buddies. But spending the money on a flight to see your favorite person across the country has weight when it comes to your well-being. “There’s a deep need to have a sense of belonging that comes with having personal interactions with friends,” says John Cacioppo, Ph.D., the director of the Center of Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago. Social media, while it keeps us in touch, doesn’t allow us to physically touch, which harvests the warm-and-fuzzies and even decreases feelings of anxiety.
This week’s focus is on connection. How open and receptive are you to listening to those around you? When is the last time you took a trip to see a special friend? How often do you express your deepest true feelings?
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Word-Of-the-Week 12th Anniversary: Exuberance!
July 20, 2016 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word-Of-the-Week 12th Anniversary: Exuberance!
Exuberance – joyful enthusiasm!
This week I am celebrating the 12th anniversary of my Word-Of-the-Week! And the word that came to mind for me was exuberance. I LOVE the feeling of “joyful enthusiasm.” And my goal is to live each day of my life with as much exuberance that is possible.
How would you rate your “exuberance factor” on a scale of 1 to 10? How often do you feel joyful enthusiasm?
So how do you get and keep exuberance? I did a little research and found “The Habits Of Supremely Happy People” from The Huffington Post.
“Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, theorizes that while 60 percent of happiness is determined by our genetics and environment, the remaining 40 percent is up to us.
In his 2004 Ted Talk, Seligman describes three different kinds of happy lives: The pleasant life, in which you fill your life with as many pleasures as you can, the life of engagement, where you find a life in your work, parenting, love and leisure and the meaningful life, which “consists of knowing what your highest strengths are, and using them to belong to and in the service of something larger than you are.”
After exploring what accounts for ultimate satisfaction, Seligman says he was 
surprised. The pursuit of pleasure, research determined, has hardly any contribution to a lasting fulfillment. Instead, pleasure is “the whipped cream and the cherry” that adds a certain sweetness to satisfactory lives founded by the simultaneous pursuit of meaning and engagement.
And while it might sound like a big feat to tackle great concepts like meaning and engagement (pleasure sounded much more doable), happy people have habits you can introduce into your everyday life that may add to the bigger picture of bliss. Joyful folk have certain inclinations that add to their pursuit of meaning — and motivate them along the way.
They surround themselves with other happy people.
Joy is contagious. Researchers of the Framingham Heart Study who investigated the spread of happiness over 20 years found that those who are surrounded by happy people “are more likely to become happy in the future.” This is reason enough to dump the Debbie Downers and spend more time with uplifting people.
They smile when they mean it.
Even if you’re not feeling so chipper, cultivating a happy thought — and then smiling about it — could up your happiness levels and make you more productive, according to a study published in the Academy of Management Journal. It’s important to be genuine with your grin: The study revealed that faking a smile while experiencing negative emotions could actually worsen your mood.
They cultivate resilience.
According to psychologist Peter Kramer, resilience, not happiness, is the opposite of depression: Happy people know how to bounce back from failure. Resilience is like a padding for the inevitable hardship human beings are bound to face. As the Japanese proverb goes, “Fall seven times and stand up eight.”
They try to be happy.
Yep — it’s as simple as it sounds: just trying to be happy can boost your emotional well-being, according to two studies recently published in The Journal of Positive Psychology. Those who actively tried to feel happier in the studies reported the highest level of positive moods, making a case for thinking yourself happy.”
This week is all about having exuberance. Do you surround yourself with happy people? How often do you smile? How good are you at bouncing back from a failure? Do you actively try to feel happy?
Stay tuned! I will follow up next week with more habits of exuberant human beings.
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Word-Of-the-Week #623: Unconscionable
July 13, 2016 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word-Of-the-Week #623: Unconscionable
Unconscionable – beyond all reason.
I am a bit bothered as the last month seems to have been filled with random acts of hatred and killings. I just don’t understand it and can’t begin to comprehend how anyone could act like that. And Fred Dickey’s The Way We Are weekly UT column caught my attention. “Psychiatrist won’t trust his subjects, for good reasons.” I am including excerpts from that article this week.
Dickey writes, “Mark Kalish looks straight into the face of evil, and what he often sees is – nothing.
Looking back at him is the blank face of a man as prepared to discuss thermodynamics as why he kills people.
Mark A. Kalish, M.D., 64, is a forensic psychiatrist living in Poway. He is a specialist at looking into the heads of people you read about and shudder. He sometimes looks for a soul in criminals and only sees a barren space.
“Jonathan George is the only person I have ever examined that I insisted he be placed in shackles. Looking at him, he was very large and imposing. He was the cat that swallowed the canary. He was unconcerned about what might happen to him. If you or I were placed in that situation, looking at life in prison, maybe even death, we would be very scared. For him, it was of no consequence.”
Why would that be?
“Ask yourself what would you miss most if you were sent to prison?
“You’d miss your family. You wouldn’t be able to hug them anymore. But to these guys, that’s of no value. You can’t understand them by framing it in your own experience. It’s impossible to do that. I’ve been doing this for 35 years, and it’s hard for me to understand it.”
I ask how it felt to sit across from such a monster and try to engage him.
“Scared, but not for me. I’m scared about the other guys that we haven’t caught yet. I’m scared for my family, my kids, my grandkids.”
Serial killers or mass murderers may have personality disorders, but what you can expect to see in them is just plain evil. They are the only criminals who commit violent acts and are not motivated by reasons any normal person would understand. Strictly for their own pleasure.
I tell him I’m philosophically mystified when I see victims standing up in court and saying they forgive their assailants, especially when it’s not sought by the offenders. For whose actual benefit is that?
“There is certainly a philosophical and a religious basis to forgiveness, but there’s also a psychological aspect to it.
“If somebody does you harm, you retain negative emotions about that person. Understandable, but it wears away at you personally over time, because a lot of emotional energy is spent hating.”
What I hear you saying is that forgiveness is not for the supposed recipient, but for the one offering it.
“Yes. You have no power to forgive. God does that. What you’re saying is, I’m not going to spend any more emotional or psychic energy on hating you.”
I don’t know what to say other than this week is about understanding that we’ll never be able to make sense of why people commit violent acts. All I know is there is a lot to be said for forgiveness and not spending emotional energy on hating others. This is a very sad time and I hope that we can all find it in our hearts to be more tolerant and more accepting of others.
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Word-Of-the-Week #622: Indispensable
July 6, 2016 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on Word-Of-the-Week #622: Indispensable
Indispensable – absolutely essential.
This week we celebrated Independence Day. Was that a vacation day for you? If so, did you enjoy the day away from work? Have you made any vacation plans for this summer?
This week features excerpts from the Sunday LA Times article by James R. Bailey, “Managers, take your vacations. Many suffer from the indispensability syndrome. But your co-workers will be fine without you.”
“Making plans for summer vacation? You’re probably wondering whether you’re too busy to take a week off from work. The prospect of being away from the office probably makes you a bit jittery. After all, how will they get along with you?
Just fine.
You’re not the first person to consider what not to pack to make room for your laptop. We convince ourselves that our work contributions are so absolutely essential that our organization will fall apart at the seams if we go off the grid, no matter the interruption to our personal lives, much less the disagreeable effect on our colleagues.
It’s the indispensability syndrome: A fallacious emotional urge rooted deep in our desire to be wanted and needed. We feel threatened by the realization that our work world can continue without us. It’s a perfectly natural feeling, but it comes at high cost.
There’s a psychological bulwark to the indispensability syndrome. Not only do many of us inflate our view of our own significance, we also worry that our talent isn’t as crucial as we have presented it to our colleagues, or ourselves.
According to a 2013 survey by the American Psychological Assn.’s Center for Organizational Excellence, more than half of all employed adults say they check work messages at least once a day over the weekend, before or after work during the week and even when they are home sick.
36% of employed Americans said communication technology increases their workload, makes it more difficult to stop thinking about work or take a break from work, the APA survey reported.
The effects of this behavior are bad for us and our colleagues. If we distort our own importance, then we reduce the value of others. In doing so we smother the people who work for and with us, rather than helping them stand on their own. That isn’t leadership.
We’ve accomplished what we have for a reason, so there’s no reason to worry that our capabilities will be forgotten after a week or two of vacation. If we reconcile ourselves to the fact that we’re not quite as important as we think we are, that all of us need to decouple from work in order to replenish and that our constant involvement is not always beneficial to colleagues, we’re more likely to take a vacation, and will, in turn, make greater contributions at work upon our return.
James Bailey is a professor and Hochberg Fellow of Leadership Development at the George Washington University School of Business.
This week is about evaluating how indispensible you really are. Is your being at work so absolutely essential that your organization can’t run without you? Could you possibly be distorting your own importance? How would it feel to be totally removed and off the grid for a week or more?
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