• 4 th century, specifically to the work of British philosopher and theologian William of Ockham.
• Ockham’s Razor, or the principle of parsimony.
• the simplest explanation is usually the best explanation, that when communicating an idea or a theory we should strive to make it as simple as possible and as complex as necessary
• Ockham’s Razor to the realm of self-help or personal development, we get MVIs: activities that are as brief as possible and as long as necessary to bring about real, significant, and lasting change.
• the big stuff mostly make a small difference, while the small stuff often makes a big difference.
• frequent micro doses of physical movement, mindful breathing, journaling, acts of kindness, or expressions of gratitude can bring about significant, deep, and lasting change.
• Hours or days end up having a momentary effect, while moments add up to a momentous impact.
• Japanese Professor Riku Yoshida from Niigata University of Health and Welfare, had participants exercise their biceps by merely doing one set a day of six hand curls. 1 They did this single set five days a week over a period of four weeks. Results showed a significant increase in muscle strength. Another group of
• who did not spread the load across the week—experienced no increase of strength at the end of four weeks
• Dan Buettne
• for a longer life we regularly inconvenience ourselves
• By climbing the stairs rather than taking the elevator, by carrying the groceries rather than having them delivered, by getting up to change channels instead of using the remote, we are engaging in micro movements, thus mitigating the detriments of a sedentary lifestyle.
• short bursts of physical activity, as well as numerous other brief interventions that have a significant positive impact on our physical and mental health.
• I am all for a ten-day or even a threemonth meditation retreat, if it does not come at the expense of the daily practice.
• end up doing nothing.
• Those who were transformed by a week-long self-help intensive, did so thanks to new rituals that they introduced in their day-to-day.
• ➢ Spiritual Wellbeing ➢ Physical Wellbeing ➢ Intellectual Wellbeing ➢ Relational Wellbeing ➢ Emotional Wellbeing
• Spiritual wellbeing
• purpose and meaning in our day-to-day activities and our life as a whole
• spiritual wellbeing is about being present, being mindful.
• nutrition, exercise, sleep and touch
• mind-body connection,
• Physical wellbeing
• Physical activity
• physical inactivity in the form of rest and recovery, are all essential for healthy body as well as mind
• quality
• quantity
• lost touch with touch, neglecting our innate need for physical contact and connection.
• Intellectual wellbeing
• curiosity
• quality
• quantity
• deep learning
• lifelong supply of happiness
• Relational wellbeing
• quality time with people we care about and who care about us.
• owerful way of cultivating connection and a sense of belonging is through kindness and generosity
• When we give to others, we are potentially contributing to their wellbeing, as well as to our own
• Emotional wellbeing
• ainful emotions when they arise and cultivating pleasurable ones.
• permission to be huma
• experience anxiety, sadness, envy or anger—is the foundation of a full and fulfilling life
• The first step towards happiness is allowing in unhappiness.
• ll five elements of SPIRE are interconnected, are one whole system.
• SPIRE elements:
• f we neglect our physical wellbeing and lead a sedentary life, we will pay a high price, even if we invest a great deal in our relationships and intellectual development. Similarly, if we do not invest in our relationships, we are unlikely to be happy regardless of how much we meditate or tend to our emotions.
• consistently implementing just one or two of the MVIs in this book can significantly impact your happiness levels.
• strategically evaluating your life as a whole through the SPIRE prism, and ascertaining which interventions are absolutely essential and which may be somewhat redundant.
• Chapter 3: The Spiral of Change
• psychology professor Richard Hackman
• psychology of teams
• spirals
• e explored spirals in a different context—from neural pathways to the rainforests, from interpersonal relationships to organizational processes. Wherever we looked, we saw spirals rather than straight lines, complex interconnected systems rather than simple linear cause-and-effect relationships.
• our world is primarily made up of spirals, we can understand why MVIs can play such an important role in our overall wellbeing
• How is it that counting our blessings each night, spending a minute or so reflecting on those things that we’re grateful for, can raise our overall levels of happiness, contribute to our overall success, as well as impact our physical health?
• Simply because focusing on what is going well in our life puts us in a better mood, and we’re then more likely to take positive action that will lift that mood further, and on and on in positive upward spiral.
• emotions are contagious, our moods impact our social environment.
• reassuring and empowering in knowing that you have some control over your wellbeing, that with a relatively straight-forward and accessible action you can positively impact the trajectory of a moment or a day.
• he fact that the locus of control over your mood is at least partially internal is in and of itself a source of positivity, contributing in a significant way to your overall levels of wellbeing.
• For example, knowing that rather than passively enduring the blues you can actively improve your mood—be it by taking a cold shower or writing for two minutes or committing an act of kindness—is a source of comfort that goes beyond the actual impact of any particular intervention.
• When it comes to implementation, less may be more, and there is no need to stress over adopting all or even most of the MVIs
• Spiritual wellbeing is about purpose and presence, about finding meaning and being mindful. The four MVIs described in this chapter are: ➢ Meaning in Life ➢ Strengths ➢ Mindfulness Meditation ➢ Informal Meditation
• Meaning in Life
• the meaning of life” and “meaning in life
• While it may be very difficult to find the meaning of life, it is relatively easier to find the meaning in life, in the ordinary things that we’re doing each day.
• Wrzesniewsk
• Dutton
• job, as a career, or as a calling
• way we perceive our work
• A calling is about experiencing your work as meaningful, purposeful. When experiencing your work as a calling, you look forward to more work because you genuinely care about it, enjoy it, and have a passion for doing it beyond a sense of duty or the need for a paycheck.
• people doing the exact same work can perceive what they’re doing in very different ways.
• A simple change in focus can make all the difference in terms of how we perceive what we do.
• What do I find meaningful in what I am already doing?
• what matters to you in your daily activities, on what is making a difference in your life or in the life of others
• Strengths
• fail to use their strengths
• Which do you think will help you improve the most: knowing your strengths or knowing your weaknesses?
• majority of people
• more important to focus on their weaknesses
• people who answered that it was more important to focus on their strengths, they were disproportionately more successful, as well as happier.
• Martin Seligman, Christopher Peterson, and others extended this correlation and demonstrated a causal relationship—showing that teaching people to focus on their strengths contributes to their success and wellbeing.
• Only when you operate from strengths can you achieve true excellence... One cannot build performance on weaknesses... It takes far more energy to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.
• we should neither neglect nor ignore our strengths.
• find the overlap between your performance strengths and your passion strengths
• empathy and ability to really listen to someone
• gifted writer
• Passion strengths are primarily about those things that strengthen you, that fuel you
• What gives me strength” or “What energizes me?”
• Take a minute or two to respond to the following two questions: 1. What are my strengths? In other words, identify what it is that you are good at. 2. What gives me strength? In other words, identify what it is that you are passionate about. After answering these two questions, identify the overlap between the responses. Pick one strength that resides in the overlap between your passion and performance strength, and then commit to using it in those activities that you are already engaging in throughout the day or week.
• Mindfulness Meditation
• Mindfulness meditation is about present moment awareness, about being in the here-andnow.
• meditation was shown to positively impact cognitive functioning (improving attention, memory and creativity) physical health (strengthening the immune system and lowering inflammation), as well as mental health (reducing anxiety, anger and depression).
• shorter sessions can be extremely effective
• three minutes a day, claiming that “The brain responds to repetition with more gusto than it does to duration.”
• deal as an MVI, is about scanning a part of the body that is particularly tense—forehead, shoulders, chest, or belly—and then relaxing that part, breathing out any tension that has accumulated there.
• Take anywhere between a minute to three minutes to meditate on your breath, on the air going in and out through your nose and all the way down to your belly. You can lie down, sit down, or stand up while you breathe slowly and gently. You can focus on the sensation in your nostrils, or on your belly going up and down—or on the movement of the air from your nostrils and all the way down into your belly. If you prefer other forms of meditation—such as listening to music, praying, walking, or scanning your body—then by all means. Feel free to stick to one type of meditation, or experiment with many. Start your day with a brief meditation, and then sprinkle brief sessions during lunch time, before you go to bed, or whenever you feel in need of a precious present.
• Informal Meditation
• Meditation
• formally or informally
• Dr. Elisha Goldstein, author of The Now Effect: “Mindfulness is basically just being aware, and can be practiced both informally and formally... When you’re practicing it informally, that means that you’re simply attempting to be more aware in everything that you do—and that mentality can be infused into pretty much anything. But the formal practice of mindfulness is mindfulness meditation.” And you will derive the benefits of meditation—for your physical and mental health—whether you do it formally or informally.
• When we’re present, no matter what we’re doing, we elevate the ordinary to the extraordinary
• At any moment, you have a choice, that either leads you closer to your spirit or further away from it.
• Throughout the day, return your focus to whatever it is that you’re doing at the present moment.
• Create reminders to help you return to the here-and-now regardless of what you’re doing at the moment. Reminders can take various shapes and forms. You can set your smartphone to ping you regularly or randomly throughout the day; you can also plug the word NOW on your screensaver or a picture of a person meditating on your wall to prompt you to return to the present. After a while, with some initial help from the reminders, you will find yourself returning to the present unprompted and with much joy.
• Physical wellbeing is about the mind-body connection, about the importance of nutrition, exercise, sleep and touch on our psychological and physiological health. The four MVIs described in this chapter are: ➢ High Intensity Burst ➢ Stretching ➢ Cold Shower ➢ Blue Zones
• aerobic exercise contributes significantly to our mental health—for dealing with anxiety, depression, and more.
• high intensity exercise for a brief period of time, followed by a break to allow for recovery, and then another burst of high intensity, and then a break again, and so on.
• three cycles of 20 seconds of high intensity followed by 40 seconds of recovery. After a month, insulin resistance—a predictor of diabetes—went down by 24%.
• the is cumulative and there can be substantial breaks between the high intensity bursts.
• three high intensity bursts during the day, with four hours separating each session.
• their aerobic capacity, increased by 14%.
• the excuse that we don’t have enough time to exercise is no longer valid.
• it’s not just exercise that’s important, it is movement in general that is essential for our wellbeing.
• Sitting is the new smoking.” We are more likely to develop chronic disease if we spend hours each day without movement.
• it would prove extremely valuable to sprinkle very brief—20-40 seconds long—bouts of high intensity movement throughout the day
• Every hour or two engage in 20-40 seconds of vigorous exercise, appropriate to your age and fitness level. Ideally, work on a different muscle group each time you engage in the exercise. Decide in advance on a daily or even weekly sequence of high intensity exercises that is diverse, so that you engage your lower and upper body. As you get closer to your bedtime, reduce the intensity of your movement, so that it does not interfere with your sleep. The bout of exercise does not need to be overly demanding, and it is better to err on the side of too easy rather than too hard. A bit of discomfort rather than extreme discomfort is the way to go. Regardless, if you are over 40, consult your doctor before embarking on the high intensity path.
• Stretching
• Given the mind-body connection, these physical consequences often lead to mental disease.
• introducing a ten-minute stretching session at the end of a work day decreased levels of anxiety while improving overall mental health
• hold your stretch static rather than bouncing up and down, which can lead to tears in the muscle. At the same time, it can be helpful to incorporate some slow movement of your joints—such as gently rotating your ankles, hips, or neck—before or after you stretch.
• if you focus on the tension in your muscles while stretching, you are adding the benefit of mindfulness meditation—getting two MVIs for the price of one!
• Spend a minute or two every 60-90 minutes stretching a particular muscle. Hold each posture for at least 30 seconds, and if a particular posture you hold stretches one side of your body, spend the same amount of time on the other side. While you should stretch as many muscles as possible each day, make sure that at the very least you stretch the core muscles in your legs (calves, hamstrings, quadriceps, hips) as well as in your upper body (lower and upper back, neck, shoulders).
• Cold Shower
• taking a cold shower is the least pleasant.
• taking a cold shower is among the most beneficial MVIs
• some evidence suggesting that regular cold showers can help alleviate symptoms of depression.
• howering with warm water and initially experienced the cold water treatment at the end as punishment following a trea
• 0 degrees Fahrenheit (21 Celsius) can do the job, though it is of course possible to get a lot closer to the freezing point. Many people, myself included, find extremely cold water extremely invigorating
• Each time you take a shower, end it with at least 30 seconds under the cold water. You can gradually build up to a minute or two, though even half a minute yields many benefits. You may prefer to lower the temperature gradually so that your body gets used to the cold, however it may be easier to switch from hot to cold rapidly and rather than contemplating what and how you should proceed, to just do it.
• Blue Zones
• places around the world where the healthiest, longest living people reside
• Okinawa, the Nicoya Peninsula
• Japanese
• Costa Rica
• quality
• quantity
• Eat until you are 80 percent full.
• “I’m no longer hungry
• Moderation
• lifestyle dictates that they are moving much more so than the average person in the modern world
• inconvenience ourselves.
• Put away the remote control so that you have to get up and walk to your appliance. Get rid of the automatic can opener so that you use your hands more. Take the stairs rather than the elevator. Shovel and work in the garden. Bike or walk rather than drive to your local store. Pick up grocery bags rather than have them delivered to your doorstep. Whenever possible, have a “Walk ‘n Talk” rather than a “Sit ‘n Talk” meeting. Instead of looking for a parking spot close to where you need to go, and feel lucky when you find it, park a little farther and walk.
• inconveniences
• actively manufacture
• Fortunately, the Blue Zones MVIs—whether to how much we move or to our diet—do not require much extra time beyond identifying what it is that you want to change and then creating reminders that will help us implement it.
• Identify one change that you would like to introduce into your diet, and one way to inconvenience yourself. Introduce these changes into your life. Once you find that the change you introduced is well established—be it to your diet or to your lifestyle—identify another small change that will make you healthier and happier.
• Chapter 6: Intellectual Wellbeing MVIs
• asking questions
• being open to experiences
• being curios
• learning, through books, art and nature
• ➢ Quotes & Excerpts ➢ Appreciative Questions ➢ Journaling ➢ Curiosity
• Quotes & Excerpts
• The words that we think about and use shape our lives and the lives of those around us.
• Words create worlds; concepts conceive.
• a single word has the power to influence the expression of genes that regulate physical and emotional stress.
• the longer you concentrate on positive words, the more you begin to affect other areas of the brain.
• Functions in the parietal lobe start to change, which changes your perception of yourself and the people you interact with.”
• prolonged exposure—as Newberg and Waldman point out—that make the most difference.
• The key, therefore, is to be very selective about the words that we read slowly and repeatedly.
• Identify a quote that inspires you or a paragraph that elevates you. Read it slowly and deliberately, reflect on what it means to you and how it relates to your life. Then revisit the words the following day, and repeatedly so for a week or longer.
• Identify a quote or two, a paragraph or two, and spend a couple of minutes reading and rereading it, reflecting on the meaning and purpose of the words. Repeat this exercise each day, going over the same words for an entire week, or much longer if you find it useful. If the words continue to inspire you, print them out and hang them on the wall, or use them as a screensaver. Remember that words create worlds.
• Appreciative Questions
• Questions begin a quest; the kind of questions we ask determine the kind of quest we take.
• helps us learn and grow
• Less helpful,
• limit our questions to that which isn’t working
• inquire exclusively about the empty part
• disregard the full part
• “What is not going well in your life?”
• mounting evidence suggests that focusing on the problems is not enough and that if we want to fulfill our potential, whether personally, interpersonally, or organizationally, we need to go beyond the flaws, deficits and weaknesses. We need to inquire into what is working, draw attention to that which is going well.
• 1970s David Cooperrider
• uses positive questions as a way to focus our attention on the half-full part of the glass
• Appreciative Inquiry
• “We find that the more positive the question we ask, the more long-lasting and successful the change effort. The major thing a change agent can do that makes a difference is to craft and ask unconditional positive questions.”
• So when going through a difficult time, it may be helpful to ask “What is going well in your life?” In the midst of interpersonal struggle, there’s room to ask “What is working in the relationship?” And when the going gets tough at work, it is helpful to inquire into the organization’s strengths. Whether personally and professionally, to fulfill your potential for learning and growing, you need to ask positive questions of yourself and of others.
• he path to flourishing is not through abstaining from asking questions about those things that are not working, the problems and the deficits. Rather, it’s about complementing thes
• questions with appreciative ones.
• It’s about looking at reality—the positive and the negative— paying attention to the glass in its entirety—the part that is empty and the part that is full.
• We live in a world that our questions create.” And therefore, if we are to create the best possible world for ourselves and others we need to also ask positive questions.
• Generate appreciative questions that focus on what is working for you personally, interpersonally, and professionally. Write these questions down and reflect on them when you wake up or at any time during the day. Add new questions or revise old questions whenever you feel the need to do so.
• writing continuously for 20 minutes about “the most upsetting or traumatic experience of your entire life” on four consecutive days significantly reduced long-term anxiety, strengthened the immune system, improved mood, and led to more open and social behavior.
• value of journaling to include positive life events.
• Subjects writing about their peak experiences for 15 minutes each time on three consecutive days were happier and healthier, psychologically and physically better off than those who did not
• participants journaled for two minutes each time, on two consecutive days—so a total of 4 minutes of writing.
• How much was enough to impact real change
• Four minutes of journaling!
• journaling may be the thing for you.
• what you feel and what you think for fifteen minutes or twenty minutes can be great. Though even two short minutes can go a long way.
• On two consecutive days, take two minutes to journal about anything that is bothering you, that is weighing you down. You can also write for two minutes on two consecutive days on a positive life experience. When you journal, there’s no need to be concerned about grammar or spelling. Free associate, express whatever is on your mind and heart. There is no need to journal daily or even weekly. Put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, whenever you feel the need to share, to figure something out, or to simply lift your mood.
• Curiosity
• People who ask questions and seek to learn new things are more successful overall, enjoying higher achievement in school and better performance at work
• number of benefits to curiosity.
• tend to be happier, with lower levels of anxiety and higher levels of life satisfaction.
• curiosity also contributes to our physical health
• controlling for other factors, aging adults who were curious were likely to live longer than those who were not.
• we do not lose our desire to learn.
• nature dictates that we are capable of deriving pleasure from learning some things
• pay attention to the treasures of knowledge and wisdom that are often hidden in plain sight.
• “beginner’s mind.
• entering a beginner’s mind—a state of active mindfulness, as Langer describes it—people enjoy increased levels of happiness and health, greater satisfaction in both
• new and longstanding relationships, higher self-esteem and motivation, improved memory and learning, as well as creativity.
• “Live each day as if it’s your first.”
• Indulge your curiosity. Spend one minute learning something new, by asking someone a question or by searching online. In addition, spend a few seconds or longer drawing novel distinctions in something that you are familiar with. Look for novelty in the face of a person you know well, in the content of your own room, while observing a work of art that hangs on your wall, or as you listen to your favorite song. Find the new in the familiar.
• Chapter 7: Relational Wellbeing MVIs
• Relational wellbeing is about our deep-seated need for social interactions
• number one predictor of happiness is spending quality time with people we care about and who care about us.
• ➢ Relationship Boosters ➢ Hugs ➢ Acts of Kindness ➢ Listening
• Relationship Boosters
• John Gottman demonstrated that in the best romantic relationships, partners enjoy a 5:1 positivity ratio, meaning that for every one disagreement or conflict, angry exchange or disappointment, there are five positives
• determining the 5:1 ratio is challenging, because it’s not clear how one assigns a numerical value to each experience—a peck on the cheek is unlikely to contribute as much to the positive side of the ratio as a passionate night of love making, and a minor disagreement over a trivial matter does not impact the negative side as much as a serious argument that spans a week
• You can have a wonderful relationship if you’re at 4:1 or 7:1.
• conflict is essential, and that sweeping real issues under the rug is unhealthy for the long-term success of your relationships
• for your relationship to flourish you need more positives than negatives.
• focusing on accentuating the positive more so than eliminating the negatives.
• You can make a relationship extraordinary by focusing on the ordinary.
• genuine, heartfelt compliments.
• Actively look for positive things to say about people you care about and who care about you
• Make a list of relationship boosters that you would like to introduce at home and at work. Sprinkle these boosters across your personal and professional interactions. There are countless gestures that can raise the positivity ratio in the context of your relationships. Pick the ones that feel comfortable and authentic to you.
• Hugs
• Too many people in too many places have lost touch with touch
• “We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.”
• Psychologist Jane Clipman asked college students participating in her study to add five extra hugs to their day
• After a month, the huggers—men and women—were significantly happier than those in the control group who were not prescribed additional hugs.
• touch is an important component of a full and fulfilling life.
• helps babies grow and adults flourish, reduces pain and provides pleasure, strengthens the immune system and alleviates anxiety, cultivates physical wellbeing and fosters resilience. University of Miami professor Tiffany Field has conducted years of research showing that “Touch is critical for children’s growth, development and health, as well as for adults’ physical and mental wellbeing.”
• It is hardly a coincidence that there is a strong correlation between countries that are more tactile—that sanction hugs—and countries that dislike physical contact. Finland and Colombia, where people freely and readily show affection through touch, consistently rank among the happiest countries in the world. In contrast, North Americans and Brits are among the
• least tactile people in the world, which partially explains why levels of wellbeing is significantly lower in these countries. According to Tiffany Field, many of the most common psychological problems can be attributed to “touch hunger.”
• we can usually increase our touch quotient.
• different kinds of hugs that are appropriate in different contexts and with different people.
• How close or far are we?
• How soft or firm is the hug? How short or how long do we remain embraced? The key is that both people benefit from the hug, and that both feel fully comfortable.
• Find ways to gradually and sensitively spread more hugs—and more touch in general— throughout your days. When possible and appropriate, extend some of the hugs to 30 seconds or even longer. Relax into the hug, focus on the sensations, appreciate yourself and the other.
• Acts of Kindness
• One of the most powerful ways to boost our own happiness is by contributing to others’ happiness
• our nature dictates that we feel better about ourselves when we give, when we help in one way or another
• relationships get better, we become happier.
• Harvard Business School and the University of British Columbia showed that those who were given money and spent it on others—bought a gift for someone else or donated it—enjoyed a larger increase in their levels of happiness than those who spent the same amount of money on themselves.
• giving something that is non tangible, like kindness
• Lyubomirsky asked participants to commit a handful of extra acts of kindness each week—being slightly more generous than they normally would be.
• This seemingly trivial intervention led to a significant increase in participants’ wellbeing
• 1940s, Anne Frank wrote in her diary: “You can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness.” Just being kind to someone is an act of giving, that has value for the receiver, the giver, and the world
• Finally, you let go. Given that you can’t really change the trajectory of the movie, you let go of trying to change the characters. You are simply there, to empathize—feeling their pain and enduring their struggles, experiencing their joy and celebrating their feats.
• “Caring for others based only on your sacrifice doesn’t last. Caring must also feed you.”
• generosity is part of our nature
• a bracelet we associate with kindness, a picture of a benevolent person on our wall, a recurring message on our smartphone—to bring out the goodness that awaits inside.
• Commit to five or more extra acts of kindness each week. You can pick a day to do them all, or spread them evenly over the week. Acts of kindness can be premeditated or spontaneous; you can decide in advance how you will help someone, or you can do so when opportunity presents itself. And remember to treat yourself as you treat others—with kindness.
• Listening
• Listening is one of the most potent forms of giving, of being kind and generous
• Listening to another person with mindful intention, in addition to spiritual wellbeing, can contribute to relational wellbeing by leading to a deeper connection between two people.
• transformative impact of listening
• honing our ability to understand and solve problems.
• Children who are listened to—be it by their parents, teachers, or friends—grow up to be more confident adults.
• In the workplace, employees who feel heard and understood, whose managers are mindful listeners, experience less stress, are healthier, and miss fewer days of work.
• employees who listen well to each other are more productive and better at problem solving.
• The Zen of Listening, Rebecca Shafir employs the metaphor of the movies to explain the art and science of effective listening. Think about going to the movies. What is unique about the experience? In what ways are you different while watching a movie relative to other situations? First of all, You do not interrupt. You allow the story to unfold, the characters to do and say their thing. To interrupt would be both futile as well as rude to the other movie goers
• Second, You seek to understand. You are genuinely interested in what the characters are saying, doing, thinking, and feeling. By the end of the movie you have a pretty good picture, so to speak, of what the characters are about
• Third, given that you do not interrupt and genuinely seek to understand, you pay attention. You are present, absorbed in the here-and-now.
• Now, apply this knowledge to the way you listen to your friend, family member, colleague, or anyone else. And then listen to yourself!
• Truly listening, forgetting yourself for a short time, and getting into the speaker’s movie can be the kindest gift you can give to another.” Shafir then points out that by listening we do not merely offer a gift to others, we do so for ourselves as well: “If we approach a listening opportunity with the same self-abandonment as we do at the movies, think of how much more we stand to gain from these encounters.”
• Create reminders in your life to be a better, more mindful, listener. Commit to being present for one minute as you spend time with a friend or a colleague. This one minute will often extend to the next minute and to the one after, as you become more present to others and to yourself.
• Chapter 8: Emotional Wellbeing MVIs Emotional wellbeing is about learning to deal with painful emotions—such as anger, anxiety, sadness, and envy—and cultivating pleasurable emotions such as joy, love, gratitude, and excitement. The four MVIs described in this chapter are: ➢ Accepting Emotions ➢ Changing Perspective ➢ Expressing Gratitude ➢ Pleasure Boosters
• Accepting Emotions
• he foundation of happiness is allowing in unhappiness; to lead a full and fulfilling life you need to first give yourself the permission to be human.
• The belief that you, or anyone else for that matter, can lead a life devoid of painful emotions is misguided and harmful, and constitutes perhaps the most significant barrier to happiness.
• when you reject painful emotions, they escalate and intensify
• when you invite in the painful, you open yourself up to the pleasurable—for all emotions flow through a single pipeline, and by blocking the path of sadness you inadvertently obstruct joy
• It is only when you give yourself the permission to be human—when you accept that feeling fear, anger, sadness or envy is an inevitable part of being alive—that you can fulfill your potential for both psychological and physical health.
• Life as a whole becomes so much lighter, more peaceful, when rather than fighting your nature you embrace it—pain, pleasure, and all.
• But how do you give yourself the permission to be human? How do you embrace your emotions? Given that emotions manifest themselves in our mind and in our body, we need to accept our thoughts and our physical sensations
• The key to acceptance is being a witness to the emotion without judgment or censure, without trying to get rid of it or change it in any way.
• it is about observing the thoughts and the physical sensations with “friendly curiosity.”
• You can practice this form of acceptance during set times—say for a minute or two in the morning, or in bed before you fall asleep. Alternatively, you can practice acceptance whenever the need arises. For example, if you feel anxiety before a presentation, or envy when you are about to spend time with a friend, take a minute to simply and nonjudgmentally observe the thoughts going through your mind and the physical sensations in your body.
• Once a day, spend a minute or two observing whatever emotion is present in your mind and your body. If no distinct emotion rises to the surface for observation, scan your body for any part that may be a little tense or uncomfortable and simply observe that part with friendly curiosity. Give yourself the permission to be human by unconditionally accepting any and all emotions.
• Changing Perspective
• This image has been used by psychologists to illustrate a simple truth with important implications: distinct perspectives of the same phenomenon may be equally valid and yet produce radically different outcomes.
• cognitive framing
• Joe Tomaka from New Mexico State University
• The first group was told that the task was “difficult mental arithmetic” and were instructed to complete it efficiently and quickly. As a result, these students appraised the test as threatening. Participants in the second group were given a “mental arithmetic” task and told that they should
• try hard to do their best. Rather than evaluating the test as threatening, they saw it as challenging.
• Just as the same picture can be seen as either a duck or as a rabbit, the same test can be seen as either threatening or challenging. And the way students appraised the task—whether as a threat or as a challenge—made a significant difference: students in the second group were significantly calmer, more creative, and actually performed better on the test.
• This is just one of many studies that confirm that a single word can have a dramatic impact on how we experience life, how well we perform, and how healthy we are.
• bedtime routine with a child can be perceived as an obligation or as a privilege
• Work can be experienced as a job or as a calling
• even inherently difficult situations can be reframed. We can see failure as a disaster or as a learning opportunity. A conflict within a relationship can be a threatening menace or a door to cultivating intimacy by learning about each other.
• first step is to write down a statement that captures the reframed perspective
• second step is to reinforce this new perspective by rereading the statement
• Speaking in front of an audience is an opportunity to share what I care about with others
• how you evaluate—and hence how you experience—situations, is up to you. What you focus on doesn’t merely reflect reality, it also creates reality.
• Think of a situation in your life that you experience as threatening or negative in any way. In writing, reframe the same situation as challenging, as an opportunity, or in any other positive way. Reread your reframed statement at specific times during the day, or whenever you feel the need to do so. Focus on the emotions that the new perspective elicits. You may consider visualizing yourself in the situation, experiencing it positively.
• Expressing Gratitude
• The Roman statesman and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero referred to gratitude as “not only the greatest of virtues, but also the mothers of all others.”
• We live in a wonder-full world, and there is so much that we can be grateful for. And yet, most of us take much of what we have for granted.
• psychologists Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough participants were asked to write down five things, big or small, for which they were grateful. It turns out that beyond being more grateful about life as a whole, participants who persisted over a period of a few weeks were more joyful, energetic, and helpful to others. They also slept better and experienced fewer symptoms of physical illness.
• such a simple and brief intervention can lead to such significant benefits?
• Emmons and McCullough suggest that being grateful triggers an upward spiral of growth and wellbeing.
• When we take stock of the good things in our lives, we feel bette
• When we feel better, we become more open to, and are more likely to pursue, positive experiences. We then have more to be grateful for, which in turn improves the quality of our lives, and so on.
• The word “appreciate” has two meanings—to be grateful for something and to grow in value. These two meanings are intimately connected, for when you appreciate the good, the good appreciates.
• Expressing gratitude can also be a group activity. Whether around the boardroom table with colleagues or the dinner table with family and friends, taking turns to express gratitude can contribute to everyone’s mental and physical wellbeing
• When expressing gratitude, it is key to be both mindful and heartful. To reap the benefits of this simple practice, it’s not enough to mechanically “go through the motions” and mindlessly write whatever comes to mind. You have to focus on what you write, experience what it means to you. If a good friend makes your list, bring up her image in your mind’s eye and feel her presence. Perhaps you can even think of something specific that you did together on that day
• there is so much in your life— and in the world—that is worthy of beholding and appreciating.
• Find a regular time during the day to write down three to five things for which you are grateful. You might consider keeping a pen and small notebook by your bed for this purpose. Date each entry so that you can look back and review your own gratitude history.
• Pleasure Boosters
• he work of psychologist Barbara Fredrickson illustrates just how important it is for us to experience pleasurable emotions. Fredrickson suggests that emotions like gratitude, love, joy, pride, and awe are not merely desirable because they feel good as ends in themselves, but also because they are means towards other ends.
• We become more creative and innovative, develop more resilience and a better connection with others, enjoy better health as well as extra energy and vitality.
• a pleasure booster is a bite-size activity that elevates your mood.
• This can be about closing your eyes for a minute and imagining a person you love or listening to a favorite song, savoring a bite over lunch or taking a minute to read a poem that moves you. This is essential to introduce throughout your life. In the words of Nathaniel Branden: “Pleasure for man is not a luxury, but a profound psychological need.”
• stop, take our time, even if it is for a minute or thirty seconds. As 19 th century British author Mary Ann Evans admonishes us, “The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.”
• While delaying gratification is at times important, it is equally important to seize the moment and indulge ourselves with a pleasure booster—even when it seems like we do not have a moment to spare.
• If we delay gratification indefinitely we end up with no gratification at all, because we do not live indefinitely.
• happiness levels increased
• as a result of the seemingly minor interventions that I introduced
• architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, “God is in the details”
• happiness in the details.
• Pleasure boosters are those small gifts that we give ourselves and that keep on giving, as they generate upward spirals in our life.
• Make a list of pleasure boosters, bit-size activities that elevate your mood. Introduce these throughout your day, week, and month, so that you can make the most of your life, enjoy the numerous benefits of enjoyment.
• Chapter 9: The 3 Rs of Change
• MVIs are unique in the rich landscape of psychological interventions. First, unlike many of the interventions within the self-help universe, they are evidence-based, derived from research.
• Not everything that comes out of research labs stands the test of time; scientists are human and therefore fallible.
• research in psychology usually derives conclusions about the average or majority of people, rather than about all people.
• o a particular intervention may work splendidly for most people, but not at all for you
• he fact, though, that the MVIs are evidence-based makes a good case for your trying them out, experimenting with them, ascertaining for yourself whether they do or do not work.
• given their brevity, they are relatively easy and straightforward to implement and pose a low barrier to entry. Putting aside a minute or two—be it for journaling, meditating or jumping up and down—is a lot easier and more likely to happen than dedicating 20 minutes or an hour to such activities.
• the fact that MVIs are evident-based and the fact that they pose a relatively low barrier to entry does not mean that making them an integral part of your life is an easy endeavor that just happens because you read this book. Time, effort, commitment and dedication are all necessary if you are to derive the potential benefits inherent in the MVIs
• eminders, repetition, and rituals
• reminders are external cues in our environment that focus our attention on a particular commitment we made
• bracelet that you always or periodically wear on your wrist can be a reminder to return to the present moment and engage in informal meditation (Spiritual Wellbeing MVI)
• If you would like to engage in regular high intensity exercise bursts (Physical Wellbeing MVI),
• you can set your smartphone to ping every 90 minutes
• A picture of your mother or of Mother Teresa can remind you to consistently engage in acts of kindness (Relational Wellbeing MVI).
• You can use your daily planner to remind you to express gratitude (Emotional Wellbeing MVI) at the end of each day
• Regular reminders can pave the way to repetition, which is of course essential for lasting change.
• Engaging in a meditation practice for seven straight days is unlikely to significantly impact your overall physical and psychological wellbeing. To become more flexible takes time and does not happen overnight, or even over a month.
• And giving yourself the permission to be human has to be an ongoing practice if you are to truly enjoy lasting happiness.
• When you introduce reminders coupled with repetition into your life, you are getting closer to the promised land of change—the cultivation of rituals
• ritual is formed when a neural pathway has been carved out in your brain associated with a particular behavior or a thought pattern.
• finding meaning in whatever you’re already doing becomes second nature.
• After taking cold showers for a month or two the body gets used to this form of shock treatment and begins to crave these experiences
• Reading and rereading texts slowly and deliberately over time cultivates the ability and the desire to deeply engage with texts—and with life
• While initially you may need a reminder to hug repeatedly, soon it becomes a joyful habit, a ritual
• And changing perspective becomes almost second nature to you once you have done it regularly over an extended period of time
• When an activity or a way of thinking is repeated often and much, it becomes a habit, a ritual.
• no longer requires extraordinary effort, as it becomes an effortless part of your ordinary life.
• High Intensity Burst of exercise four times during the day, whereas a gratitude journal once before you go to bed. An MVI may be triggered by a specific need—you write in your journal when you’re feeling stressed—or by circumstance—whenever you have an opportunity to be kind, you seize it. You may join an MVI to an existing ritual—you add a minute or two of cold immersion to your daily shower—or have it accessible to you throughout the day—such as having your favorite quote on the wall.
• First
• less is more.
• most likely to succeed if you underreach rather than overreach
• Second
• don’t worry if you fail.
• Each time you make an attempt to introduce a change into your life, regardless of whether or not you succeed, you’re reinforcing the neural pathways associated with the particular behavior or thought pattern
• Most people do not succeed the first or second time they attempt to introduce a new ritual. Success on the fifth or sixth attempt is much more likely.
• The first is wearing a bracelet as a reminder for engaging with informal meditation, returning to the here-and-now
• whatever he may be doing.
• second is a picture on his desk of his loving grandmother, as a reminder to bring more hugs and other forms of touch back into his life
• less may be more when it comes to implementation. And while you can choose to introduce most of the MVIs from this book or others that you come up with in your life, you can also choose to incorporate one or two of them. As long as they become rituals, you will reap significant benefits. Small changes make a big difference, if consistently applied.
• when they went back to their “real” life, to their homes and offices, he didn’t want them to call him up and rave about the amazing time that they had. Rather, he wanted them to tell him what new behaviors they were introducing. He would say: “On Monday, don’t tell me how great it was; tell me what you’re doing differently.”
• Drucker understood that most change efforts fail, that an insight following a weekend retreat or a self-help book no matter how great usually brings about nothing more than the honeymoon effect.
• The idea underlying this book—that small interventions consistently applied can make a big difference—has great potential to transform your life. Each of the interventions covered in this book is evidence based and can potentially make a real difference in your day-to-day. However, no matter how deep your understanding of the content of this book, no matter how much it resonates with you, change can only come about by taking action. So which MVIs are you going to introduce into your life? Starting today, what are you going to do differently?

357 more annotations...

• Thomas didn’t want to try things he wouldn’t be successful at,
• hen they didn’t, he gave up almost immediately, concluding, ‘I’m not good at this.’ 
• Thomas was dividing the world into two—things he was naturally good at and things he wasn’t.
• lack confidence about his ability to tackle routine school challenges?
• large percentage of all gifted students (those who score in the top 10 percent on aptitude tests) severely underestimate their own abilities.
• underrate the importance of effort, and they overrate how much help they need from a parent.
• 85 percent of American parents think it’s important to tell their kids that they’re smart
• Giving kids the label of “smart” does not prevent them from underperforming. It might actually be causing it.
• Carol Dweck
• studied the effect of praise on students in a dozen New York schools. Her seminal work—a series of experiments on 400 fifth-graders—paints the picture most clearly.
• told each student his score, then gave him a single line of praise.
• some were praised for their intelligence
• Other students were praised for their effort
• given a choice of test for the second round
• f those praised for their effort, 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles. Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easy test. The “smart” kids took the cop-out.
• When we praise children for their intelligence,”
• we tell them that this is the name of the game: Look smart, don’t risk making mistakes.
• everyone failed.
• responded differently
• This is my favorite test.’ ” Not so for those praised for their smarts. They assumed their failure was evidence that they weren’t really smart at all. “Just watching them, you could see the strain. They were sweating and miserable.”
• Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control,”
• Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.
• Blackwell split her kids into two groups for an eight-session workshop. The control group was taught study skills, and the others got study skills and a special module on how intelligence is not innate. These students took turns reading aloud an essay on how the brain grows new neurons when challenged. They saw slides of the brain and acted out skits. “Even as I was teaching these idea
• I would hear the students joking, calling one another ‘dummy’ or ‘stupid.’ ” After the module was concluded, Blackwell tracked her students’ grades to see
• teachers—
• ould pick out the students who had been taught that intelligence can be developed
• The only difference between the control group and the test group were two lessons, a total of 50 minutes spent teaching not math but a single idea: that the brain is a muscle. Giving it a harder workout makes you smarter. That alone improved their math scores.
• self-esteem was the single most important facet of a person,
• one must do whatever he can to achieve positive self-esteem
• movement with broad societal effects.
• Association for Psychological Science asked Dr. Roy Baumeister, then a leading proponent of self-esteem, to review this literature. His team concluded that self-esteem was polluted with flawed science
• Only 200 of those 15,000 studies met their rigorous standards.
• Baumeister concluded that having high self-esteem didn’t improve grades or career achievement
• Highly aggressive, violent people happen to think very highly of themselves, debunking the theory that people are aggressive to make up for low self-esteem.
• for college students on the verge of failing in class, esteem-building praise causes their grades to sink further.
• The hockey players were specifically complimented on the number of times they checked an opponent
• praise needs to be specific
• Sincerity of praise is also crucia
• scrutinize praise for hidden agendas
• Older children are just as suspicious of it as adults.
• studies where children watched other students receive praise.
• 12, children believe that earning praise from a teacher is not a sign you did well—it’s actually a sign you lack ability and the teacher thinks you need extra encouragement.
• it’s a teacher’s criticism—not praise at all—that really conveys a positive belief in a student’s aptitude.
• The scholars found consistent correlations between a liberal use of praise and students’ “shorter task persistence, more eye-checking with the teacher, and inflected speech such that answers have the intonation of questions.”
• a teacher who praises a child may be unwittingly sending the message that the student reached the limit of his innate ability, while a teacher who criticizes a pupil conveys the message that he can improve his performance even further.
• image maintenance becomes their primary concern
• credibility
• Praise is important, but not vacuous praise,” she says. “It has to be based on a real thing—some skill or talent they have.”
• Once children hear praise they interpret as meritless, they discount not just the insincere praise, but sincere praise as well.
• tudents praised for intelligence choose to find out their class rank, rather than use the time to prepare.
• praised students become risk-averse and lack perceived autonomy
• In another, students get a do-it-yourself report card and are told these forms will be mailed to students at another school—they’ll never meet these students and don’t know their names. Of the kids praised for their intelligence, 40 percent lie, inflating their scores. Of the kids praised for effort, few lie.
• When students transition into junior high, some who’d done well in elementary school inevitably struggle in the larger and more demanding environment. Those who equated their earlier success with their innate ability surmise they’ve been dumb all along. Their grades never recover because the likely key to their recovery—increasing effort—they view as just further proof of their failure. In interviews many confess they would “seriously consider cheating.”
• Students turn to cheating because they haven’t developed a strategy for handling failure. The problem is compounded when a parent ignores a child’s failures and insists he’ll do better next time.
• he’s proud and self-conscious.
• my hesitation was that the mind-set Dweck wants students to have—a firm belief that the way to bounce back from failure is to work harder—sounds awfully clichéd: Try, try again.
• the ability to repeatedly respond to failure by exerting more effort—instead of simply giving up—is a trait well studied in psychology. People with this trait, persistence, rebound well and can sustain their motivation through long periods of delayed gratification.
• persistence turns out to be more than a conscious act of will; it’s also an unconscious response, governed by a circuit in the brain.
• orbital and medial prefrontal cortex.
• it intervenes when there’s a lack of immediate reward. When it switches on, it’s telling the rest of the brain, “Don’t stop trying. There’s dopa [the brain’s chemical reward for success] on the horizon.
• What makes some people wired to have an active circuit?
• brain has to learn that frustrating spells can be worked through
• intermittent reinforcement,
• A person who grows up getting too frequent rewards will not have persistence, because they’ll quit when the rewards disappear.
• praise junkie” was just an expression—but suddenly, it seemed as if I could be setting up my son’s brain for an actual chemical need for constant reward
• What would it mean, to give up praising our children so often? Well, if I am one example, there are stages of withdrawal, each of them subtle. In the first stage, I fell off the wagon around other parents when they were busy praising their kids. I didn’t want Luke to feel left out. I felt like a former alcoholic who continues to drink socially
• I became a Social Praiser.
• Dweck recommends. I praised Luke, but I attempted to praise his “process.
• I praised him for concentrating without asking to take a break
• listened to instructions carefully, I praised him for that
• After soccer games, I praised him for looking to pass, rather than just saying, “You played great.”
• focused praise helped him see strategies he could apply the next day. It was remarkable how noticeably effective this new form of praise was.
• I was the real praise junkie in the family.
• it was I who was suffering
• I recognized that praising him with the universal “You’re great—I’m proud of you” was a way I expressed unconditional love.
• In those few hours t
• We are in your corner, we are here for you, we believe in you.
• In a similar way, we put our children in high-pressure environments, seeking out the best schools we can find, then we use the constant praise to soften the intensity of those environments. We expect so much of them, but we hide our expectations behind constant glowing praise. The duplicity became glaring to me.
• Eventually, in my final stage of praise withdrawal, I realized that not telling my son he was smart meant I was leaving it up to him to make his own conclusion about his intelligence. Jumping in with praise is like jumping in too soon with the answer to a homework problem—it robs him of the chance to make the deduction himself.

• his morning, I tested him on the way to school: “What happens to your brain, again, when it gets to think about something hard?”

    

  “It gets bigger, like a muscle,” he responded, having aced this one before.

78 more annotations...

isaac paris on Sep 13, 13

I worked with a student like this a few years ago. Scored Very high on IQ tests, enjoyed only creative projects