Posts Tagged by personal development

Years ago a John Hopkin’s professor gave a group of graduate students this assignment: Go to the slums. Take 200 boys, between the ages of 12 and 16, and investigate their background and environment. Then predict their chances for the future.

The students, after consulting social statistics, talking to the boys, and compiling much data, concluded that 90 percent of the boys would spend some time in jail.

Twenty-five years later another group of graducate students was given the job of testing the prediction. They went back to the same area. Some of the boys – by then men – were still there, a few had died, some had moved away, but they got in touch with 180 of the original 200. They found that only four of the group had ever been sent to jail.

Why was it that these men, who had lived in a breeding place of crime, had such a surprisingly good record? The researchers were continually told: “Well, there was a teacher…”

They pressed further, and found that in 75 percent of the cases it was the same woman. The researchers went to this teacher, now living in a home for retired teachers. How had she exerted this remarkable influence over that group of children? Could she give them any reason why these boys should have remembered her?

“No,” she said, “no I really couldn’t.” And then, thinking back over the years, she said musingly, more to herself than to her questioners: “I loved those boys….”

Bits & Pieces – June 1995

Are you an optimist or a pessimist?

 How you feel about this question can give you a glimpse into your explanatory style.

How you view your world, your life, your circumstance, affects everything you do. From your health, to your success ,to your ultimate happiness.

 And it’s changeable.

 It’s not an all or nothing situation. We all have elements of Pollyanna and Scrooge but it’s the habit we are looking for. What is your kneejerk reaction to your world? What is your tendency when something positive or negative happens to you? How do you explain what happends to you?

 The key to optimistic thinking is to take control of your thoughts and talk back to them.

 Demand evidence.

  “I’m not good enough.” “Nobody cares about me.” “I’ll never succeed.”

 Really?

 Prove it.

 Emiliya Zhivotovskaya suggests using these tag lines to force your brain to think differently about your life.

 1 )    That’s not true because…

2)    Another way of seeing that is…

3)     The most likely outcome is… and I can…

For example:

 “I’m so fat!”  That’s not true because I have a healthy BMI, I’m eating well, and I’m working on becoming more active.

 “I don’t get anything done.”  Another way of seeing that is that I do get things done, it’s just that lately I’ve been have been busy doing other tasks.

 “I’m going to be alone for the rest of my life.”  The most likely outcome is that I will eventually find someone, there is no logical reason for me to be alone for the rest of my life, and I can speed the process up by getting really clear on what I want and going out with friends to meet new people.

 You have the ability to choose your thoughts, choose responsibly…

Ahhh…the humour of the universe…It escapes me sometimes.

 Yesterday, the great energy force of the world decided to play a trick on me.

Everything I typed was backwards. As in right to left. My cursor only went to the left hand side of anything I did, and spit out the letters going to the left, none of the buttons worked so I couldn’t even turn it off.

Naturally, I was in the middle of something ‘important’ and the disruption was unwelcome. I had no idea what had happened and because absolutely nothing would do what I wanted, I couldn’t fix it or even try. I wanted to run an anti-virus but that was a button on the right side of the screen and the mouse would only go to the left side. I couldn’t restart it because again the mouse wouldn’t go there. I was baffled.

And thoroughly unimpressed.

So, let me ask you this? What would your reaction be? You’re in the middle of a project, you have time constraints, you’ve arranged childcare so you have the time to work on this and your computer starts…

?sdrawkcab gnipyt

!ylsuoireS

Over the next few weeks I will begin shifting this blog to align with my passions and my life’s work. Which happens to be the field of personal development and the science of happiness. And one of my favourite topics is optimism.

Optimism, contrary to what many believe, is not about being Susie Sunshine. It’s actually a lens through which you habitually view the world. Optimistic people choose to look at the world though positive eyes, with the feeling of control over their worlds, view negative happenings as temporary and so on. More on that at another time.

So here I am, wanting to start working on my ‘happy’ blog with a backwards computer, a finite amount of time to get it done, no way to fix it…and I burst out laughing.

What else was there to do? It was pretty funny even if I wasn’t exactly amused by the practical joke. I am an optimistic person. No, I wasn’t impressed that my computer was in the twilight zone, but my view was that I can’t do anything about it right now and it IS a bit hilarious to watch everything come out of your keyboard right to left.

I laughed. This was a choice. I decided to not smash my computer to bits, thought the thought did occur. I decided to type to friend to see her reaction because I hoped this was short lived and I’d never have the chance again.  I decided that if this happened it could un-happen, somehow.

What would you have done? What do you do when annoying things, devastating things, fantastic things happen to you? Are you habitually pessimistic or an optimist?

And if you are a pessimist, can you become an optimist?

You can, and I will tell you how. Next time…