Positive Priming For a Competitive Edge
I just dropped my son off to take a high school entrance exam. In the car on the way there I told him to think of something that made him happy before he started the test. I got the idea from a study of positivity that showed that students did better on standardized tests when they self-generated a positive emotion before taking the test.
So is this relevant if you aren’t a student and don’t have to take tests anymore (thank goodness!)? Yes it is! One of the best things any of us can do to increase our odds of success is to prime positive emotions before doing a task. Positive emotions broaden our cognitive capacity making our minds more open so we are more likely to find creative and optimal solutions. Positive emotions also reduce stress and anxiety which means we are better able to focus and perform at our best.
How many of you crammed for exams right up until you heard the dreaded “please clear your desk”? Do you still do that now when you are under pressure to perform at work? Well it is time to stop! All you are doing is increasing your anxiety and hurting your chances of success. You would be much better off spending five minutes watching a funny video on YouTube or chatting with a colleague about the football game last night.
So before you go in to make that presentation or run your proposal by a potential client take a few minutes to do something that will prime positive emotions. Listen to one of your favorite songs on your ipod or think of a joyful memory. You can also help others succeed by making them feel positive when they are faced with an important task. Give them some encouraging words, point out their strengths, or remind them of a past success. Positive priming is a quick and easy way to give yourself, your team, even your kids a competitive edge.
Use Your Strengths at Work
Are you using your strengths at work every day? The happiest, most successful people know what their strengths are and use them often. So once you have identified your strengths, you now need to find opportunities to use them.
If you aren’t currently using your strengths much at work don’t worry, this doesn’t mean you have to quit your job and find another one. In most cases you can make small changes to shape your work in ways that allow you to do more of what you do best.
One way to make work more fulfilling is by adding tasks that allow you to use your strengths. Have you ever come across a flight attendant who has added the role of comedian to his or her job? I was on a small plane last summer with a single flight attendant who must have been nearing retirement and was pretty strict about how she ran her “ship”. She was also hilarious and referred to herself as “Grambo”. Hairdressers often expand their haircutting role to include high quality social interactions by asking their clients personal questions and making self-disclosures. Come on, I’m sure some of you don’t need to pay a therapist thanks to your hairdresser!
My favorite example is one of my yoga instructors who also happens to be a great guitar player. He has found a way to include his strength as a musician in his job as a yoga instructor. He brings his guitar to class and at the end, when everyone is relaxing during Savasana, he pulls out his guitar and sings one of the songs he has written. We enjoy listening to him play and he is more engaged because he gets to do something that brings him great joy while teaching his yoga classes.
Why not take some time to reflect on your strengths and come up with some creative ways to use them more often at work? It might involve volunteering to take on an extra task, but the positivity boost you will get from having the opportunity to do more of what you do best will be worth it!
I’d love to hear your stories about how you have shaped your work to make it more engaging. Please share them with us!
“I Think I Can”
One of my favorite books growing up was The Little Engine That Could. I just loved repeating with my mother when she read it to me, “I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can” as the little blue engine tried to pull a heavy train loaded with toys up a tall mountain. And then I’d shout with delight as the engine crested the top and started down the other side saying “I-thought-I-could, I-thought-I-could, I-thought-I-could”.
What a great book and what an important lesson! Self-efficacy, our belief in our ability to do something, is a powerful predictor of what people choose to do and how successful they will be. The little engine accepted the challenge of pulling the long train up the mountain after several other larger engines refused to even try. It made it to the top because it believed it could. Self-efficacy leads to success because when we believe we can do something we are more likely to try it in the first place, we put in more effort, and we persist until it’s done.
Three effective ways to increase self-efficacy include:
- Mastery experience – not surprisingly, self-efficacy rises with success. When you do something well your belief that you are good at it goes up. This means it is important to set goals that are attainable so that you experience success. The best way to do this is to break big goals into smaller ones. This increases the probability that you will achieve them and gives you more mastery experiences along the way.
- Modeling – we are more likely to believe we can do something when we see someone else do it. Find someone who has succeeded at what you want to do who can serve as your model. You will not only learn from them, but your self-efficacy will be higher, too!
- Social persuasion – our confidence goes up when someone tells us they believe in our abilities. Encouragement from others can have a strong influence on our self-efficacy. But watch out! Your self-efficacy will decrease with discouraging words. So surround yourself with positive people who believe in you!
And, of course, don’t forget to repeat to yourself “I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can”!
Better Together
Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow. ~ Swedish Proverb
I’m going to my college reunion next week. I won’t tell you how many years it has been since I graduated, but I will tell you that I can hardly wait! My college years were absolutely wonderful and some of my closest friends today are friends I met in college. I’m sure many of you feel the same way.
So I thought it was an interesting coincidence when I picked up a magazine this morning and read in an article by Bill McKibben why he thinks so many of us feel our college years were the “best years of my life”. He believes we are happy during our college years because most of us live in such close emotional and physical proximity with a lot of other people. I couldn’t agree more! I have talked before about the impact of social connections on our happiness and this is yet another example of how being in close contact with others makes us happy.
Unfortunately, Americans are less connected to others than we ever have been before. McKibben suggests this is why the number of Americans who rate themselves as very happy has gone down since the 1950s, even as our standard of living has gone up significantly. We spend long hours at work so we can buy that big house separated from our neighbors and our flat screen TV, which results in us being even more socially isolated.
A recent study by the CDC shows that Hispanics have the longest lifespan in the U.S. Researchers are calling it the “Hispanic paradox” because a longer life expectancy is surprising in a population with a large share of poor, undereducated members. A news segment highlighting the study showed a group of Hispanics laughing and dancing at a senior citizen’s center. As I watched I couldn’t help but think of all the older white people who were likely sitting alone in their homes watching the same news show on TV. I have no doubt the close relationships that Hispanics have is a major contributor to their longevity.
According to McKibben the average American has half as many friends as someone 50 years ago. How very sad! We need to nurture our social connections. Our health and happiness depend on it! So why not turn off the TV and head down the street to say hello to your neighbor or go out to dinner with a friend?
3 Steps to Forgiveness
“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.” ~ Buddha
Forgiveness is associated with more happiness and hope, better health, increased self-esteem, and less anxiety and depression. It is especially important at work because anger, disappointment, and resentment are all barriers to effective collaboration. In positive work environments people are encouraged to forgive one another because forgiveness strengthens relationships and enhances team performance. It also fosters innovation and risk taking. People will only feel comfortable trying new things in a culture where mistakes are forgiven.
As important as forgiveness is, we all know it isn’t that easy to forgive someone who has hurt you. Here are three steps that might help when you are trying to forgive:
- Acknowledge your feelings of bitterness or betrayal. These are real feelings that can only be overcome if they are openly recognized.
- Try to understand why the person did what he or she did. Having empathy makes it easier to forgive. Considering the action or decision from the offender’s point of view could help you appreciate the influences that might have led them to act the way they did.
- Abandon your resentment. This requires making a conscious choice to move forward and focus on a positive future rather than dwelling on the negative event from the past.
Yes, I know, it is easier said than done. But why not give it a try? There really is nothing to lose and so much to gain. As a manager, you can foster a climate of forgiveness by helping employees who feel they have been wronged by a colleague follow these steps. Everyone will benefit if you do.
If you’d like further guidance on learning to forgive, Dr. Eileen Borris-Dunchunstang describes a 7-step program for letting go of anger and bitterness in her book Finding Forgiveness.
Positivity Through Partnerships
“Two heads are better than one.” An old cliché maybe, but so true. Michael Eisner has written a book called Working Together about successful business partnerships. He highlights numerous partnerships in his book, but points out that our individualistic society tends to undervalue working collaboratively. This is unfortunate given that good partnerships can increase positivity and lead to higher performance.
There are two ways in which collaborating with someone else can boost your positivity. First, one of the best ways to increase your happiness is to have close, supportive relationships. A partner can make it easier to get through hard times and gives you someone to celebrate with in good times. People who are lucky enough to find partners they work well with benefit from the friendship.
Second, partnerships can increase your positivity by allowing you to play to your strengths. In their book, Power of 2, Rodd Wagner and Gale Muller identify elements that are necessary for partnerships to be successful. The first one they mention is having complementary strengths; one of the partners is strong where the other is weak and vice versa.
Michael Eisner and his partner at Disney, Frank Wells, are a perfect example of complementary strengths. Eisner had the creative brilliance and Wells had the business sense. Wells once told Fortune “For Michael, I make life easier. For me, he makes life more fun.”
So it isn’t surprising that there are so many successful partnerships, think William Hewlett and David Packard, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Bill and Melinda Gates, William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, or Brian Grazer and Ron Howard. Their collaborations enhanced their performance and made them happier, which resulted in great achievements.
Do you have a business partner? If not, maybe you should look for someone to collaborate with. It might just help you take your game to the next level.
Money Can Buy Happiness?
Most studies of the link between money and happiness have shown that money does not buy happiness. Americans are no happier today than they were in 1940 and we certainly have significantly greater material wealth.
Of course, we need enough money so that we don’t have to worry about money. Not having enough money can be very stressful and can affect people negatively. There is a correlation between wealth and happiness for the very poorest countries in the world. And a recent study found that money can buy happiness for households with incomes below $75,000. But if you make more than that money does not buy happiness.
Or does it? Money actually can buy happiness if you spend it the right way. Having more money to spend on things does not increase your happiness, but spending money on others or on experiences can.
Spend money on others
Helping others is an extremely effective strategy for increasing your positivity. In one study people were given either $5 or $20. Half were asked to spend the money on themselves and the other half to spend the money on others. The people who spent money on others reported feeling much happier than those who spent the money on themselves. And the amount of money made no difference.
Spend money on experiences
Studies have also shown that spending money on experiences leads to significantly greater happiness than spending money on things. We quickly get used to the material objects we buy, whereas experiences produce positive emotions that are more meaningful and last longer. Our happiness is increased not only during the experience, but also beforehand as we anticipate it and afterward as we remember it.
Try spending your money in ways that will increase your happiness. Donate to charity, buy someone a Starbucks, go to a concert, take a vacation, or go out to dinner with friends and make it your treat!
On Becoming an Optimist
Being an optimist increases your positivity and can help you to be more successful. So what if you tend to be more of a pessimist? No worries! Optimism can be learned. How you interpret events is up to you. It takes just three steps to turn your pessimistic thoughts into optimistic ones.
Recognition
The first step is to recognize your own pessimistic thinking. This requires that you become aware of what is going through your head. By paying attention to your self-talk you will start to notice when you are having negative thoughts.
Rational thinking
The next step is to use rational thinking to dispute the negative thoughts. Often our pessimistic thoughts aren’t realistic; they may be distorted by our emotions or simply be the result of pessimistic habits. Try to think more objectively about the event, focusing on the facts. Ask yourself if the thoughts are reasonable. Search for evidence that proves your initial reactions aren’t true.
Redirection
Once you have disputed the pessimistic thoughts, you need to redirect your thinking by reinterpreting the situation or coming up with a more favorable explanation. Prepare rational, positive thoughts to counter the negative thoughts. Reframe setbacks by trying to come up with alternative causes, preferably external, temporary causes.
At first, it takes effort to recognize and dispute pessimistic thoughts, but the more you practice optimistic thinking the more natural it will become. The next time you feel yourself starting to get stressed about something, take a moment to pay attention to your thoughts. What are you saying to yourself? Check to see how realistic your thoughts are. Can you come up with any alternative explanations? Often things aren’t nearly as bad as we paint them to be in our mind. You have the power to change your thought patterns and become an optimist!
Optimistic versus Pessimistic Thinking
Optimistic people anticipate a bright future, expecting to achieve their goals. Because of this, they are more willing to take risks and make changes. Optimism can be self-fulfilling because people who expect good results are more likely to set difficult goals, expend effort in pursuing them, and persevere.
Optimistic Explanatory Style
The way you mentally explain the things that happen to you, your explanatory style, is at the heart of optimism. Optimists explain positive events in terms of personal, permanent causes and negative events in terms of external, temporary causes.
Let’s say you made a presentation that the client loved. If you were an optimist you might attribute your success to your presentation skills. Since your skills are personal and permanent, you are likely to give successful presentations in the future. If the client hadn’t liked your presentation, your explanation might be that they were preoccupied with an important problem. You expect your future presentations to be successful because the reason for failure was the client’s temporary problem, not your lack of skills.
Pessimistic Explanatory Style
Pessimists have the opposite explanatory style. They personally blame themselves for bad events and think the cause was something permanent. When something good happens, they tend to attribute it to luck and see the cause as temporary.
If your boss is unhappy with your budget proposal and you are a pessimist, you may attribute it to the fact that you’ve never been any good with numbers. Because you view your failure as due to something personal and permanent, you don’t expect your boss to like your proposals in the future either. Had your boss liked your proposal, you might feel it is because she was in an especially good mood. Probably won’t get that lucky again!
What is your explanatory style? The first step to becoming an optimist is to become aware of your thought patterns. In my next blog I’ll give you the rest of the steps for optimistic thinking!
“To become what we are capable of becoming is the only end in life.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
People long to identify and fulfill their purpose in life. Maslow called it self-actualization, wanting to become all that we are capable of becoming. One of the most critical steps toward realizing our potential is learning. Learning helps us to identify what our purpose or passion is and it allows us to stretch our limits in order to reach our potential.
Proyecto SALTA is a training program that will help women micro-entrepreneurs in Peru to realize their potential. I feel extremely fortunate to have been a part of the team that designed the training program. Our team included Dr. Christine Pearson, Kellie Kreiser, India Borba, and myself from Thunderbird School of Global Management and Giancarlo Cafferata and Miriam Vasquez from Aprenda. Aprenda, one of Latin America’s leading training companies, will deliver the program to 100,000 women in Peru over the next 3 years. The SALTA program was launched in June and over 2,000 women were trained during the first week!
My favorite part of the training is a telenovela that was incorporated to reinforce the concepts being taught. Click here to watch the trailer: El Gran Salto (The Big Leap)
SALTA means “to jump” in Spanish. This program will help thousands of women make a huge leap forward, providing them with a learning opportunity that will move them one step closer to fulfilling their potential.
None of us can realize our potential if we aren’t continuously learning. What have you learned lately that is moving you forward? Do you provide continuous learning opportunities for your employees? They will find more meaning at work if they feel they are fulfilling their purpose. Positive workplaces offer opportunities for people to develop their potential.
