Really excellent podcast! I’m sure the subject hits close to home for a lot of listeners. I’d like to add one point from the book “Mind over Mood”.

Rather than simply focusing on the positive (which of course has enormous benefits), it’s a good idea to analyze what’s true and what’s not true (with supporting evidence) for both the negative and the positive thoughts one’s having. You can then combine the true thoughts from both negative and positive sides to form a new and more accurate way of thinking about the issue that’s causing the emotion. Then, the next time you fall into that negative self-talk habit, you’re reminded of the more accurate thought pattern, which can then take over. After a few times, this becomes the new habit and the knee-jerk, negative self-talk subsides.

Another benefit of fully analyzing the negative things that may be true is that you can then try to focus on remediation of those things without them being clouded by other negative thoughts that are unsubstantiated by evidence.

I really like the guest format. Looking forward to more.

Scott

ttyl, Felise

Not linking up today gave me the opportunity to know you better and, while I was at it– work on a problem that plagues me. “Procrastination is the thief of time.” A saying that I’ve heard throughout my life and one which contiunues to haunt me.

The 10 points you address to help solve the problem make sense. I’ve tried the “reward” bit, but this never helped really. Yes, whenever I finally finished somehting, a reward felt nice. But the habit remained.

Understanding why I procrastinate and looking for a pattern inside the ‘events’ — for the first time helped me to see some of the underlying causes. Breaking it into smaller actions and removing distractions also resonated with me.

Well. My work, like many people’s, is complex and demanding. Your podcast put a fresh light on something that, if I earnestly apply it, it should help me make the progress I want.

I’ll let you know.

Thanks.

You make an excellent point that dropping one’s ego is critical to many of the items on the list of 10 that I provided. That’s actually true for many other things in life too that I talk about in this podcast series. If you’re not open to new ideas and think you already know everything that this is to know, for example, then you’re not going to be able to learn anything new from any other source. Great point.

Thanks for your insightful comment, Scott.

Karel

Another great podcast. Thanks!

I just wanted to add one personal characteristic that many great designers share without which some of the 10 steps you talked about (such as feedback, group brainstorming and being curious) are difficult to carry out successfully. That characteristic is the ability to drop one’s ego. Without this ability, one is not open to feedback, tends toward narrow thinking and is unwilling to accept others’ ideas or criticism of one’s own ideas.

Thanks again, Scott

Thanks so much for the feedback and for the HBR article. Just after I recorded this episode, I listened to the Harvard Business IdeaCast on this topic. If you haven’t already, I’d suggest subscribing to the IdeaCast. I would highly recommend it.

I’m glad you enjoy the podcast and thanks again for leaving a comment here.

Karel

Just found this series recently and enjoyed it. I was going to ask for the top 10 list, but I am glad you have added them to the audio file “meta-data”. It would be nice to add the quotes you start off each podcast to that list as well.

On this creativity topic, I found the recent HBR article on how Pixar foster collective creativity very interesting:

http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/hbr/articles/article.jsp?ml_action=get-article&articleID=R0809D&ml_issueid=BR0809&ml_subscriber=true&pageNumber=1&_requestid=49679

cheers,

Jin

I’m not much of a believer of panaceas. For one thing, people are very different — so what works for one may not work for another. There’s an ongoing discussion in applied positive psychology about how to find a good fit between person and positive intervention.

Sonja Lyubomirsky in her book, The How of Happiness: The Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want, has a chapter on figuring out which of the 12 avenues to greater happiness are the best fit for the reader — the ones the reader is most likely to pursue consistently enough for it to become a habit. That makes sense to me.

Both Amy and Scott,

I’m glad you found the talk helpful. I certainly enjoyed being interviewed about these topics.

Kathryn

I found this episode particularly helpful. Thank you!

I just found your podcast via iTunes. I am finding it so helpful to me right now and wanted to personally thank you. I look forward to future episodes.

I appreciate the balance in both your talk and in your response. I’ll look into the resources you suggest which I’m sure are of better quality than some of those that I’ve seen that paint either side of the issue as a panacea.

Thanks again. Scott

http://pos-psych.com/news/admin/20080725907

These images have live links to articles to the subjects mentioned. They show one way of organizing one’s thinking about the field, and they point to articles and books on subjects such as Gratitude, Hope and Optimism, Managing Mood, The Meaningful Life, and about 20 other topics, with more to come later.

For example, the following article includes a link to a YouTube of Martin Seligman talking about the “active constructive responding” - a topic that I mentioned in Karel’s interview.

http://pos-psych.com/image-maps/positive-emotions/love-and-acr#goodnews

Enjoy clicking around.

Kathryn Britton

Thanks for your interest. You took some time over this comment. As you may imagine, there were lots of details and qualifications I would like to have added … but time didn’t allow.

There’s an interesting YouTube where Dr. Seligman discusses the balance between positive psychology and more traditional psychology:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology.html

Here’s what I captured in my notes:

Psychology should be

* just as concerned with strength as with weakness, * just as interested in building the best things in life as repairing the worst * just as concerned with making the lives of normal people fulfilling and with nurturing high talent as with fixing pathology.

Thus both are necessary and have their roles.

There is a tendency for humans to start moving toward change by figuring out what’s wrong and needs fixing. Gap analysis. Root cause analysis. Appreciative Inquiry is an interesting movement these days that focuses on using the best of what is and what has been as the starting point for change. The leaders of the field comment that focusing on problems drains the energy for change out of the system.

As for your second point, I’m not sure that there’s a conflict. Positive psychology is not really geared toward producing inflated egos. We are hive animals, so how can we learn to give and get feedback in ways that make us more effective and fulfilled creatures? An area for research, of which Carol Dweck’s Mindset work is a good step.

Thanks again for responding. Your comment is stimulating to think about.

Kathryn

As a lay-person interested in this subject area, I found this podcast very interesting.

The traditional approaches to dealing with personal issues often tend towards seeking out and dealing with events or feelings that are at an issue’s root. Though this may deal with a particular issue, it my not help with one’s lingering negative thought processes.

On the other hand, simply applying positive thinking (and I know this is not what Kathryn was saying) may not deal with deep issues that a person needs to lay to rest before moving forward.

I’d love to hear discussion one two related subject areas:

1) The dispassionate, analytical and balanced (neither positive nor negative) approach offered by cognitive behavioral therapy which seems to me presents a happy middle-ground. Interestingly, some of what Kathryn talks about speaks to this approach.

2) The notion recently offered up by Eckhart Tolle that the ego is not the self which, I think, challenges both traditional therapy and the recent positive psychology movement. For example, the discussion around the effects of constructive and destructive feedback on the well-being of a person I think misses an important point. Both effect the person’s ego either by building it up or tearing it down. Tolle, I think, would point out that an inflated ego does not equate to a person’s well-being; it may have a contrary effect in fact. The later discussion of “person praise” would support Tolle’s views.

Great podcast Karel and Kathryn.

Regards, Scott Lewis

I just discovered your podcast on iTunes. I just wanted to let you know that I appreciate it and it sounds very professional. Keep up the good work.

Cheers!

Eric

I particularly resonated with the discussion about limits … the point about “I’ll be the parent and you be the kid” (to quote a book title) is key, I think. I see an awful lot of “best friend”parenting styles where kids — including toddlers — run the whole show. Those situations seem to lead to lots of stress and anxiety all around. I agree that kids appreciate and thrive with age-appropriate limits.

On the topic of parenting … one very helpful audiobook I listened to recently that I think has helped with my parenting style is “Screamfree Parenting” by Hal Runkel. The book advocates “cool parenting” — keeping your cool rather than constantly resorting to yelling and knee-jerk reactions — through the insight that you, the parent, are not responsible for making your children consistently behave in a certain way and that you’re better off learning to focus on your reactions to your children instead. I think the cool parenting approach is a good enabler for many of the habits you outlined.

Thanks for this podcast … I look forward to putting a couple of ideas into practice.