Tag Archives: positive psychology

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Making Yourself Happy

You have more control over your mood than you think.

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Most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be.

                                                                       Abraham Lincoln

 

How happy are you today? How happy are you most days? Do you tend to go through your days with a sense of well-being or joy, or do you tend to move from one problem to another in your mind?Abraham_Lincoln

 

Research, and common sense, suggest that we have more influence over our happiness than we think. We can increase our feelings of happiness if we are deliberate about it. Most of the time, we can improve our mood if we make the effort.

 

Now, I want to be clear that I’m not referring to clinical depression here. The disease of depression is a physical and mental disorder, which requires treatment. You can’t just snap out of depression. Even in depression, however, you can sometimes improve your mood, with effort. You can’t just decide to make it go away.

 

I’m referring to our day-to-day moods when depression is not a factor. In these situations, we can shift our mood if we try.  We don’t have perfect control over our mood, but we do have more control than we think.

 

Have you ever noticed that your mood one day might be pretty positive, and another day be down and out. Did you notice that your life situation might have been exactly the same on both days? It wasn’t your circumstances that determined your mood, it was your thinking, your perspective or your outlook. One day you thought negatively about yourself or your life, and the other day your thoughts were more positive.

 

So let’s imagine that you listened to the quote from Abraham Lincoln above, and made up your mind to be happy today. You determined this morning to make it a good day. How would you do it? What thoughts would you generate? What thoughts would you avoid? What would you want to notice or focus on?

 

Most likely, you already know the answers to these questions. You would want to deliberately notice or focus on the positive aspects of your life. You would try to avoid obsessing about your problems. You would remind yourself of the things you have to be thankful for. You would make efforts to cheer others up, or make them feel better. You would look for humor. You would get engaged in life activities. You would take the time to notice the beauty of nature. You would remind yourself of the positive traits of those around you, rather than their deficits. You would take the time to do something nice for yourself, or give yourself a little treat, without guilt. You would try to smile more.

 

The problem is not that we don’t know what to do. We just forget to do it. We focus our attention on the negative circumstances in our lives and believe strongly that we can’t feel better as long as those circumstances exist. We believe that we have no choice. We exclaim, “How could I possibly be happier in this situation?”

 

You may be right. Some circumstances are so negative that they do dictate your mood. But most are not.  Everyone has negative and positive circumstances in their lives. If you’re waiting for all your negative circumstances to disappear before you can experience happiness, you will be waiting a long time.

 

What would it take for you to improve your happiness level just one or two notches? Why not give it a try. Be deliberate today about improving your mood. Make up your mind to feel better today. See if Lincoln was on to something.

Comments: What techniques have you found to be helpful in improving your mood?

 

 

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Reclaiming Your Positive Self-Esteem

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If we reclaim something, it means that we once had it, but lost it at some point. I fully believe this to be true. I believe that most of usImage lost something valuable, even precious. We lost site of our true identity, who we really are.

This loss didn’t occur passively. Your knowledge of your true worth didn’t peacefully fade like a castle in the sand. It was attacked. It was chipped away, sometimes with a small tap and sometimes with a sledgehammer. The blows may have included critical words, disapproving looks or even looks of disgust, when you made the mistakes all children make. The blows may have occurred in silence, the parental visit that never happened, the lack of a parent at your ball game or concert, or simply the preoccupied manner when you needed attention. Your blows may have come when other kids teased you, laughed at your mistake or, verbally or non-verbally, told you to go away.

Each negative experience covered your true identity with a negative belief about self. Before long, all you could see were those negative, false beliefs. They formed a picture of you that was impossible to ignore. You accepted it. What else could you do? You didn’t know any better.

It’s time to strip away those messages and uncover your true self. It didn’t actually go away. You just couldn’t see it. It was there all along, buried under that pile of negative statements. With time and persistent effort, you can identify and discard those negative beliefs, revealing your true worth, reclaiming your positive self-esteem.

I have taught the course, “Reclaiming Your Positive Self-Esteem” about twenty times in the past eighteen months, with amazing results. The course is based on the principles in my book, “Parables for a Wounded Heart: Overcoming the Wounds to Your Self-Esteem and Transforming Your Perception of You.”

Here are some of the comments made by participants from the live course:

       This course has helped me to better understand how my past has affected my behaviors or experiences today. It also has offered me ways in which I can cope and change the way I see myself.   ~ Thomas A.

This course was an insightful journey into the reasons so many of us suffer from negative thinking! I learned many techniques to overcome a low self-esteem and gain a more enriched and happy life. My perception of myself has changed forever! Thank you!  –Anne P.

This was one of the most “life changing” events I have ever experienced! I wish I had attended this course years ago. For me, it wasn’t just learning about self-esteem. It was learning about myself in this world of many other self-esteem sufferers. I loved the stories, the analogies, the humor and the group interaction. I just can’t say enough about how powerful it was! —Janet L.

In my own experience, the journey of healing a wounded self-esteem can take years of therapy and/or self-discovery… or you can get a jump start and significantly shorten the process by attending Dr. Ledford’s workshop series! He has an amazing gift of getting to the heart of the issue, and gives practical steps to finding relief for a problem that can haunt all aspects of a person’s life. In a classroom setting, where privacy is protected and where you find strength in knowing you are not alone, Dr. Ledford will lead you through exercises and examples that bring out the best opportunity for seeing yourself as the wonderful person your Creator made you to be. Give yourself a gift by registering for this workshop today…you’ll be glad you did! —Sarah M.

 

I’m excited to announce that this course is now available as a webinar on Udemy.com. The course includes videos of the live course with power point slides and written exercises. There are thirteen lectures. You can watch it at your convenience. You have permanent access to it, so you can review any lectures at any time.

 

I hope you enjoy the course and begin the process of reclaiming your positive self-esteem!

 

SIGN UP FOR RECLAIMING YOUR POSITIVE SELF-ESTEEM COURSE HERE

 

 

Question: Please comment on your experience with the course.

 

 

 

 

 

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Are You an Optimist or a Pessimist?

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MP900305720A pessimist is someone who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is someone who makes opportunities of his difficulties.

Harry Truman

                                                                                                                    

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? An optimist tends to see the positive possibilities in every situation. A pessimist tends to see the negative possibilities. Optimists expect good things to happen, while pessimists expect negative outcomes. One sees the glass half full, while the other sees the glass half empty. While lengthy, I have included one of my favorite jokes, that illustrates the concept.

Once there was a woman who had two sons. One was an extreme pessimist, while the other was an extreme optimist. They were both so extreme that they drove her up a wall. She went to her pastor for some suggestions on how she could temper their optimism and pessimism. He said he thought he could help. Christmas was approaching. He suggested that she make her pessimistic son’s Santa presents the best ever. He said she should go over the top to get him everything she could think of that he might want. He suggested that such a fabulous Christmas morning might break him of his extreme pessimism. The mother said it would be expensive, but that it would be worth it. 

She then asked him what she should do about her overly optimistic son. The pastor noted that the family owned a farm, to which she agreed. He said she should take a cardboard box out to the barn. She should fill it with manure. She was instructed to tape it shut, wrap it in wrapping paper and put a bow on top. He suggested that if her optimistic son received only a box of manure on Christmas morning, it might break him of his extreme optimism. The mother agreed.

Christmas morning came. The mother watched as the boys came down stairs to see their presents. The pessimistic son went to his side of the tree. He found many wonderful presents, including a bicycle, a skateboard and roller skates. He just stood and stared at it all. Then he started to cry.

He sobbed, “Mama, why does Santa hate me so much?”

His mother asked him what he meant.

He said, “Santa must hate me, because he wants me to die. He gave me a bicycle so I would break my neck. If that doesn’t kill me, he gave me a skateboard. And if that doesn’t do the job, he gave me roller skates, just to make sure. Mama, this is the worst Christmas ever!”

The mother sighed, “Well, that didn’t work”.

She went over to the optimistic son’s side of the tree. He had opened the wrapped box, and was digging in the manure. She asked him what he thought about his Christmas.

He replied excitedly, “Mama, I’m not sure, but I think there’s a pony in here somewhere!”

 

Research suggests that traits of optimism or pessimism may sometimes be inherited, but the results aren’t clear on this point. We do know that such thinking patterns can be learned, and that they are habitual.

This week, notice whether you tend to be an optimist or a pessimist. Unlike the joke, there’s nothing wrong with being an optimist, as long as you recognize reality, but being a pessimist can surely hurt you. If you notice yourself having pessimistic tendencies, consciously look for the positive things in your day and in your life (i.e. count your blessings). Make a gratitude list. Deliberately paying attention to the positive parts of our lives can gradually diminish those pessimistic tendencies.

Question: What techniques have you found helpful in becoming a more positive person?