Unlock Your Best Self
Questions Answered
What is positive psychology?
What misconceptions from traditional psychology does it address?
Why does this matter?
Full Transcript
Coach Dani: Hello, wonderful friends. I'm Danielle Hagerty and welcome to Habits Hub, your Cozy Corner for mastering life one habit at a time using proven psychology and design principles. As women balancing multiple roles and responsibilities building positive routines can be transformative. Here we go beyond quick tips to truly understand the “why” behind our behaviors. Together we'll craft sustainable habits to help you feel more energized, focused, and fulfilled whether that means kickstarting is self-care morning ritual, streamlining your day for better work-life balance or finding pockets of time for your passions. Our compassionate approach has helped women like you make lasting, meaningful changes. Subscribe at www.getbetterhabits.com to become an insider and claim your free consultation to dive deeper into designing your ideal life rhythm. Are you ready to invest in yourself and finally make those positive habits stick? Let's get started.
Coach Dani: I'm so excited to talk about this topic today. Positive psychology is at the heart of everything we do here at Better Habits. And so I think it's super important to dive into it. What is it? Why do we use it? How might it appeal to you–all of that goodness. So, let's get started on what is positive psychology. I do like to provide a little context and background. Positive psychology and the concepts that it talks about are not new. You can go back to Greek and Eastern philosophers pondering the virtues of life and the meaning of life. This has been a part of the human conversation for a very long time.
We’ll fast forward to the 1950s so that you don't get bored to tears over how humans have dealt with human flourishing over time. In the 1950s, humanistic psychology tried to break through and into the mainstream. They presented a holistic approach to the human experience and wanted to include topics like meaning, values, freedom, personal responsibility, and human potential into the conversation about psychology and personality and all of those good things.
In the industry at the time, the leading thoughts were behaviorism and psychoanalysis. The reason why humanistic psychology didn't love that was the focus was on the negative aspects of being human, and it was very much on trying to fix a weakness or address a disease–that sort of thing.
Unfortunately, humanistic psychology at the time didn't have a lot of scientific evidence or university studies or research to back it up. It did become a great foundation for self-help and other philosophy-type pursuits at that time but didn't really take hold in psychology, so it didn't really grow and blossom in the way that they had hoped. Positive psychology today, though, does have scientific methodology and academics testing predictions and gathering evidence. This new wave addresses that criticism from before.
The current kind of wave of positive psychology started roughly in 1998 and 2000. Early influential papers highlighted that criticism again in that psychology since World War II was largely about healing and repairing damage within the disease model of medicine. Again, not fully painting the whole picture of what it means to be human. The questions asked really focused on weakness, what is wrong with people, and how do we fix it.
That's an interesting question, and they did a lot of research. If you did an overview of academic papers between 1967 and 2000, the ratio is 21 to 1 on traditional psychology topics like anger, anxiety, and depression. The small pool of papers on joy, happiness, and life satisfaction does exist. It's, just as I said, very tiny compared to the rest.
And so it's not to say that traditional psychology is bad or negative or any of those things. They're asking important questions and, doing incredibly important work, and making advances to help people. The momentum is simply to try to add more to that conversation instead of replacing it. So if you think about traditional psychology and the human experience, the focus has been a little bit one-sided.
The metaphor that works for me in my head to create a visual is to have a bird with two wings. If it's standing on a twig or the ground, right, it has the opportunity to use both wings. Traditional psychology has been one-wing focused, one part of the human experience, and they traditionally go from trying to heal that disease or that damage or that negative experience. It gets a person to neutral, getting them to kind of that zero “healed” point. And that's good. That is a vital part of our bird, right? It is one of the wings.
The trouble is that some of the misconceptions that it creates leave a gap and our bird isn't able to take flight quite yet. One of the misconceptions is that fixing what is wrong automatically leads to flourishing. So, if we've healed you from that anxiety or anorexia or whatever disease or medical condition exists that you're suffering from, getting you to that healed–or zero position, as I like to think of it as a kind of neutral–does not guarantee that you are now a flourishing human being with a meaningful life full of purpose and joy. It's a little bit simple for what our actual life is, right?
Our daily environment is a mix of positive and negative experiences. Our own personal thoughts and, emotions, and beliefs are a mix of positive and negative, and that mix doesn't go away. So, for something to only address half of the equation does not mean the problem is solved. There are many examples where someone is officially cured, but not experiencing joy and meaning and direction. You may know people, or this may happen to you where you have a diagnosis or a disease, and you're happy.
Something that has stopped you in your tracks and may be a setback. Of course, it's probably not what you would have voted for, but in spite of that, you're able to be happy around your kids, or you're able to pursue a degree, or you're able to travel or whatever gives you meaning, right? We also see examples in the opposite direction. And again, this may be where you’re medically healthy, but you're still unhappy. You're still lost. You may not know why am I here, what am I supposed to do, that sort of thing. I think even those anecdotal life experience examples shine a light on the fact that you can't only focus on healing the disease or the medical side of things to get the result that you want.
And so that's where another misconception can muddy the waters, too. There's also an idea out there that if we simply remove that thing that stresses you, then everything's fine. And that's not typically the case either, and is something that positive psychology addresses. It’s not about removing the stressful thing. Let's talk about good–I like food. So, let's say I have a food craving–I do. Brownies are totally my weakness, and let's say that if I just remove your food craving, then you'll successfully lose weight or you'll successfully meet your health goals. It's not actually the craving itself that's causing me issues or stress.
The craving will be there. We're humans. We have cravings. We have impulses. We have desires. We have thoughts. We have feelings. We have all of those things. Those are just part of being human. What brings positive or negative results to us is with how we cope. And that's what I think is more important than the presence of something that stresses you like a food craving or a difficult work situation or having to speak in public. Those things are there. How do you work through them? How do you deal with them? That should be the focus of your attention and your energy. That way, as you change that relationship with what you feel and what you think, and how you act in those situations, you're able to navigate whatever comes in life, positive or negative.
You're also allowed to feel feelings–that's okay. It’s not, hey, we should stomp out sadness. You should never be sad. It's being able to realize that sadness happens and feeling sad is okay. That's just data. That's just you and your body and your mind and your beliefs saying something's not right here. Maybe I want to do something different or hey, someone passed away that meant a lot to me. That’s simply just part of being human, and I like the approach of separating yourself from the emotions and treating them like data and saying hey, these are simply telling me information about this situation. And so they are perfectly okay to have, and there's no need to stomp them out completely.
A third misconception that kind of comes from traditional psychology and our traditional approach to human behavior is that a weakness focus can help to prevent problems. So if we only focus on fixing weaknesses, then we can prevent future problems. Now, I'm a huge fan of preventing things. I don't want to experience bad things if I don't have to. I like being proactive. I like thinking about a plan and making sure that I'm not going to make some severe mistakes, especially if it's a risk to my life–I like to survive. I like to live. I think we're all wired that way as human beings.
So, prevention is fantastic. We should do things to help us prevent bad things from occurring or avoid situations we don't have to be in. What I think is more interesting than focusing on weaknesses, though, is that people experience the same negative setback all the time and have different reactions and different ways of dealing with it. For example, in our economy right now, layoffs are pretty commonplace. A lot of waves of people losing their jobs are occurring. And that job loss leads to different behavior. Some people use it as an opportunity to reassess and say hey, maybe I want to retire right now and become a volunteer and really give back to my community.
Maybe this was a wake-up call that I need to learn some new skills and flex some different talents that I have. Or, maybe it's an opportunity for me to start that business I've always wanted to do. Those are great positive coping mechanisms that people are using today in response to a negative event–job loss. We also see people all the time who go in the other direction. They experience that job loss, and it's crushing for them. Maybe they've always identified as a software engineer, and they're extremely worried that that's not who they are anymore or that they can get hired in that capacity anymore. That's true. that's a valid experience. Other people can turn to things to avoid it with drinking, procrastination, or depression–other things, right? And so what I think positive psychology gives us is instead of really honing in on the negative, let's evaluate the people who have the strengths and mental processes to navigate this setback and turn it into something good, whether that is personal growth or a new adventure.
How do we take the behaviors that they do and teach them to other people so that they can navigate what life throws at them? How do we teach that reframing or that interpretation or that perspective? Leaders of the movement today, like Martin Seligman, emphasize digging for those factors that allow individuals to thrive and flourish and using them to help other people gain well-being in their own lives.
The question becomes more about what is right with people than what is wrong with people, and I think that is an amazingly interesting, fascinating, and inspiring question. I love working in this field! So, going back to our bird now is the time when psychology as a field and as a practice is also looking at that other wing of our little bird on the ground and saying that for this bird to really take flight, yes, we want to heal and address any mental and medical concerns that are present. We also want to look at their strengths, their abilities, their talents, and the good things that are in that person, too, and the combination of the two activities allows this bird to fly.
You need to have both. It's a very complex experience being human. Some criticisms of that line of thinking were now you're just swinging the pendulum in the other direction and you're simply saying everything is positive, don't think about weaknesses or anything like that. That's not the case again. I want to emphasize it's just the rebalancing of attention, bringing it more into the whole picture of what's going on with each person in their life and not simply the lack of a disease or an illness.
Traditional psychology and positive psychology are just addressing different things and so the value for an individual is in both. They both contribute to a meaningful life and help an individual deal with a wide range of human experiences. It's a bumpy ride! It's not smooth, right? There are highs, and there are lows. And it's all about how you can navigate those as best you can.
What's exciting about today and the time we live in is that there are many specialties and subcategories and people practicing as coaches and therapists that as an individual, you have so many choices. You can pick the person that you really vibe with, and that really specializes in what's interesting to you and what you want to work on. It isn't one size fits all anymore. And so, really taking the time to think about what you want to work on, what questions do you have. What's bothering you? What strengths do you want to work on? What blind spots do you want to find and fix–all of those are fair game now and there's someone out there for you to help you work with on that.
What's also exciting is the second wave of positive psychology that started around 2004 with Dr. Barbara Held. There are so many people these days who are emphasizing the balance of both and saying hey, we really want to emphasize both sides of the human experience. It isn't just positive for positive sake.
At the time in 2004, positive psychology was starting to feel a little bit separate and I think that's natural at the time. They were probably trying to break out of the mold, right so anything to differentiate themselves to show that they have additional value to provide. I'm sure that was the message, but I think her criticism is fair that we want to make sure that we're not talking just about one or the other. If we were only focusing on positivity, we would only be talking about the good life, positive experiences, positive thinking, positive behavior, positive everything, and so really making sure that in your individual quest or your work with a coach or a therapist making sure the conversation is balanced. A meaningful life isn't always about feeling good. Going back to the presence of sadness, that's okay. That's good data. It may indicate what you should do next in that particular situation. It isn't about never having negative experiences, negative thoughts, or negative beliefs. Those are part of the human experience.
The beginning of your journey can be negative or positive. Each event is a starting point for what you're going to do next. And so that could be starting from a negative event. That could be starting from a positive event. It's really subjective in a way because it's your labels for things and it’s your scale for what's happy. What's sad? What's negative? It's highly dependent on your interpretation and who you are. But making sure that you're considering both is very important.
The subjective side of being is things like life satisfaction and what's positive to you, a positive experience, a positive thought, or a positive behavior. So that's a personal scale. Each one of us has a way of measuring that in life. What I consider life satisfaction may not be what you consider life satisfaction. And that's okay. It's defining it for yourself and making choices along that definition. Reducing negativity in your life is subjective. You may want to decrease your negativity by a one on a scale of one to 10, and maybe I'm really in a rough spot, and I want to go from 10 to one. So again, it’s a very independent journey that each of us takes each day to figure out.
In psychology, we've also labeled some buckets of behaviors that add to well-being, and we've found these through research. We're able to say, hey when a person has these things present in their life and in some amount–again, it's individual–then they're more likely to feel like they're having a balanced, meaningful, positive life. And those things are things like personal growth, positive relationships, purpose in your life, mastery of your environment, and self-acceptance–just liking who you are, right? And those skills, those buckets of behaviors, help you deal with setbacks and help you navigate the complexities of being human.
So, what's important is to take that dive into examining your relationship with yourself. What matters to you? What are your strengths? What do you want to avoid? All of that contributes to defining what well-being means to you.
I want to talk about negative events being a source of positivity because I think that can get lost sometimes. Going back to our job loss example, that's a negative event. I think we can all say yes. How that can turn into a positive is where someone who has the ability to cope, who can manage their emotions and reactions and reach out to friends and neighbors for help, learn new skills, whatever it is. That's all personal growth and development. The more you practice that, the more you get better at it, and the more you grow, I think those lessons learned are truly important in living a good life. Negative events will happen, right?
I think we could all sit here for a second and think back on a time when we did something that was hard. Maybe it's not hard now because you've mastered it but at the first time. Maybe it was riding a bike. Maybe it was graduating college; maybe that felt really daunting. Maybe it's climbing a mountain–that can feel daunting. Maybe it's giving birth to a child–pretty daunting. There are many things in life that I think if you took a moment to reflect, you'd say hey, I've done some really hard things. And when you identify those, I would love to know do you feel like, hey, I learned something. I'm a better person for it. Or, does it still nag you a little bit like I should have done this better or should have done that better?
That reflection is very important and a way to help deal with negative events. Too much positivity can be a bad thing, too. But let's be honest, too much of anything can be a bad thing! I do try to take a moderate approach to life. Everything is in moderation. And so let's talk about too much positivity is not exactly what we're going for either. Positive thinking can actually be a form of avoidance and reduce your being.
If you're really covering something up, then you're not being realistic about your positivity. You're being fake about it. You're forcing it. You're overdoing it. All of those things. It could actually be a sign that you're avoiding something and that may be dealing with a fear. That may be dealing with an insecurity. That may be avoiding a difficult conversation. So you're just gonna say, “Everything's fine.” That's not really well-being. it's actually a dangerous path.
Too much positive thinking can also lead to anxiety. If you're imagining and dreaming this incredibly perfect, magical, rainbows-and-sunshine kind of world and reality does not match, that mismatch in expectations causes you stress and can cause you anxiety. We don't want to encourage that either, and so the things that we try to teach here at Better Habits is a balanced, even approach considering the negative with the positive. That way, we try to create a more stable pathway through life.
Being incredibly positive can also lead to blind spots. Let's say your strength is being an incredibly honest person. That's amazing. That's wonderful. Do you do that in every situation? And so the example I think we would all say, my gosh, why would you do that is what if your child came to show you their amazing kindergarten artwork of whatever they've drawn. Of course, it's not Picasso or Michaelangelo. Do you say that? That's honest, but do you tell your child their art is not good? Of course we want to take our strengths and match them to the situation, and so positive psychology isn't about just using your strengths at all costs. Again, it's having that context of what's going on to guide you to say, should I use my strength here, or should I just tell my child that it's the most beautiful art I've ever seen?
Speaking of art, I think and great analogy for us to end on is Michelangelo and the statue of David. If you've never seen it, Google it. It's beautiful. The detail is incredible. I, for one, cannot sculpt anywhere near that, so I'm very impressed. But in an interview at the time, someone asked Michelangelo, “How were you able to create this masterpiece?” I mean, that's a fantastic question. Michelangelo's response was, “I saw this big piece of marble. I saw David. And the only thing I needed to do was to remove the pieces that were unnecessary.”
It gives me goosebumps even now. That, to me, is coaching in a nutshell in this space. I think that every human has a masterpiece–something great inside them. And I think as we go through life, we add layers on top of it. And, probably rightfully so for the situation at the time. I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that. I think we do need to take the time to reassess, though. Are those layers serving us, and that's where coaching can help you do that reflection and become aware of what layers are obscuring your presence–your greatness–from shining to the world.
Coaches can help you figure out what to do with that. Maybe the answer is to just know that those are your layers. That's okay. Or, perhaps you want to work on a way to deal with them, to break them down, to remove them. And so coaches offer a way to come up with new behaviors and approaches, things that will help you get closer to that authenticity and agency that you desire. We ask questions like, what values are underneath? What actions do you need to take to live those values? Ultimately, the goal is to have your greatness, your masterpiece, be visible to the world. Again, goosebumps. That is the part I love about coaching and helping people see their true greatness shine.
To me, I feel like I'm simply the night clean-up crew who's polishing the statue. I'm here to make sure that you sparkle and shine so everyone gets to see the beauty and greatness that comes out. Thank you for your time and attention, and I am super happy that you listened to what positive psychology is. Hopefully, it got you interested in how it might help you live the life that you want to live. Thank you, and have a beautiful day.
Coach Dani: As we wrap up for today, I want to remind you that building better habits is an incredible act of self-care. By investing time to understand yourself and design routines to align with your priorities, you're actively crafting a life you'll feel proud of. If any part of today's lesson resonated with you or sparked an “ah ha” moment, I'd love for you to leave a comment and share your thoughts. Your experiences and perspectives help make this a rich community for all of us. If you're feeling inspired to begin your habit transformation journey, visit getbetterhabits.com to explore our personalized coaching options and join our amazingly supportive network of women taking charge of our lives one habit at a time. Remember you have immense power to shape your days and steer your journey. Keep taking those purposeful steps forward, and I'll see you again soon.
