Improved Lives

Positive Psychology is taking us out of the dark ages of self-help and applying science to the questions that self-help tries to address.

Where Positive Psychology came from

For most of its history, psychology has been focused on fixing broken people rather than improving healthy people.

So for example, if a mental patient was a -10 and the dali lama was a +10, psychology has been trying to get the people in the negatives up to 0, but hasn’t done much to help people get up to +10.

What this means is that there is a great deal of research in psychology on how to fix broken people, but very little on how to improve basically normal people. And because the research psychologists do is what self-help is based on, self-help has been handicapped by this lack of research on how to improve people.

But all that began to change in 2000 when people started taking Positive Psychology seriously. Since then Positive Psychology has taken huge leaps forward, to the point where the most popular course taught at Harvard is the course on Positive Psychology.

What Positive Psychology means for the future of self-help

Finally we are beginning to gain real scientific insight in to how to get from 0 to +10. The amount of knowledge out there on how to improve your life has exploded and if anything, the self-help industry can’t keep up with all the research being done.

That’s why Positive Psychology really is Self-Help 2.0. We are entering a new era of self-help, where science is revealing more about how to improve our lives than we ever knew before. Positive Psychology really is the future of self-help.

So what is Positive Psychology all about you ask? Here’s a quick overview.

The three “how-to”s of Positive Psychology

Most of the research done in Positive Psychology falls in to one of these three categories.

1. How to lead a Pleasant Life – this area of research focuses on how best to savor, forecast and experience all the positive and good things in life like relationships, hobbies, and entertainment.
2. How to lead a Good Life – this area of research focuses on the benefits of immersion, absorption, and flow that you get when you’re doing something you really enjoy. This area also focuses on finding and identifying those things you really enjoy.
3. How to lead a Meaningful Life – this area of research focuses on how people benefit from the sense of well-being, belonging, meaning, and purpose that they get when contributing to and being a part of something larger than themselves such as social networks, religions, or nature.

The 24 character traits that Positive Psychology focuses on improving

If we break down the three “how-to”s above, there are 24 character traits in 6 different categories that Positive Psychology tries to nurture and develop.

Wisdom and Knowledge:
1. Creativity
2. Curiosity
3. Open-Mindedness
4. Love of Learning
5. Perspective

Courage:

6. Bravery
7. Persistence
8. Integrity
9. Vitality

Humanity:

10. Love
11. Kindness
12. Social Intelligence

Justice:

13. Citizenship
14. Fairness
15. Leadership

Temperance:

16. Forgiveness and Mercy
17. Humility
18. Prudence
19. Self Control

Transcendence:

20. Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence
21. Gratitude
22. Hope
23. Humor
24. Spirituality

Some of these traits may not mean the same thing to you that they do to me, (for example spirituality can be interpreted in many different ways) but developing and nurturing these traits will have a positive impact in your life.

So this is Positive Psychology in a nutshell, and this is also the framework that this blog will be run on. Working at applying the 3 “how-to”s and developing the 24 character traits will be a central aim of this blog.

Positive Psychology truly is a new era of self-help, and Improved Lives will be here telling you all about it as it develops.

Sources and Additional Reading:
- The wikipedia entry for Positive Psychology
- What (and Why) is Positive Psychology? (pdf file), an html version is here.