What on Earth is Positive Psychology?

First of all, wait a minute. Let me get this straight. The first semester of MAPP is already over? Wasn't it yesterday that I went back to school? Even 2015 is about to end? And I have not written a single post - a single post - on positive psychology so far? And I haven't posted anything in almost four months now? Despite my goals of writing and posting consistently? This can't be true, can it? Except that it is. Time flew faster than it ever had, I wrote little else apart from theory papers, and I ignored this blog even after having so much to write about. Sigh. I have made and broken enough promises about writing this year to be afraid of committing to anything now. So, as of now I have decided to just go with the flow with regards to this blog.

The irony is that for the first time in my life, I haven't had a shortage of content to write about. And yet...But, before I start ruminating again, let me begin. And I shall begin from the beginning. The title of this post reflects the nature and the tone of questions people ask me when they learn that I study positive psychology. What is positive psychology? What do you mean "positive" - is the rest of the psychology negative? Oh, isn't this the field with the yellow smiley face as its logo? In this post, I will share my perspective on these questions, based on what I have learned in the last three months.

Let's begin with a thought experiment. Imagine that all the problems from your life have vanished. You have perfect relationships, all the money you could have asked for, a job you love, a boss from heaven, and there is nothing that is not working in your life. How would that be? Would you like to lead such a life?

If you are anything like me, you will be bored to death just by imagining such perfection. 

The good news is, that is NOT what positive psychology is about.

Now, imagine that your life is filled with failures, challenges, and pain. Nothing good ever happens to you. You are miserable all the time. How does that sound for a life?

Terrible? Of course.

Thankfully, that is also not what positive psychology is about.

The truth is: life is messy, but it is also wonderful. We are awful at certain things, but excel at others. We are often driven by fear, but also have the capacity for enormous love. Positive psychology is the scientific study of how human beings can live their wonderful, messy lives in the best possible way. It is not just about the yellow smiley face. It is not a field of study as opposed to "negative" psychology. It is a new branch of psychology that focuses on the good things in life. It attempts to answer questions like what makes life worth living, and what actions can we take to lead better lives. And it does it using the principles of science.

Does positive psychology have answers to all the life's questions? Not really. It is a new field of study, and there is a long road ahead of it. But I think it is a worthy endeavor and I love being a part of it.

Back to School

About a year ago, when I decided to quit my comfortable, well paying corporate job to look for my passion, I wasn’t sure what exactly I was going to find. I had some notions, but things were uncertain. A part of me thought I was insane. But there was another, bigger part that was sure I could not spend my life doing what I was doing, and needed to look for something different. It helped that I was moving to a new country, and I started this journey looking forward to new beginnings.

Not surprisingly, the last one year has been one of the most phenomenal ones in my life. I have had so much fun doing things that I always wanted to do - learning new things, exploring new places, getting to know myself better, and reading...oh, just reading for days at length. But it has not all been a piece of cake as well. There have been times when I have been plagued with self-doubt and fear. On some days, I have been tempted to take up a job just like the one I had quit. And there have been instances when I have wondered if risking my established career for a vague dream was worth it, or if that small part of me that had called me mad was right, after all.

However, I was fortunate enough to have a few things that kept me going. My husband’s unwavering support, for example; a community of people who believed in my dream, because they were at various stages of living their own crazy dreams, and knew it was possible for me to live mine. And more than anything else, my why - the reason I was doing this, the justification for risking it all. Like I had mentioned in this earlier post, almost all my life, I have sought peace. At the time, I was not sure how this would translate into a career option for me, but the idea had been seeded. Over the next few months, things became clearer, and I realized that after having learnt how to have more peace and happiness in my own life, I wanted to help others do the same. This finding led me to positive psychology, which is the science of human flourishing. As I read more about the field, I knew that this was the best place for me to be, because it aligned beautifully with who I was and what I wanted to do.

As the next step, I wanted to learn as much as I could about positive psychology. And that’s why, I am absolutely thrilled to share that I am now a student of the Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) program at University of Pennsylvania. I will be spending the next year studying positive psychology, and though I am not sure about what exactly will I do with what I learn in the course, I am fairly confident that this will also become clear in the next few months.

For me, it has always been easy to look back on life and see the big picture of why things happened a certain way and what I learnt from them. And when I look back on the last one year, one lesson that stands out is that sometimes, it is important to remember just why you decided to do anything in the first place, and then stand by it. In retrospect, you will find that it all makes sense.

Building a Habit

As mentioned in my previous post, one of the key things that I wanted to do in 2015, was to build a daily writing habit. But I didn’t do too well due to reasons already mentioned in the last post. The good news is that I have written pretty regularly in the last two weeks, using what I learnt from a wonderful book - The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. It shares insights about how and why habits form, how they can be changed, and the science behind it. 

The biggest lesson that the book taught me was that “willpower is a finite resource.” As long as I relied only on my willpower to push myself into writing everyday, I was going to exhaust this resource and give up sooner or later. What I needed was to make writing a part of my routine, a habit - so that I did not have to think about or decide if and when to write. I needed it to become as automatic as brushing my teeth in the morning.

Here’s how it works, as per the book: all habits follow a simple loop (called the "habit loop,) which is made up of three components: first, there is a cue (e.g. my leaving the bed in the morning with an unpleasant taste in my mouth); then, there is a behaviour (my heading to the bathroom and brushing my teeth); and finally, there is a reward (the feeling of clean teeth and a fresh mouth.) The days when the act of brushing my teeth gets delayed, I feel unhappy because I crave that fresh feeling. This craving is what drives my habit loop of brushing every morning. I never ever have to think about whether I should brush today or not - it just happens on its own. It’s a habit.

So, for building a writing habit also, I needed these three components. Here’s what I have been doing for the past couple of weeks:

1. The Cue: Every morning, when my husband leaves for work, I see him off and then head to my desk. I love this time, because I feel a strong sense of purpose and am ready to get to work - which can range from taking courses to writing something to reading. This is a routine - something I do almost every weekday. And it occurred to me that this was a good cue - as soon as I close the door after my husband leaves for work, I can write with full concentration.

2. The Behaviour: Yes, writing, of course. But, there are too many distractions that are ready to pounce on me the moment I switch on the laptop. Facebook updates, mails, bill payment reminders, whatsapp messages...there is a lot that needs to be paid attention to. But, before I do any of this, I want to write. The solution? I put my phone on silent for half-an-hour, close all windows on the laptop, and open just one document where I can type. And then, I focus on writing.

3. The Reward: The immense satisfaction I get from doing this. The craving for this satisfaction drives this habit loop.

A couple of other things need to be mentioned here. First of all, I have brought my daily target down to 200-300 words a day (as opposed to 1000 words a day that I set at the beginning of the year.) This is much more realistic, and I have since learnt that it is important to start small when trying to build a new habit. Once I able to meet this goal for a couple of months, I will look at increasing it. Secondly, my cue is something that happens on weekdays only. So, as of now, I am targeting writing five days a week. 200-300 words every weekday - simple.

It has worked for a couple of weeks already, and I hope to keep it up.

Mid-term Review

Seven months of the year have passed, and since old habits die hard, it is time for a slightly delayed performance appraisal for me. Unlike in my corporate job, I don’t have a boss who will do this with me this time. I also have no one else I can blame or credit with what I have done so far this year. It is all on me. 

In March, I had identified three main themes that I wanted to work on in 2015, and those will be the focus of this review.

1. Making the World a Happier Place: 

Progress so far:

As time passes, I realize that this is what I would like to do next in terms of my career. I could work in the field of Positive Psychology or with a non-profit that helps people lead better lives, but I want to be a part of something that genuinely helps people flourish. I completed one of the courses that I was taking online, have read a couple of books, and am considering joining a certification program in Positive Psychology in the next few months. My self-rating on this goal would be a 3 on 5 - as ideally, I should have completed the other course as well, and read more books on the subject.

           

The Plan for remaining months:

At least one book on the subject per month. Complete the other course which will again start in September. 

2. Writing: 

Progress so far:

I have made progress with the book - the proposal has been sent to several publishers and I am now waiting to hear back from them. The goal that I have missed terribly is writing on a regular basis. The 1000 words a day was just not happening, and discouraged, I have hardly written anything in the last couple of months. I have also realized the fatal mistake I had made in setting this goal. When I set it in Jan 2015, I just wanted to build a regular writing habit. I thought that by specifying how many words I wanted to write, I would have a specific and measurable goal and it will keep me on track. But the problem was that I was aiming for too lofty a target too soon. 1000 words a day became such a humongous goal for me to achieve, that despite genuine efforts, I could not keep up with it. And after a point, I just gave it up. What I needed to do to build a habit was to start small - with, let’s say - 100 or 200 words a day. After being able to sustain that for a couple of months, I could have looked at revisiting the target. But starting with 1000 words a day was liking sitting for high school exam in second grade. I had set myself up for failure. On this goal, I would rate myself a 2 on 5 - long way to go.

The Plan for remaining months:

Having learnt my lesson, I will focus on building a writing habit with the target of 200 words a day. I should be able to post more regularly on the blog if I am able to build this habit.

3. Health and Fitness

Progress so far:

I have taken a big step with the half-marathon training, and it is helping me a lot. I ran 9 miles (over 14 km) on the last two Saturdays! It would have been unimaginable just a few months ago. I have also made some changes to my diet, and am including a lot more fruits and vegetables in it. This is working out pretty good, except that I did miss a few days of running while I was traveling. I would say I am a 4 on 5 on this goal.

The Plan for remaining months:

To continue doing what I am doing, and try to miss fewer days of training.

That, then, is the update on my goals so far. I am working on building a writing habit and will share more on that in my next post.

Night Owl to Morning Bird

“Umm...err...I never thought I would ask you this, of all people - but - you know, I am struggling with keeping up with an ideal routine lately - I don’t get up as early as I would like to, and am unable to find time for exercising - something I would like to. Since you seem to have worked out a solution for these things - and I know for a fact that you have been an epitome of laziness almost all your life - are there any tips you can share with me?” - One of my best friends asked me this question a while back, with considerable consternation.

I had to smile. This was the second person in one week who was asking me something on the line of - how do you get up early and exercise on a regular basis? And like my friend rightly indicated, it was not only ironic, it was unthinkable a year ago. But the fact is, after exemplifying extreme laziness in the thirty years of my personal life, things have changed for me, and to be honest, I am incredibly proud of this. This does not mean I don’t have my lazy days anymore. But now, such days happen once in a while, instead of every weekend.

Now, there are various reasons why this has happened, and this is not an overnight phenomena for sure. But I don’t want to delve into the depths of these reasons in this post. In a nutshell, things changed because my priorities changed - I wanted more time for myself, and more out of my days, and I realized that getting up early was the only way I could make it happen. And gradually, I worked towards becoming an early riser (I am still perfecting this method - but I am much better at it now than ever.) In this post, I share my tips for rising early on a regular basis.

1. Realize That it is All in Your Head: For almost all my life, I believed that I was just not a morning person. And therefore, it was impossible for me to get up early and be perky on the same day. But once I decided that I wanted to become someone who could happily rise early and go about her day - lo and behold, I could become one. Now, when there are days when I feel sleepy at 9 PM - I can’t help but imagine how my past self would have been horrified at the thought. Sleeping at 9 PM? Get a life! And my current, supposedly wiser self, smiles. I do have a life. It just starts early in the day.
2. Do It Backwards: Accept that to be able to get up early in the morning, you will have to sleep early at night. Obvious, right? Not really. I have met several people lately who want to get up early, but are shocked at the thought of sleeping early. If you don’t think you can go to sleep earlier than you do at present, then don’t try to wake up earlier than you do - because it is unfair to your body. It needs the rest - respect that need. You would have an idea whether you need six hours or eight to feel fresh - use some basic maths and deduct the number of hours you need to sleep from the time you want to get up. For example, if you need eight hours of sleep and want to get up at 6 AM, then you should be asleep by 10. You may even have to go to bed with an hour’s buffer - in case you read or toss and turn in the bed for some time before entering deep slumber.
3. Have Something to Look Forward to: If you hate exercising, and that’s the first item on your list the moment you get up, chances are you will have a strong urge to go back to sleep even if you do wake up at the desired time. Like my friend - she said she continued to sleep for longer because she felt she had the time and nothing better to do. But she would feel bad later for sleeping meaninglessly. So I suggested she schedule an activity which she really enjoys - as the first thing she would do after getting up early. And she almost jumped with joy. “Yes!” She said - “I can paint in the morning - I never get the time to do that during the week and I really enjoy it!” You can decide what works for you - I am sure there will be some activity which you wish you had more time for. You can use it as an incentive to get out of the bed.
4. Stop Using an Alarm: There was nothing that drove me crazier than the persistent ringing of my alarm - as if it was the alarm’s fault for ringing at the exact time I had set for it to wake me up. I would repeatedly snooze it till the time when even a minute’s further delay would cause me to get late for whatever I had to do. It was extremely annoying and stressful, and I invariably woke up grumpy, at having been yanked out of my precious sleep. For the last year or so, I have tried to do away with the alarm as much as possible. Except for catching an early morning flight, or other such early appointments - I try and wake up on my own. When I was beginning to do this, I reminded myself there was a time when there were no alarm clocks - and people still got up and went about their business. I also remembered a tip my grandmother gave me when I was a child - of telling my pillow when I would like to wake up - and let it do the job instead of an alarm clock. I think the idea is that our bodies have a clock of their own, and our minds can be trained to follow instructions. After some initial experiments and a few days, I realized that if I trained myself, in due course, my eyes would automatically open at the time I wanted to wake up - irrespective of the time I went to sleep, without the external intervention of an alarm. Now, I may choose to go back to sleep when that happens, or I may choose to get up - but I will wake up at the required hour or a few minutes here and there - for sure.
5. Do It Gradually: If you wake up at 8 AM on a regular day, and suddenly want to rise at 5 AM - it may be too drastic a step. Try and take smaller steps, inching towards your goal. So target 7:30 or 7:00 at first - depending upon how much you want to push yourself. Try and do it for a few days or weeks. And once you find yourself automatically opening your eyes at 7:00 AM several days in a row, you are ready to move to an earlier hour - if that is what you desire.

All these steps have helped me convert to a morning person from a night owl. I now enjoy my mornings and look forward to them. There is one last piece of motivation that I share with people close to me - those who have known the night owl me - that if I can do it, anyone can do it. You just have to really, really want it.   

Run, Yashi, Run!

I was running with all my might. Despite being breathless and tired, I could not give up. Everyone was watching me, and I had to finish what I had started. I wanted to look around and see how the others were doing, but that could slow me down. Instead, I kept going as fast as it was physically possible for me to go. As I finally reached the next runner, and handed her the thin wooden stick being used as a baton, I almost collapsed with relief at having made it. She took the stick without much reaction, and off she went, continuing the relay race. My eyes were following her as I cheered her to run faster, when I realized that she was far behind the other teams, and we were definitely going to lose. Because of me. We were ahead when the baton was handed over to me. I had slowed down our team, despite my best efforts. And there is little else that weighs down a ten year old than being the person solely responsible for his or her team’s loss at the school’s annual sports event.

That’s my earliest memory of ever participating in a race. After this experience, and a couple of others, I simply pegged myself as a non-athletic person. I was too thin, too low on energy, too weak. And I definitely could not run or be good at outdoor sports. So, throughout the rest of school, I spent the sports period talking to my friends, promptly felt faint during Physical Training (PT) sessions, and participated primarily in carrom competitions during the annual sports meets that followed. On a dare, I did volunteer to participate in a tug-of-war when I was in high school (and believe it or not, my team won it!) - but I heard more jokes than cheers about my being on the team. In fact, I myself was mighty surprised at being selected in the first place, and distinctly remember the resigned face of my sports teacher when he had called out my name. I guess he was desperately short of people.

As a result of this mindset, I did very little physical activity till about twenty nine years of age. The fact that I was naturally thin meant that I did not need to exercise even for the sake of vanity. I was always on the other side of the weight spectrum, frustrated about the lack of weight gaining advice out there. But somewhere around my twenty ninth birthday, things began to change. My health kind of broke down, and as I lay sick on the bed for almost a month, I felt a need to change my outlook towards my health, and make it a priority. It’s funny how years of nagging (from people wiser than you) can’t convince you of something you realize within a few weeks through your own mistakes. That’s what happened, and I found myself resolving to eat better, exercise, and generally take care of my health. The fact that years of eating junk food had considerably widened my midsection by then made the need for exercising even more acute.

Over the last three years, I have experimented with various forms of exercising, including gym, zumba classes, swimming, and running. But I don’t think I have ever truly challenged myself. Perhaps that’s why despite three years of more or less regular exercising, my weight has remained constant, and so has my waistline.

In the last few months in California, I have frequently heard of/seen people challenging themselves in various ways. Some run marathon after marathon, some cycle for over five hundred miles in a few days, some comfortably hike up hills with an infant on their back (frequently overtaking me as I pause and pant at every meter of elevation gain.) Ever since I came here, I have often found myself wondering - if they can push themselves to such an extent, why can’t I do it just a little bit? And after much thought, I have concluded that once again, I am restricted only by my own beliefs. If I truly want to, I can do any of those things.

That’s why when I heard of a marathon training group which claims to get even couch potatoes running a marathon, I decided to believe them, and enrolled myself in their half-marathon training (yes, I do not have the heart for a full-marathon yet.) The race is in October, and the training has already begun. I had an interesting first day, more on that in a separate post. But I am happy to say that I am truly thrilled at having taken this step (with enormous support and cheer from people around me.) Back in school when I was dejected over having let my team down in the relay race, convinced that I was not one who could run, I could not have imagined that one day, I would be doing this.

Back From a Break

For the past one month, I have been on a break. I know, I know...I have been on a break since September, but this is different. Between September 2014 and March 2015, despite being on a break, I have been fairly busy. In fact, during this time, I had immersed myself in so many activities that at times, I felt that I was busier than working full-time. But April has been different. I was so tired by the end of March, that I decided to just be in April. No weekly planning, no regular exercise, no courses - nothing. The fact that I was going away to Portland for two weeks was an added advantage - I wouldn’t even have to cook. A vacation in the true sense. And it’s been wonderful.

But this also means that I have been off my goals for one whole month, and that makes me feel a little guilty. That’s okay, I guess. Can’t have it all. The good thing is that as April comes to a close, I am filled with energy and excitement for the next few months. Here are some things I am looking forward to:

1. My First Marathon Training: Yes, you read it right. I have joined a training group, and will target running my first half-marathon this year. I am super duper excited, and extremely scared - how on earth am I going to do it? Well, I guess if I can become an early riser, I can do anything else. We’ll see.
2. Sending the Book Proposal to Publishers: The synopsis is done, and the initial few chapters have been edited - I am all set to send the book proposal to a few publishers. Will do it in the coming week. And then I will cross my fingers.
3. Studying Positive Psychology: There is a course which I am enrolled in, would like to complete it in May.

Anyway. This post is more to give an explanation for my long absence from here (as some of you were asking about it,) than to talk about something particular. I will be back soon with more.