Overcome Stress and Challenge: 7 Mechanisms of Resilience for High Productivity Timothy So, Msc, is a PhD candidate in Psychology in the University of Cambridge Department of Psychiatry. He is a Research Associate of Cambridge University's Well-being Institute and a Chartered Occupational Psychologist. Timothy is also responsible for both the Traditional and the Simplified Chinese PPND sites. Full bio. Timothy's articles are here and here. “It ain’t about how hard you hit, but how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward.” Resilience is a Fast Comeback This quote from Rocky in the movie Rocky Balboa is the best summary of this month’s optional theme of “Stress and Resilience.” 7 Mechanisms of Resilience: The Model What I have learned from my studies in Leadership and Positive Psychology is that one common characteristic among successful leaders is that they do not let disappointments deter them from what they want and beat them down – instead, they stay focused and navigate according to their plans to succeed. A) Inner Self Mechanism B.) 4) Taking Mechansim Summary
The Unexpected Antidote to Procrastination - Peter Bregman by Peter Bregman | 9:00 AM May 10, 2013 A recent early morning hike in Malibu, California, led me to a beach, where I sat on a rock and watched surfers. I marveled at these courageous men and women who woke before dawn, endured freezing water, paddled through barreling waves, and even risked shark attacks, all for the sake of, maybe, catching an epic ride. After about 15 minutes, it was easy to tell the surfers apart by their style of surfing, their handling of the board, their skill, and their playfulness. What really struck me though, was what they had in common. No matter how good, how experienced, how graceful they were on the wave, every surfer ended their ride in precisely the same way: By falling. Some had fun with their fall, while others tried desperately to avoid it. But here’s what I found most interesting: The only difference between a failure and a fizzle was the element of surprise. That got me thinking: What if we all lived life like a surfer on a wave? Practice.
The Art of Resilience Think you're a prisoner of a troubled childhood? Think again. You need not go through the rest of your life as an emotional cripple. It is possible to bounce back from adversity and go on to live a healthy, fulfilling life. In fact, more people do it than you may think. Resilience may be an art, the ultimate art of living, but is has recently been subjected to the scrutiny of science. Resilient people do not let adversity define them. Experts argue among themselves about how much of resilience is genetic. And it's definitely necessary to go back and reinterpret past events to find the strengths you have probably had within all along. One problem is, there are elements of our culture that glorify frailty, says Washington, D.C. psychiatrist Steven Wolin, M.D. Sometimes it is easier to be a victim; talking about how other people make you do what you do removes the obligation to change. Resilient people don't walk between the raindrops; they have scars to show for their experience.
How Resilience Works When I began my career in journalism—I was a reporter at a national magazine in those days—there was a man I’ll call Claus Schmidt. He was in his mid-fifties, and to my impressionable eyes, he was the quintessential newsman: cynical at times, but unrelentingly curious and full of life, and often hilariously funny in a sandpaper-dry kind of way. He churned out hard-hitting cover stories and features with a speed and elegance I could only dream of. It always astounded me that he was never promoted to managing editor. But people who knew Claus better than I did thought of him not just as a great newsman but as a quintessential survivor, someone who had endured in an environment often hostile to talent. Why do some people suffer real hardships and not falter? It’s a question that has fascinated me ever since I first learned of the Holocaust survivors in elementary school. My exploration has taught me much about resilience, although it’s a subject none of us will ever understand fully.
The Neuroscience of Perseverance Perseverance separates the winners from the losers in both sports and life. Are you someone who perseveres despite difficulties and setbacks, or do you tend to throw in the towel and call it quits when faced with a challenge or adversity? What makes some people able to keep pushing and complete a task while others habitually fizzle and don't follow through? Dopamine is the fuel that keeps people motivated to persevere and achieve a goal. Neuroscientists have known for years that dopamine is linked to positive behavior reinforcement and the 'ding, ding, ding' jackpot feeling you get when you accomplish a goal. A study released on December 22, 2011 found that key receptors for dopamine function like 'gateways' that are essential to enable habit formation. Part of my work with The Athlete's Way is to make neuroscientific knowledge a tool that can be used to create behavioral changes in your life. Dr. Perseverance is synonymous with pain and suffering to many people.
Why Insecurity May Be The Key To Success Editor's Note: This story contains one of our 11 New Years resolutions you can actually keep in 2014. For the full list, click here. Maybe everything you've been led to believe about being a successful business leader is wrong. What if confidence is overrated? What if faking it until you make it actually does more harm than good? Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a professor of business psychology at University College London, thinks so. In fact, Confidence says the exact opposite. “Although society places a great deal of importance on being confident, there are no genuine benefits except feeling good,” Chamorro-Premuzic writes. Drawing on his own research studies and those of others, Chamorro-Premuzic finds that overconfident people are less popular than those who are realistic about their abilities. Most “confident” people are also deluded. We don’t lack for self-esteem. But, as Chamorro-Premuzic writes, “the truth is often painful, but less painful than ignoring it.” That’s a good thing.
The Payoff of Perseverance In the summer of 1994, in the tallest of Princeton University's ivory towers, Andrew Wiles was completing one of the most extraordinary odysseys in the history of math. For more than three decades, Wiles had been obsessed with Fermat's Last Theorem, a seemingly simple problem that had stumped mathematicians for 350 years. French mathematician Pierre de Fermat had noted that although there are plenty of solutions to the equation X2 + Y2 = Z2 (for example, 32 + 42 = 52), there is no corresponding solution if the numbers are cubed instead of squared. In fact, Fermat scribbled in the margin of a book that he had "truly marvelous" proof that the equation Xn + Yn = Zn has no solution if n is any number greater than 2. Unfortunately, he never put his proof on paper. Wiles was 10 years old when he encountered the theorem. Despite long hours of focus—his only source of relaxation was playing with his two young children—the next few years produced little concrete progress.
The Key to Success: 3 Emotions Highly Accomplished People Share Yesterday, the final piece of a puzzle fell into my lap, a puzzle I've been working on for the past 10 years. I've been trying to build a model for how emotions create success, but I kept on getting tripped up when I came to gratitude. I was categorizing it as a result of success or a form of success. Here's the missing puzzle piece: A study soon to be published in the journal Psychological Science proves that people who are grateful are willing to wait longer for a financial reward. Bingo. 1. As I mentioned above, a new study shows that people who feel gratitude are more likely to delay financial gratification. In business, patience is extraordinarily valuable. Why are some people so effective at dealing with employees, colleagues, coworkers, and customers, while other people are constantly frustrated and angry and do things that alienate those around them? So here's the first formula: Gratitude=>Patience=>Timing=>Success How do you create more gratitude? 2. So here's the second formula:
You're Stronger than You Think Thank you for spending some time with me at my new Psychology Today blog! It's an honor to be here, and I hope I can contribute something to the wonderful community of bloggers here. While I plan to blog on various topics, one theme I hope to revisit on occasion during my stay here is the potential within each of us, the amazing things we human beings can do when we put our minds and hearts to it. So much you read these days seems to emphasize what we can't do rather than what we can . For instance, don't blame yourself that you can't (say) pass up those cookies, because you're evolved—or genetically predisposed, or trained by your upbringing—to crave them. Any or all of those things may be true, of course. Take procrastination , for example: people have devised many brilliant coping mechanisms and workarounds to cut down on procrastinating behavior. Every day people conquer addictions, quit bad habits, and stop engaging in destructive behavior—we can do amazing things, if we try .
The Brains of Successful vs. Unsuccessful People Actually Look Very Different What's the best way to take control of your own life and push yourself against boundaries? According to Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, it's all about your mindset. Successful people tend to focus on growth, solving problems and self-improvement, while unsuccessful people think of their abilities as fixed assets and avoid challenges. Dweck says that there are two basic categories that peoples' behavioral traits tend to fall into: fixed and growth mindsets. This infographic by Nigel Holmes summarizes these differences. Image Credit: Brain Pickings A person with a "fixed" mindset tends to view themselves with static traits and a deterministic outlook. A person with a "growth" mindset, on the other hand, sees challenges as things to overcome and views failure as an opportunity for growth and personal development. In the end, Dweck says, how we approach life can determine our success and happiness. Image Credit: Shirley Clarke / Bullitt Schools The result? What's this mean for me? Tom McKay
Eight Keys to Life Hardiness and Resiliency elen Keller once wrote: “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.” As we navigate through challenging times toward a better future, it’s useful to visit some tried and true ideas regarding life hardiness and resiliency. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but rather a reminder of some existential ideas we sometimes set aside as we tend to the hectic details of daily life. If you find this article helpful, share it with those whom you care about who are in need. Life is not always easy. - Thomas A. We should learn from the past, but not be stuck in it. For more information on how to eliminate your negative emotions and develop a positive attitude, see my article Five Keys to Enhancing Your Emotional Intelligence . For tips on setting boundaries in difficult relationships, see my article Seven Ways to Say “No” and Keep Good Relations .
How To Be Resilient: 8 Steps To Success When Life Gets Hard “Stick with it!” “Be resilient!” “Never give up!” I see a lot of stuff about resilience, persistence and grit. How can we be more resilient? So I looked at the most difficult scenarios for insight. When life and death is on the line, what do the winners do that the losers don’t? Turns out surviving the most dangerous situations has some good lessons we can use to learn how to be resilient in everyday life. Whether it’s dealing with unemployment, a difficult job, or personal tragedies, here are insights that can help. 1) Perceive And Believe “The company already had two rounds of layoffs this year but I never thought they would let me go.” “Yeah, the argument was getting a little heated but I didn’t think he was going to hit me.” The first thing to do when facing difficulty is to make sure you recognize it as soon as possible. Sounds obvious but we’ve all been in denial at one point or another. They move through those “stages of grief” from denial to acceptance faster: 2) Manage Your Emotions M.
Perform Better Under Stress Using Self-Affirmation Can thinking about what’s important to you improve your problem-solving powers? Have a look at the following list of values and personal characteristics. If you had to pick just one, which most defines who you are and what matters to you? Your familyBeing good at sportsBelief in a higher powerYour friendsYour creativityAestheticsYour job Perhaps what matters most to you isn’t there (this isn’t a comprehensive list!) In the burgeoning series of experiments which use this type of self-affirmation exercise, participants are then asked to write a paragraph or two on why this characteristic or value is so important to them. The effects can be quite useful across a surprisingly large number of domains. In a new study, Cresswell et al. (2013) tested whether a simple self-affirmation exercise would have a beneficial effect on problem-solving under stress, particularly for individuals who have been stressed recently. Image credit: Vu Bui
How to Break Out of a Victim Mentality: 7 Powerful Tips Image by *Zara (license). “If it’s never our fault, we can’t take responsibility for it. If we can’t take responsibility for it, we’ll always be its victim.”Richard Bach “Self-pity is easily the most destructive of the nonpharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality.”John W. Gardner One big problem a lot of people have is that they slip into thinking of themselves as victims that have little or no control over their lives. So how can you move out of that mindset? 1. There are a few benefits of the victim mentality: Attention and validation. In my experience, by just being aware of the benefits I can derive from victim thinking it becomes easier to say no to that and to choose to take a different path. It also makes it easier to make rational decisions about what to do. 2. So to break out of that mentality you have to give up the benefits above. 3. Why do people often have self-esteem problems? 4. 5. 6. 7. And be nice to yourself.