This session carries on the topic of ‘change’.
Continuing on the facial feedback hypothesis, Tal explains what is ‘Fake it till we make it.’
If the comfort zone would be freezing water, the stretch or the optimal discomfort zone would be flowing water, and the panic zone would be boiling water. The healthy approach to change would be along the stretch zone.
Most people can not get more self-discipline. It’s nature. However, you can be more successful and happier with the self-discipline that you currently have if you change your focus from relying on self-discipline to introducing rituals. Maintaining a ritual does not require a lot of self-discipline, but creating a ritual requires a lot of self-discipline.Having rituals is the only way for lasting change.
Interpretation is a neural pathway. How we interpret things will help us create new neural pathways.
Continuing on the facial feedback hypothesis, Tal explains what is ‘Fake it till we make it.’
If the comfort zone would be freezing water, the stretch or the optimal discomfort zone would be flowing water, and the panic zone would be boiling water. The healthy approach to change would be along the stretch zone.
Most people can not get more self-discipline. It’s nature. However, you can be more successful and happier with the self-discipline that you currently have if you change your focus from relying on self-discipline to introducing rituals. Maintaining a ritual does not require a lot of self-discipline, but creating a ritual requires a lot of self-discipline.Having rituals is the only way for lasting change.
Interpretation is a neural pathway. How we interpret things will help us create new neural pathways.
- Frances M. Haemmerlie and Robert L. Montgomery – behaviours and shyness
- Albert Bandura – self-efficacy
- Chapters of the Fathers, the English version of Pirkei Avot
- Dan Millman’s book Way of the Peaceful Warrior – the important of action and change
- Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz’s book The Power of Full Engagement – a paradigm shift – 30 days to change a habit.
- Roy Baumeister – how long will you persevere before giving up and your self-discipline – we all have limited amount of self-discipline.
- William James – it takes 21 days to change a habit.
- John Carter – changes in organisation
- Joe Tomaka – turn from a threat to a challenge
- Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer – the two-factor theory of emotion – focuses on the interaction between physical arousal and how we cognitively label that arousal.
- Lee Ross – how we frame the situation can make all the difference
- David Schnarch – primarily if we want long-term, successful, thriving, passionate relationships, the first objective is to go into relationship to be known. To be known, rather than to be validated.
- Ali Crum and Ellen Langer – mindful and perception
- Howard Gardner – for people to be an expert of a field, they have to have invested at least ten years of very hard word, then incubation.
- Joseph Campbell – a place of creative incubation
This session finished up the topic of “change” and started the topic of “setting goals”.
At the beginning, Tal emphasised that changing is No short cuts; We need to Taking time off; and we need to Evaluation and Elaboration.
Positive emotion and painful emotion flow through same pipeline. And if we suppress negative emotions we are very often indirectly/inadvertently also suppressing positive emotions.
According to Tal, “generally speaking people who set goals are controlling other things more successful”. Personally I’m a person who set goals most of time and try to achieve them before deadlines. I don’t really think I’m successful, rather I see it as a skill or a habit of being organised. However, why don’t I see myself successful? Are my goals wrong goals? Perhaps I was born as a low self-esteem person? But I rarely feel helpless or hopeless.
Watched the session, I had a clue for my questions. Tal stated that “attainment of gaols does not lead to happiness; understanding the proper role of goals, the having of a goal, that leads to happiness.” Not all goals are created equal. The goals should be the things that you perceive that you want to do rather than things you have to do. One role of the goals is to liberate ourselves so that we can enjoy the process. Goals are means towards the present end. I kind of understand that the goals I was thinking about are things like work I have to get done, a project I need to complete, the places I want to visit, the new things I want to learn and so on. I should separate them to some extent, and look closely at what are the things I really really really want to do in my life. They are the goals for. Setting goals for those things lead to happier experience.
Life is too short to do what I have to do; it’s barely long enough to do what I want to do.
Goals make us more successful, for the exact same reason that positive beliefs do. If we declare goals, they are likely to become true. Why? Tal answered: words have power, words create the world. Our brain does not like inconsistency. To keep the consistency, we create the world to make the reality is consist to our imagination, which is to make beliefs come true.
Necessity is the mother of inventions. If we ask the right question, it opens up opportunities.
Tal’s definition of happiness below is from his own book:
“Happiness is not about making it to the peak of the mountain, nor is it about climbing aimlessly around the mountain; happiness is the experience of climbing towards the peak“
At the end of the session, Tal showed a video clip from the file Dead Poet Society. Robin Williams as a teacher was telling students Carpe diem – “seize the day”. I was wondering if Robin Williams’d had more help from people like Tal, would he have suffered depression so much?
I searched the poem:
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
Robert Herrick
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
Old time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And, while ye may, go marry;
For, having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
At the beginning, Tal emphasised that changing is No short cuts; We need to Taking time off; and we need to Evaluation and Elaboration.
Positive emotion and painful emotion flow through same pipeline. And if we suppress negative emotions we are very often indirectly/inadvertently also suppressing positive emotions.
According to Tal, “generally speaking people who set goals are controlling other things more successful”. Personally I’m a person who set goals most of time and try to achieve them before deadlines. I don’t really think I’m successful, rather I see it as a skill or a habit of being organised. However, why don’t I see myself successful? Are my goals wrong goals? Perhaps I was born as a low self-esteem person? But I rarely feel helpless or hopeless.
Watched the session, I had a clue for my questions. Tal stated that “attainment of gaols does not lead to happiness; understanding the proper role of goals, the having of a goal, that leads to happiness.” Not all goals are created equal. The goals should be the things that you perceive that you want to do rather than things you have to do. One role of the goals is to liberate ourselves so that we can enjoy the process. Goals are means towards the present end. I kind of understand that the goals I was thinking about are things like work I have to get done, a project I need to complete, the places I want to visit, the new things I want to learn and so on. I should separate them to some extent, and look closely at what are the things I really really really want to do in my life. They are the goals for. Setting goals for those things lead to happier experience.
Life is too short to do what I have to do; it’s barely long enough to do what I want to do.
Goals make us more successful, for the exact same reason that positive beliefs do. If we declare goals, they are likely to become true. Why? Tal answered: words have power, words create the world. Our brain does not like inconsistency. To keep the consistency, we create the world to make the reality is consist to our imagination, which is to make beliefs come true.
Necessity is the mother of inventions. If we ask the right question, it opens up opportunities.
Tal’s definition of happiness below is from his own book:
“Happiness is not about making it to the peak of the mountain, nor is it about climbing aimlessly around the mountain; happiness is the experience of climbing towards the peak“
At the end of the session, Tal showed a video clip from the file Dead Poet Society. Robin Williams as a teacher was telling students Carpe diem – “seize the day”. I was wondering if Robin Williams’d had more help from people like Tal, would he have suffered depression so much?
I searched the poem:
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
Robert Herrick
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
Old time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And, while ye may, go marry;
For, having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
- In general, men benefits more from marriage than women.
- Ira Progoff’s work on Journalling
- Jamie Pennebaker’s book Opening UP: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions and his research contributions – The ABCs in journalling, 4 times a week, 15 minutes each time on writing down painful experience, reduces your anxiety level. Men are benefit more from journalling than women.
- Laura King, a student of Jamie Pennebaker, used Abraham Maslow’s “peak experience” concept and run a similar research study to Jamie Pennebaker’s – It proves that journalling about happy and joyful experience, describing experience, replaying your happy experience rather than analysing it will benefit people too.
- Lyubomirsky Study – journalling about happiness, which analyses the joyful experience has negative effect
- Daniel Wegner – ‘ironic processing’- supression or repression, releasing
- Aaron Antonovsky, one of the fathers of positive psychology – The concept of ‘Salutogenesis’ – Three components as the sources of mental health: (1) sense of comprehensibility (2) sense of manageability (3) the sense of meaningfulness
- Martin Seligman – learned helplessness
- Barbara Fredrickson – The Broaden-and-Build Theory
- Albert Bandura – Self-efficacy Theory
- Karen Horney – ‘neurosis’ never go away completely. so change ourselves completely is unrealistic.
- Henry David Thoreau – The process matters more.
- Abraham Maslow – Resilience
- Roger Bannister – believed that he would break the 4 minutes barrier.
- Thomas Edison – believed that he would generate light from electricity by the 31 December 1879
- W.H. Murrary, one of those prominent accomplished climbers – the importance of committing goals
- Matthieu Richard’s, the translator of Dalai Lama, book The Art of Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill
- David Watson and K Naragon’s book The Handbook of Positive Psychology – the importance of goals
- David Myers and Ed Diener – goals and happiness
- Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem – “Live not for battles won, Live not for the-end-of-the-song, Live for the along.”
- Ohad Kamin, Tal’s teacher, gave him the best advice for how to make a decision – identify the things that you can do, out of the things identify the things that you want to do. Out of the things you want to do, identify those things that you really want to do. Then identify the things you really really want to do and to do them.
The session is about ‘setting goals’ and Tal brought in the question “Who are you? When is the most real you?”
The benefits of self-concordance include:
When we pursue our passions, a self-concordant goal and a self-concordant journey, that’s when we come alive, that’s when we also make the world a better place.
When we are stressed, we are more likely to narrow and constrict. So what can we do about stress? Stress is actually good for us, but the lack of recovery from stress harms us. According research on happier people, there are two things they do differently:
The benefits of self-concordance include:
- It’s easy to understand that setting self-concordance goals can potentially make us happier.
- Having self-concordance goals resolve internal-conflict.
- It’s a way to dealing with interpersonal conflict too.
- It increases the likelihood of success. From “No pain, no gain” to “Do it better with pleasure”.
- It’s self-reinforcing. It has trickle effect.
- Writing them down
- Setting lifelines
- Make them specific
- Have long-term goals and break them to short-term goals.
When we pursue our passions, a self-concordant goal and a self-concordant journey, that’s when we come alive, that’s when we also make the world a better place.
When we are stressed, we are more likely to narrow and constrict. So what can we do about stress? Stress is actually good for us, but the lack of recovery from stress harms us. According research on happier people, there are two things they do differently:
- They set rituals for themselves.
- They set rituals for both work and for recovery. To attain multi-level recovery.
- To easy is not necessarily good.
- When you are acting according to your character strengths, you feel energised and motivated. It comes from within. It feels natural.
- The broaden-and-build theory – experience of positive emotions broaden people’s momentary thought–action repertoires, which in turn serves to build their enduring personal resources, ranging from physical and intellectual resources to social and psychological resources.
- Muzafer Sherif or Elliot Aronson – to resolve interpersonal conflicts is to have a super ordinate goal, a goal in which both sides engage in and are intra-dependant.
- Ellen Langer – we have opportunities to choose what we want to do and well-being.
- Book The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM) – classification of all known mental disorders.
- Chris Peterson and Martin Seligman – Value in action (VIA) – identified 24 character strengths.
- William James – when is the most real you?
- Amy Wrzesniewski – people’s perception of work – (1) Job is a job. (2) Job is a career (3) Job is a calling.
- Ambani Carter, one of the co-founders of Women in Business – “Instead of focusing on what we can live with, we should be thinking about what we can’t live without.”
- Ellen Langer – Beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies.
- Richard Kadison – stress – 45% students experience depression.
- Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz’s book The Power of Full Engagement – have 60 to 120 minutes of sprint, work, concentrate, focus, hard go for it, and then after that have 15 minutes of recovery. [Tal recommended this ritual. It’s reasonable, but I feel it’s difficult to have 60 minutes focus without distribution from people in my daily work. It’s definitely possible once or twice a day, but continuous sprints and breaks are difficult as people will come to the office, phone rings. meetings or discussions will take place in any time. If I don’t talk to people when they talk around, it’s just isolating myself, isn’t it? Not sure how practical it is in a work environment like mine. ]
This session continues the topic of “stress” and how to learn toward happiness.
Successful people know “focus” in one thing at one time. In “recovery”, they understand (1) quantity affects quality. Too much of a good thing will affect us to enjoy each of the thing. (2) things that are meaningful do not always pleasurable.
To cope with procrastination, Tal gave an example of how he put himself into action. Just do it whatever you like it or not! Commit to yourself to do the things you need to do.
About perfectionism, Tal shared his own experience about seeking to understand himself. “All or nothing” is a common view in perfectionism. Like Tal, I pursued the goals that I thought would bring me a lot of happiness, and actually I started to wonder what’s meaning of the pursue, and why it seems not make me happier when I achieved it. This is again linking back to the “Rat Race”.
Courage is not about not having fear; it’s about having fear and going ahead anyway.
Learn to fail or fail to learn, there is no other way! Tal has said it many many times in the course. He highlighted the point of “the joy of learning”. When we grow up, we forget how we learnt for instance to walk from thousand times of falling down. The worst scenario is it hurts, but I learnt and grow.
Successful people know “focus” in one thing at one time. In “recovery”, they understand (1) quantity affects quality. Too much of a good thing will affect us to enjoy each of the thing. (2) things that are meaningful do not always pleasurable.
To cope with procrastination, Tal gave an example of how he put himself into action. Just do it whatever you like it or not! Commit to yourself to do the things you need to do.
About perfectionism, Tal shared his own experience about seeking to understand himself. “All or nothing” is a common view in perfectionism. Like Tal, I pursued the goals that I thought would bring me a lot of happiness, and actually I started to wonder what’s meaning of the pursue, and why it seems not make me happier when I achieved it. This is again linking back to the “Rat Race”.
Courage is not about not having fear; it’s about having fear and going ahead anyway.
Learn to fail or fail to learn, there is no other way! Tal has said it many many times in the course. He highlighted the point of “the joy of learning”. When we grow up, we forget how we learnt for instance to walk from thousand times of falling down. The worst scenario is it hurts, but I learnt and grow.
- 70% college students complain about their own procrastination.
- The most successful scientists and artists have also failed the most.
- Daniel Kahneman – understanding the most effective things of women during the day. Research results show that they don’t enjoy the time with their children. – to show that quantity affects quality.
- Susan and Clyde Hendrick – stress and relationship
- University of London – The IQ of those who try to juggle message at work fell by 10 points, the equivalent to missing a whole night’s sleep and more than double 4.4 fall after smoking marijuana. I tried to search this study in 2005 but can’t find the report. I found the resources:
- Abuse of technology can reduce UK workers’ intelligence by HP
Emails ‘pose threat to IQ’ by John M. Grohol - Tim Kasser – time affluence and well-being
- The procrastination research done by University of Carleton in Canada – overcoming procrastination using 5 minutes take-off. I found their website. I found the resources: Study: Procrastination makes us fat and unhappy; we won’t put off putting off and the conference
- Elbert Hubbard – The greatest mistake a man can make is to be afraid of making one.
- George Elliot – no perfectionism – just do it, just act, prepare to fail.
- Michael Jordan – failed time and time again, which is why he succeeds.
- Amy Edmondson’s research – groups (Hackman conditions) and medical errors in hospital, learning organisations.
- Jane Klam’s research on people who are on dieting or exercises – people who are able to persist are people who have failed on average 5 times before.
This session is about perfectionism.
I thought I am a perfectionist as I am picky about things I care, but I don’t really know the whole picture of perfectionism. This session explains a lot and helps me to see myself and understand I’m not an extreme perfectionist but I have the Perfectionism schema working in my mind to some extent. It’s what I need to learn and want to change.
Perfectionism is an incapacitating fear of failure that permeates our lives, especially those areas that we care about most.
There are two schemas of the journey of life from A to B. One is Perfectionism and the other is Excellence. There is no perfect perfectionist, we all exist somewhere along the continuum between Perfectionism and Excellence. However, there are many people closer to the Perfectionism end of the continuum.
Perfectionism:
How can we change toward the Excellence schema?
I thought I am a perfectionist as I am picky about things I care, but I don’t really know the whole picture of perfectionism. This session explains a lot and helps me to see myself and understand I’m not an extreme perfectionist but I have the Perfectionism schema working in my mind to some extent. It’s what I need to learn and want to change.
Perfectionism is an incapacitating fear of failure that permeates our lives, especially those areas that we care about most.
There are two schemas of the journey of life from A to B. One is Perfectionism and the other is Excellence. There is no perfect perfectionist, we all exist somewhere along the continuum between Perfectionism and Excellence. However, there are many people closer to the Perfectionism end of the continuum.
Perfectionism:
- try to get the most efficient way, a straight line from A to B. there is only one way.
- is terrified to failure
- having frustration of not accepting reality
- if we have this schema in our mind, we are putting ourselves fight nature
- defensiveness
- over-generalisation
- all or nothing approach
- only experience temporarily relief
- as ambition as Perfectionism
- acceptance of failure, see it as learning experience, an opportunity to growth
- the journey is a part of the success
- accept what the reality is
- open and welcome criticism
- learn enjoying every step of the way
- Pursuing Excellence is about a constraint view of nature, they do not give up ambition and also do not give up enjoying the journey
- does not accept him/herself
- constantly perceive self as a failure
- is less likely to try
How can we change toward the Excellence schema?
- self-awareness, understanding perfectionism.
- focus on and reward effort
- active acceptance and take action
- Pareto Principle or the 80-20 Rule helps you manage those things that really you care the most.
- Warren Bennis’ book Geeks and Geezers – work-life balance
- Nathaniel Branden – self-esteem
- Peter Senge – creative tension
- Richard Wiseman’s book The Luck Factor
- John Updike – perfectionism is the enemy of creativity
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book Flow
- Nathaniel Branden’s book A Woman’s Self-Esteem: Struggles and Triumphs in the Search for Identity
- Anita Roddick’s work for women and self-esteem
- Carol Dweck – not all praise is good – it can change our schema
- Karen Horney – neurosis is always part of us, but it’s manageable.
This session continues on the topic of Perfectionism first and moves on to the topic of body-mind interconnection.
I like this session very much because it explains fundamental factors that help me to understand my view of life.
The positive modal from outside may look exactly the same, but the inside is different. People at the excellence side of the continuum enjoy the journey. Their excitement about what they are doing is contagious so you know they are enjoying the process. As my own reflection, I didn’t feel extremely exciting or extremely unpleasant, most time it’s glad and cope-able. I would seek changes and inquire why if I felt the journey was so unenjoyable.
Last session, Tal offered advice on “How can we change toward the Excellence schema?” In this session, he stressed it again when answering the question “How do we overcome Perfectionism?”.
Tal’s advice about “How do we help others who are perfectionists?”
The 3Ps are (1) The permission to be human – accepting it’s emotional, it’s difficulty, it’s reality. (2) Positive – change the interpretation and see opportunities in the failure. Taking distraction to do something you enjoy. It’s not about avoiding. (3) Taking perspective. Ask ourselves is this really matter? what is really matter?
Psychological maturity is about the ability to willingly shift perspective.
Tal shared a wonder drug as the start of the mind-body topic:
I like this session very much because it explains fundamental factors that help me to understand my view of life.
The positive modal from outside may look exactly the same, but the inside is different. People at the excellence side of the continuum enjoy the journey. Their excitement about what they are doing is contagious so you know they are enjoying the process. As my own reflection, I didn’t feel extremely exciting or extremely unpleasant, most time it’s glad and cope-able. I would seek changes and inquire why if I felt the journey was so unenjoyable.
Last session, Tal offered advice on “How can we change toward the Excellence schema?” In this session, he stressed it again when answering the question “How do we overcome Perfectionism?”.
- Awareness – being aware of what I want to change and what I want to maintain
- Rewarding effort
- Active acceptance and then act
- Go ahead and change it. Change our behaviours
- Act internal too and visulaising
- Do not do unto yourself what you would not do unto others, or do unto yourself what you do unto others
Tal’s advice about “How do we help others who are perfectionists?”
- Know it’s hard to help others as it’s an internal change
- Be the example
- Sharing stories
- Rewarding effort and the journey
The 3Ps are (1) The permission to be human – accepting it’s emotional, it’s difficulty, it’s reality. (2) Positive – change the interpretation and see opportunities in the failure. Taking distraction to do something you enjoy. It’s not about avoiding. (3) Taking perspective. Ask ourselves is this really matter? what is really matter?
Psychological maturity is about the ability to willingly shift perspective.
Tal shared a wonder drug as the start of the mind-body topic:
- 30 minutes of physical exercise, 4 times a week
- at least of 15 minutes of mindful exercise 6 or 7 times a week
- 8 hours of sleep more or leas per 24 hours
- at least 12 hugs a day
- Physical exercises. Yes, this is no problem for me. I have made it as my routine.
- Mindful. Yes, I can do it more and regularly. I have done it sometimes over the two years. I can make it as a routine.
- Sleep. My most favorite routine.
- Hugs. Hmm, this is hard for me as I still don’t feel so comfortable to hug people or to be hugged though I have lived in the UK for so many years. One reason is I grew up in China where adults do not hug each other so much in terms of the culture. It’s possible with very close friends, family members or your young kids sometimes. Another reason is I don’t know if it’s okay to hug the same person 12 times in a day. Are there any differences to hug 12 different people in a day? I need to work out a way to practise this
- Ellen Langer – more nuance understanding of self
- Carol Dweck – Rewarding effort
- Buddhism – accept it, take it as a tool for growth, as a way of learning ourselves
- Karen Horney – our neurosis
- Samuel Coleridge – his view about writing, enjoy the process of writing and avoid to be perfectionism
- Dalai Lama – the word “compassion” in Tibetan is “tsewe”, which means compass others as well as ourselves.
- Richard Carlson’s book Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life
- Martin Seligman- the problem of current psychology is focusing too much on neck-up, but often what happens is about neck-down.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book Full Catastrophe Living: How to cope with stress, pain and illness using mindfulness meditation
- Michael Babyak – the importance of exercise
- Dienstbier and Zillig’s book The Handbook of Positive Psychology – over-exercise is the same to the lack of exercise. The importance of recovery.
- Wing and Jerry – the importance of social support
