Vedere Consulting
There's a sweet spot where fulfillment and productivity intersect. My blog is dedicated to helping leaders find it for themselves and their employees. --Plum Cluverius,Executive CoachTuesday, January 19, 2010
What Is Your Positivity Ratio
Have you ever gotten up in the morning and things just seemed to go wrong from the time you woke up until you went to bed? It’s almost like one thing cascades into another making you more and more frustrated and irritable. You’re drowning in a sea of negativity.
You don’t have to live this way, says psychologist and researcher Barbara Fredrickson, PhD. You can change your mood, and when you do, you change your life. She’s done the research to prove it. For years, Fredrickson has investigated the value of positive emotions—joy, serenity, gratitude, curiosity, amusement, etc. in both controlled laboratory experiments and in field studies. She’s measured the effects of positive emotions on the way people think and catalogued their impact on people’s skills, traits and well being. What she’s found is that positive emotions have a purpose beyond just feeling good for a moment. Positive emotions expand our ability to respond to daily crises and problems with creativity and resilience. Basically she says that fear closes down our minds and hearts, it makes us dumber and less able to respond to a crisis. Positive emotions open them, so that we see our problems more clearly, and are able to make more creative and nourishing choices about what to do next.
In addition, the more we experience positive emotions, the more we change and grow, becoming better people and developing the tools we need to make a better life. That is, over the long term, we become more satisfied and fulfilled.
A fascinating part of Fredrickson’s work is the positivity ratio, the number of positive emotions compared to the number of negative emotions we experience each day. If our positivity ratio is 3:1 (3 positive emotions to one negative emotion), we reach a tipping point where we receive all the nourishing benefits of positive thinking. Below that ratio, we tend to descend into negativity. Most of us have a positivity ratio of 2:1 or worse. (If you want to find yours, you can take a free quiz at www.positivityratio.com).
We can improve the ratio by experimenting with ways to inject positivity into our days. And this isn’t something you can fake. In fact, you can pressure yourself to be positive and that just adds to the negativity! Instead, look for sources of beauty and pleasure. Look for small opportunities to engage in nourishing activities. Notice your negative interpretations of events and find a more positive perspective. There are a number of tools on Fredrickson’s website. Take advantage, and let yourself flourish.
You don’t have to live this way, says psychologist and researcher Barbara Fredrickson, PhD. You can change your mood, and when you do, you change your life. She’s done the research to prove it. For years, Fredrickson has investigated the value of positive emotions—joy, serenity, gratitude, curiosity, amusement, etc. in both controlled laboratory experiments and in field studies. She’s measured the effects of positive emotions on the way people think and catalogued their impact on people’s skills, traits and well being. What she’s found is that positive emotions have a purpose beyond just feeling good for a moment. Positive emotions expand our ability to respond to daily crises and problems with creativity and resilience. Basically she says that fear closes down our minds and hearts, it makes us dumber and less able to respond to a crisis. Positive emotions open them, so that we see our problems more clearly, and are able to make more creative and nourishing choices about what to do next.
In addition, the more we experience positive emotions, the more we change and grow, becoming better people and developing the tools we need to make a better life. That is, over the long term, we become more satisfied and fulfilled.
A fascinating part of Fredrickson’s work is the positivity ratio, the number of positive emotions compared to the number of negative emotions we experience each day. If our positivity ratio is 3:1 (3 positive emotions to one negative emotion), we reach a tipping point where we receive all the nourishing benefits of positive thinking. Below that ratio, we tend to descend into negativity. Most of us have a positivity ratio of 2:1 or worse. (If you want to find yours, you can take a free quiz at www.positivityratio.com).
We can improve the ratio by experimenting with ways to inject positivity into our days. And this isn’t something you can fake. In fact, you can pressure yourself to be positive and that just adds to the negativity! Instead, look for sources of beauty and pleasure. Look for small opportunities to engage in nourishing activities. Notice your negative interpretations of events and find a more positive perspective. There are a number of tools on Fredrickson’s website. Take advantage, and let yourself flourish.
Labels: Emotional Intelligence Self Mastery
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