Happiness

Positive psychology is the science of human flourishing.  What psychologists have found out is that you can improve your happiness in the same fashion you might improve in sports, school or video games.  Happiness is not just a moment in time, it is about enjoying the journey to a destination that you care about.

As a young boy my father would give me things to do each day to become a better athlete.  It might be shooting 500 jump shots or drawing a strike zone on a wall requiring me to hit specific targets in the zone.  While my father was concerned about making me a better baseball and basketball player, what I have realized today is that he taught me to love the journey.

1.      So, what are some tips that you can follow to improve your journey to happiness.  Again, as a young man cigarette companies could advertise on TV.  One company’s ad was “more taste, fine tobacco, that what happiness is” Now in the moment, when my mom lit up her cigarette, it did bring her happiness.  I can see the relaxation and smile on her face when she smoked.  However, in the long run this brought about health issues which caused her (and the family) much sadness.  So, in the journey for happiness we can not only think about short term gains but we must also think about future gains.

2.      Your mind and body work together, so that taking care of your body is very important.  Most of us are sleep deprived, make sure that you figure out how to get your proper sleep.  Work on eating healthy, and exercising to keep your body in shape.  These factors build into the happiness equation.

3.      The journey becomes more meaningful when you keep a record of it.  A gratitude journal which you keep your three good things each day is a great way to document the journey (join our gratitude page).  I also know when I am struggling and having a bad day, that the three good things become more important as they refocus my mind on what is good instead of recalling all that is bad.

4.      Think about the things that make you happy and make sure to schedule them into your life.  A lot of times in the day to day grind we lose track of what makes us happy.  It is important to schedule time to maybe eat with a friend, time to read a book or play a video game.  These little things add up as we move through out happiness journey.

5.      Recently before going to bed each night, I forgive myself and others for things that we did wrong.  When I focus on the forgiveness exercise I can totally feel my body relax as I am preparing to go to sleep.  Then when I wake up each morning I re-commit to my goals.  One of my goals each day is to think about what I can do to make myself just a little bit happier than yesterday. This might bring me into a teacher’s room who I have not seen for a while, a discussion I want to have with some students, helping someone or just relaxing at dinner with my family.  The focus however is just to commit to do something that will make me happier.

As in all learning the curve is not linear.  This happiness journey is not going to be one that you get happier each day than the day before.  It is also not a journey in which you end at a specific destination.  It is more like a journey in which you continue to grow.

Take one of the five suggestions above, implement them and tell me how they work.

Mental Health

I remember the day clearly, my student asked me what did I do when I found out one of our students had committed suicide.  As I told her, that I went into my younger son’s room and hugged him, I began fighting back the tears.  She came over to comfort me which was not exactly the behavior that our crisis team told us to follow.   I think however that the kids needed to see that I was human, that life was not going on like nothing happened and that the adults like students were really hurting.

A year later I found myself going to a new school embracing the work of Angela Duckworth more here and Martin Seligman flourish.  While I was teaching economics I was taking the time to have students write down  three good things that happened to them within the last 24 hours, share my three good things, put out a gratitude box, write gratitude letters, and  discuss vulnerability.  I wanted my students to master the content knowledge but more importantly walk away with skills that they can use for the rest of their life.

Our county changed our schedule in my second or third year at my present school.  While I disagreed with the change in scheduling it opened the opportunity for students to take more electives.  One of my strengths in the business world was taking bad corporate decisions and making them work for me.  I thought this was a perfect situation to do that and I proposed to teach an elective called “Positive Psychology” which was the science of how humans flourish.  My thoughts were that this class would be helpful for all students in transitioning from middle school to high school, while giving them skills to help them throughout their high school career.  What made it perfect is that all students would have an extra period to take it since we were going from seven to eight periods.

I was asked to present to our leadership team what this new course would entail.  I was surprised when some of them did not think our smartest kids needed this type of class.  It was almost like A’s meant happiness which I knew was not always true.  Some of them thought that in their departments the teachers were very positive.  Others thought that if we mandated this elective that some of their electives would not get enough support.  Still by the end of the discussion I thought we were a go.

I remember when the principal called me into her office to tell me that the leadership team did not think the course was worth doing.  I was totally shocked.  How can the leaders of our school not think that these skills were important for our students to learn?  In retrospect I now realize that I did not do a good job in presenting this proposal to the team and that our school was not ready for the change.

What is also important is to try to figure out how to continue to try to make the system better even when you are not supported.  We started a character group which consists of a group of teachers who meet to discuss issues about character.  This group also exchanges e-mails and hopefully passes these messages onto their students.  So while formally we did not get the class hopefully the message is moving throughout the school

A couple of years ago one of my former students wrote me an e-mail telling me, how her, very competitive, college was more compassionate than our high school.  How they seemed to care more about her well-being than our high school.  I remember how sad that made me and how I felt that I had let her down.  I thought back to my proposal of positive psychology and how these classes had become some of the most popular classes at many of our Ivy League schools.  How kids really did want to learn how to be happy.

Our countries schools have faced many crises since my student killed herself.  We have had school shootings, increase in anxiety and depression among students.   When these events happen we are very sad but it seems that nothing really ever changes.  Resources are not put to fixing the problems.

So what will get our schools to value our mental health in a way that we value our academic well-being?  I truly believe that the change in our school system will come from the generation that I teach today.  Some of them will become teachers, others will be parent advocates, while others will just be friends of education.  I think this is a generation of change which will make our world a better place on many different fronts.

Remember Happiness is the ultimate currency.  Think about what you are trading it for.

As always your feedback is appreciated.

Passion

This past Friday during a morning review a tad of sadness crept over me.  I realized in a short time period that I would not see these students again.  That these seniors who had dedicated themselves all year were in a short time moving on.  When first period came (also seniors) I started to explain how sad I was at the review and I started choking up.  My appreciation and love for these students started to overwhelm me.

As in most cases, giving yourself time to reflect, brings perspective to the situation.  I am now in the mindset that the journey is not over, but truthfully just beginning.  What is truly great about teaching is that you often get to see your student’s dreams come true. 

Now some students are not sure yet what their dreams are which I think is a good thing.  If I asked most students who they were going to marry they would not know but for some reason we put this pressure on them to know at 18 what they want to do for the rest of their lives. 

We need to change our mindsets about both the high school and college years.  Instead of spending time trying to think what colleges or future employers want, students need to be spending the time trying to find their passion. This search for your passion might carry on into your work life which is fine as you change jobs still looking for the one that you can spend be passionate about the rest of your life.  We do not continue to date people we do not like so why should we feel pigeon holed into a job we are not passionate about.

When I was eighteen, my parents worried about me.  I did not take school seriously (always called an underachiever) and truly did not have a career plan.  I remember when I took a job at Domino’s Pizza my father said, “you went to college to become a pizza maker” As I rose in the organization however my Dad did become proud of me.  That is what made calling him to tell him that I resigned from the company that much harder.  “You are leaving this great company (wow his tone had changed) to become a teacher, do you realize you are about to have your third child?” 

When I first started teaching I remember thinking that I wasted all these years of my life chasing different dreams.  With perspective however, I now realize chasing all those dreams allowed me to find the one that I am truly passionate about.  I have always thought that my true strategic advantage as a teacher is that I love coming to work every day and thinking about different ways to get students to learn.  This passion is what allows me to fail like a six but rebound like a ten.

I will end with a great quote” Life is messy. Get used to it.”.  And that is what makes the journey so enjoyable.

emotional intelligence

You receive an e-mail which can consist of a policy you’re totally against, a criticism from a friend or some feedback that just gets your blood boiling.  Immediately you want to type out a reply to prove to the other person that they are wrong.  Dan Goleman (more here) would describe the above with the phrase emotional hijacking, where your emotions over power your cognitive thought.

President Lincoln understood the importance of overcoming the emotions that go along with criticism.  When Lincoln perceived criticism he would wait twenty four hours before he returned the response.  In waiting this time Lincoln was better able to reflect upon the criticism without his emotions getting in the way.  He often realized that his critics had some valid points which helped Lincoln improve as a President.  This advice is probably more important today than ever before with the 24 hours scrutiny of social media

John Harbaugh (Raven’s Head Football Coach) and Steve Bisciotti (Raven’s owner) have a similar arrangement.  They have both agreed that talking about the game right after it is completed is not going to do either one of them any good.  There is still too much raw emotion for constructive feedback to take place.  So they do not discuss the game until 24 hours have passed.  This gives both of them time to recognize and understand each other’s emotions.

Nobody likes criticism, what we have to realize is that it is more important to get things right then to be right.  So recently while listening to a podcast I heard a psychologist discuss how she handled criticism of her work.  She decide not to dig her heels in and defend her work.  Instead she joined forces with the person who criticized her so that she could better understand the perspective he and others had on her work.  This type of mindset allows you to be open to learning and taking different viewpoints.  It allows you to improve upon your work instead of defending it.

So being a New Yorker, I have the tendency to push back harder when I am pushed.  What I have observed in my own behavior is that within a couple of hours I regret my actions.  Now what I am trying to do is make generous assumptions.   So instead of thinking the person is attacking me I try to think that they are trying to help me.  The whole change in mindset often allows me to respond differently to the criticism and use it more as a learning tool.   Instead of emotional back and forth, I am getting a more constructive conversation in which I am learning and growing.

Now have I perfected this?  No.  Sometimes I still have to go home, take a deep breath and admit that my emotions were hijacked.  How would of the conversation been different if I had made a generous assumptions?  Why did I take it personally?  What are the different perspectives that I was not taking into account? 

So the next time you receive criticism, take a deep breath, remember the examples above, and try to give yourself time to gather perspective.  LISTEN LIKE YOU ARE WRONG.

As always your feedback is welcome

Trust

 

In the last couple of weeks, people have asked me how do you find your critical friends.  Who do you know to trust?  When I worked in the business world our company slogan was. “It is the 1,000 little things that make us great” I think it is the same thing about trust, it is the little things that earn trust.

My first day at my present school I was walking down the hall going to my class.  A teacher stopped me and said, “You are going to have a great experience here, let me know what I can do to help you”.  That opening comment started a friendship that to this day is built on trust and mutual respect.

John Gottman (gottman), a psychologist who studies relationships, call these small moments’ sliding door moments.  They are these everyday opportunities in which you can build or lose trust.  I remember when I first heard about sliding door moments I realized how many times things slip away not from being malicious but from being mindless.

I remember one day I started reviews with students at 7:00 AM.  During my off period and lunch, students were in my room for help, and making up some work.  When I was done helping the last student I realized that I had about five minutes to relax before my next class and a review session after school.  As I sat down to relax a student came up to me and asked, “Can you grade my free response now?”

My first response was no.  When I saw the look on her face when the no came out of my mouth I realized I had made a big mistake.  I quickly said, “come back I will grade the free response with you” I will never forget the look on her face as she came back to my desk.  Her face showed me that I made a remarkable recovery and saved this sliding door moment.

Now could I have rationalized that I had been teaching all day?  Of course, nobody would have argued that I did not deserve that five minute break to myself.  However it is these micro moments in which I truly believe that trust is built or broken.  I had built a better relationship with a student and that was certainly worth the five minutes of my free time.

Trust is also never built upon gossip.  While most people love to pass along gossip to each other, friendships that are built upon gossip are very rarely ones of trust.  You cannot help but wonder what do these people say about me when I am not around?  How can I trust someone who reveals others secrets so freely?

Do the big things matter, yes they do.  I have some friends who I will say, this stays in the vault.  Which means what we just discussed stays between us.  Those friends have had many sliding door moments in which they have earned my trust so it is easy for me to become vulnerable with them.

I will close with a quote from Henry Stimson, Secretary of War under FDR, Trust takes years to build, seconds to lose and forever to repair” Make the most of those sliding door moments.

 

As always your comments and thoughts are appreciated.

Stress

In talking with my students, I realized how stressful their senior year can be.  They start their year crafting their college essays, then begin the application process, then the waiting game of do I get in or not, then some rejections, and then where do I go?  During this time, they also are thinking about their grades, what do I wear to prom?  Whom am I going with?  And of course, how am I going to ask them?  With all that in mind I thought I would just put together some thoughts on stress.

They did a study of 30,000 adults across the United States.  They asked them two questions.

1.      How would you rate the amount of stress you have in your life?

2.      Do you think stress is good or bad for you?

The bad news is that 43% of these adults died within the eight-year period that this group was followed.  What they found out however, is that everyone who died thought that stress was bad for them.  That people with high stress were healthy if they thought stress was good for them.  So, the fact is, that it is not stress that kills you, but the fact that you think that stress is bad for you that kills you.

Now think for a second what stresses you out?  I would say my family (worried about them) my job, my friends and my students (also worried about them).  Think for a second if you wiped out all the things that stress you out you would have a pretty empty life.  So, to have a fulfilling life we need stress in it.  Why not make it our friend.

Now often when you are about to take an exam, teachers will tell you to relax and not to worry.  Our intentions are good since we want all our students to be successful.  In another research project they took college students and split them into two groups.  The control group was told to relax before the test and take deep breathes.  The experimental group was told

               That stress is just showing you that you are excited

               That stress is allowing more oxygen to go to your brain to help you during the test

               That stress is an energizer to help you

               Lastly that research shows that students who feel stress will perform well.

When the results came back the students in the experimental group outperformed the students who were told to relax.  That feeling stress before the test was used by the experimental group to enhance performance.  The same way athletes use the excitement of a big game to enhance their performance.  This positive mindset about stress probably will carry over into other stressful events such as job interviews, speeches etc.

How do you change your mind set about stress?  First thing is to acknowledge the event that might be causing you stress.  Then I try to think about how the stress is just preparing me for the event that is occurring.  That my mind and body are just getting ready so that I can handle the event.  Secondly, try to help someone else during these times.  While this is often difficult to do when you feel overwhelmed, I have found being compassionate during these times energizes my body.  Lastly, just continue to talk and think that stress is good for you.

Hope this helps.  As always truly appreciate your thoughts and your feedback

Step into the arena

Below is a quote from Teddy Roosevelt.    

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

What prevents many people from stepping into the arena is fear and self-doubt.  How many great ideas, how many great questions go unheard because people are scared?   While it would be great to promise you that nobody is going to judge you, the truth is that there will always be the critics.  What we need to do is tune out the people who criticize us but are too scared to get into the arena themselves.

The second critic we would need to shut out is ourselves.  Many of us are our own worst critics which often prevents us from the triumphs of high achievement.  What we must realize is that most often what we are trying to accomplish is bigger than us.  That we will make errors along the way but if we continue to follow our passion we will love the journey.

This is not to say that we do not need constructive criticism. I send these essays to two people each week before I publish because I trust that their feedback will make the essay better.  We all need those critical friends who will tell us when we are going down the wrong path, who will pick us up when we fall (we all fall).  What I have found is those who are successful fall at a six and bounce back like a ten.  What we do not need is those people who crush dreams or ideas because they themselves are too scared to enter the arena.

I once worked with a boss who told me “if I am not thinking about firing you every 90 days I am going to fire you” At first this seems like a crazy statement which would increase fear.  However, what my boss wanted was for me to push the envelope so far that it made him uncomfortable.  To take risks because he realized that you could not have a great company if you were doing the norm.

What made my boss special is that he celebrated failures and those who took risks. As you might suspect many successes came out of those failures.  It developed a thought process of if it is not broken break it.  That change is difficult but almost always needed.

So, I will leave you with some questions you can ask yourself as you try to change your mindset to be more comfortable entering the arena.  What did you disagree with today?  What did you learn from somebody who disagreed with you?  What have you failed at recently?  Is there another way to solve that problem?

Look forward to seeing you in the arena.

As usual your feedback and comments are always wanted.