No, I’m not blogging about the 2006 film, satisfyingly adequate as it was.  I’m talking about positive psychology, the academic movement that is turning traditional therapy – where else? – on its head.  Here are two new recent tid-bits from my quest to understand, evaluate and apply this radical new thinking.  Enjoy!

First off, there was an excellent discussion on Radio 4 this week called In Pursuit of Happiness.  “Claudia Hammond looks at the government’s plan to measure the nation’s happiness and asks whether happiness and a sense of well-being are skills that can be taught. A growing body of evidence, from fields such as positive psychology, suggests that happier, more optimistic people live longer and are ultimately more successful than people with a more pessimistic nature. But is optimism something that can be learnt, and can it be applied to an entire nation?”

Claudia Hammond as a journalist understands the subject well and has interviewed Martin Seligman before.  As to the questions in the last sentence, I’m thinking ‘definitely’ and ‘possibly‘ in that order.

Second, in the last few days I’ve purchased a book that is a surprise hit.  Why surprise?  I bought in in Bargain Books for 99p.  And I’ve never heard of the author.  It’s called Help Yourself to Happiness by Keith Were.  Not only does it provide a clear survey of the field, it does so in totally practical terms and even managed to cover aspects that others neglect e.g. the nefarious influence of the media, internet and TV.  Watch a video summary of it here.

A friend of mine argued with me last week that we human beings are built for happiness, and that depression is therefore something that is unnatural.  Aristotle agrees with him.

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.

Do you?

Image credit: meddygarnet.

I had a mini-epiphany the other day.  This happens to me recurrently, especially after eating my wife’s curry.   I take it as yet another proof of the mind-body linkage.  What happens is that there are two bits of information floating around in my brain that suddenly decide they are related.  As a consequence, I go Eureka!

This time it has to do with the thought of two seemingly different guys.  The first is Martin Seligman, about whom you’ve heard plenty from me before.  Seligman holds that there are three paths to happy lives, or three possible routes to happiness.   They also constitute three overlapping fields of research in the field of positive psychology.

Here is how he describes them:

“First the Pleasant Life, consisting in having as many pleasures as possible and having the skills to amplify the pleasures.  This is, of course, the only true kind of happiness on the Hollywood view.  Second, the Good Life, which consists in knowing what your signature strengths are, and then recrafting your work, love, friendship, leisure and parenting to use those strengths to have more flow in life.  Third, the Meaningful Life, which consists of using your signature strengths in the service of something that you believe is larger than you are.”

The second guy is called Søren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher in the 19th century.  As far as I can remember from my graduate days, he has many interesting things to say about the pleasures of anticipation, repetition and recollection.  Among other things, he believed that there are three ‘stages on life’s way’:

The aesthetic – The aesthetic is the realm of sensory experience and pleasures.   To live the aesthetic life to the fullest one must seek to maximize those pleasures.  This is an immature stage.

The ethical – The ethical life is based on a consistent, coherent set of rules established for the good of society.  The ethical person considers the effect his or her actions will have on others and gives more weight to promoting social welfare than to achieving personal gain.

The religious – The religious life focuses on self-exploration.   Kierkegaard considers the religious life to be the highest plane of existence.  He also believes that almost no one lives a truly religious life.  For Kierkegaard, this life is exclusively personal; large-scale religion distracts people from real relationships.

Do you see the similarities between their two visions?

Yes, there are interesting differences too.  For instance, Seiligman’s final stage widens out to embrace the larger view, whereas Kierkegaard’s collapses into the personal.  Also, I suspect that Seligman views his three stages as complementary, with each new stage enveloping the one below it.  Kierkegaard seems to paint a picture of conflict between them.

Anyway, if nothing else, this blog has given you an idea of what happens in my brain after I eat curry…

Image credit: blogger’s own.

This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill - Fifteen percent concentrated power of will - Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain - And a hundred percent reason to remember the name!

So says the gang from Fort Minor in their high-motivational song Remember The Name, background music to many a martial movie trailer from Fighting to the new Karate Kid.

But are their percentages right?

I’ve come across a few other formulas for success and happiness over the years, so I thought I’d bring them together in one blog to see what you think.

Success = IQ + (EQ + other factors)

IQ = Intelligence Quotient (20%)

EQ = Emotional Quotient (Emotional Intelligence)

Click here to find out what EI is and why it matters, and here to learn the business case for emotional intelligence.

H= S + C + V

H = enduring level of happiness

S = set range (50%)

C = circumstances (10%)

V = voluntary variables (40%)

What makes this one interesting is the percentages.  Forty percent is quite alot of happiness to have in our power!

H = P + E + M

H = Happiness

P = Pleasure

E = Engagement (Flow)

M = Meaning

Here’s a slightly more complicated British version of the ‘happiness formula’ if you want some choice: Happiness = P + (5xE) + (3xH)

Despair = Suffering – Meaning

This is a formula adopted by Viktor Frankl while experiencing first-hand the horrors of the concentration camps.  So he knows what he’s talking about.  Read his amazing story here.

And finally, the one we all know…

Success = I + P

I = Inspiration (10%)

P = Perspiration (90%)

Have you heard or any others?  Or developed one of your own?

PS Here’s a relevant quote from Dick Fosbury (of  ‘Fosbury Flop‘ fame):

“When you reach that elite level, 90 percent is mental and 10 percent is physical. You are competing against yourself. Not against the other athlete.”

In the first blog in this series I mentioned that I’m delivering (for the second time) a 1-day course in Queen’s University called What Men Want: How To Manage the Men in Your Life.  Although this is a course about men for women, it got me thinking about what it is – if anything – that all men might want.  Here are some suggestions.

Author John Eldredge has a very frank take on What Men Want (as he explains on this video clip).  For Eldredge, it consists of three things:

• A battle to fight
• A beauty to rescue
• An adventure to live

Jayson Gaddis, men’s coach and counselor, likewise posits a three-fold want in an excellent articled called Why Many Men Are Still Boys and What Can Be Done About It.  Jason’s ‘solution’ for modern men is a potent mixture of:

• Initiation into manhood
• Mentorship
• A Men’s Circle

Or trial, teacher and tribe, to put it a little differently.

For myself, I find it easier to answer the question of what we men need.  Martin Seligman makes a three-part distinction between:

1. The Pleasant Life – a life of pleasure
2. The Good Life – a life of engagement
3. The Meaningful life – a life of purpose

Although a meaningful life is the ‘highest’ level lived experience for a man, it doesn’t negate the other two.  They are not like different judo belts that you must put off and take on as you ascend to mastery.  I think they are better pictured as concentric circles with the meaningful life encompassing and providing perspective for the rest.

As a man matures i.e. transforms from a boy to a man, he shifts in three ways:

1. His experience of pleasure moves from the quantitative to the qualitative, with greater powers of impulse control and responsibility available to him.
2. The tasks he chooses to engage in require increasing levels of challenge and skill, and so that he constantly experiences new levels of learning about and leadership within the world.
3. He discovers or creates a purpose in life that over time becomes more explicit, more focused than before, and from which he prunes the necessary until all that remains is a destiny.  Such a man of destiny will aim to serve a cause greater than himself, but will make himself greater in the process.

At least, that’s what I think!  And the old question remains as to how to do this for men.  Jayson seems to use wilderness trips as a means to facilitate growth in male maturity.  I’d like to experience this method before commenting much on its effectiveness.  But I guess it beats any classroom or training room as a learning environment for guys.  Can you think of a better one?  The pub doesn’t count…

Click here to listen to a brilliant interview with Professor Martin Seligman, modern founder of Positive Psychology an author of Authentic Happiness.

In a special edition, Claudia Hammond talks to the father of Positive Psychology, Professor Martin Seligman, about why optimism is not only good for your health, but could also help you live longer. Claudia visits a school that has introduced happiness lessons with some surprising results. And we hear from Dr Julie Norem about why, for some of us, a more pessimistic approach might be the winning strategy.

What interests me is that Seligman describes himself as a natural pessimist and depressive.  That’s the kind of guru I can listen to!  He also reiterates a point that I’ve made on his behalf before – the optimism he promotes is not meant to exclude a sort of risk-cautious realism but rather complement it.

Anyway, enjoy the conversation.  Seligman’s treatment of the topic is both masterful and humane.  Most impressive.

Image credit: Diego Cupolo’s.