The virtue of focus (hers)

Article #1.  A new study finds a correlation between increased use of web-enabled cellphones and stress.  Article #2.  Research shows that ruminating over past event leads to increased stress and decreased motivation.

What do cellphones and rumination have in common?  They interrupt focus, a crucial component to our feeling of peace and tranquility.

But who can afford tranquility?  We live in a fast-paced world with the infrastructure and technology to stay plugged in almost 24/7.  Facebook in the morning.  Twitter in the evening.  Browsing the internet on your iPhone on the hour, every hour.  It's great!  Isn't it?

By understanding three crucial roles focus plays in our happiness, we can begin to practice ways to prevent the jarring interruptions of modern living.

1)  Flow
Positive Psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced "cheeks sent me high"), who Martin Selgiman called the world's leading research on Positive Psychology, coined a now famous concept called "flow."  Flow is the state of total immersion in a challenging task that utilizes one's talents and interests.  Having "flow" experiences on a regular basis contributes to much higher levels of mental well-being.

Interruptions stop flow.  If you're playing volleyball and your phone rings, or you're writing and suddenly ruminate over a faux pas from earlier in the day, you have dramatically decreased the happiness returns to your flow.

2)  Savoring
Savoring is the "flow" of sensation.  Think of the last time you savored your coffee, soaked in a blue sky, or felt the grass between your toes.  "I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life," in the words of Henry David Thoreau.  In a previous blog post, we discussed the merits and returns to savoring, and how we can all become "connoisseurs of our lives."

Interruptions stop savoring.  Think of it like being interrupted in your sleep.  Your REM cycle doesn't complete, you can't get back to bed, and you're groggy the next day.  We experience the same thing hour after hour, day after day whenever we lose focus.

3)  Living in the now
Long before Eckhart Tolle's blockbuster book, "The Power of Now," philosophers were discussing the merits of living in the now.  Zen Buddhists practice "zazen," or "just sitting," to develop the focus they believe necessary to live a full and healthy life.  Positive Psychologists Barbara Fredrickson and Richard Davidson have reported dramatic impacts to stress reduction, elevation of positive emotions, and improved immune systems through even short-term meditation programs.

Interruptions stop us from living in the now.  If our minds are pulled this way and that by worries, concerns, alerts, or beeps, we are living in the past or the future, but not now.

Flow, savoring, and living in the now are all crucial pieces of our happiness that depend on our ability to focus.  Focusing doesn't mean we become inflexible.  It means we become more conscious of controlling our environmental stimuli, and controlling our internal response systems.

Turn off notifications on your phone.  Check email only at set intervals throughout the day.  Turn off TVs when they're just running in the background.  Controlling your internal response system is more difficult, but more rewarding.  Try meditating once a week for 30 minutes.  Try redirecting your attention away from new distractions, or reminding yourself that an interruption isn't as urgent as you may think.

The 21st century may be more difficult than ever to cultivate focus, but that also means it has never been more important to start trying.

How do you research happiness? (his)

The first obstacle to believing you can be happier is believing the right information to be happier is out there.  We are bombarded with various theories from numerous sources on how to be happy.  Some of them legitimate, some of them not so legitimate.  But how do we sort the legitimate from the non-legitimate?

As you know, I like to start with the science and then find those who are giving me similar information.  That way I can triangulate the information and when enough sources are giving me the same message I’m more inclined to listen, believe and start changing my habits.

But that raises another question – what makes us believe science is getting us the right information?

In the recent issue of the Harvard Business Review, Daniel Gilbert, a leading Harvard psychology professor and researcher on happiness, explains how happiness can be studied (“The Science Behind The Smile”).  Gilbert explains how he collects data, measures it and is able to draw conclusions from what seems to most of us a very subjective standard.  We’ve held for years that we can study and measure depression.  Why not happiness?

For example, he admits that we can’t know what one person means by the term “happy” as compared to another, but that’s also true for color and sound.  We have to take their word for it.  And, when we have enough people giving us information as to what makes them happy and when they’re happy we can draw reasonable conclusions.

Gilbert points to the work of his collaborator Matt Killingsworth, a doctoral student in psychology at Harvard, to show how technology has made it easier to measure happiness (see HBR sidebar “The Future of Happiness Research”).  Killingsworth has developed an iPhone app called Track Your Happiness that allows him to track the happiness of over 15,000 people.  He does so by pinging them at various times during the day and asking them to rate their happiness and identify what activity they are doing at that very moment.  By using this research method, Killingsworth gets instantaneous information (not remembered experiences – a faulty source) and a large sample size.

(To participate in this study go to trackyourhappiness.org.)

Science, especially the science of our minds and emotions, is not perfect.  But the last 20 years of research on happiness has both exploded and become increasingly more accurate.  By implementing strict research processes and using the latest technology we are getting better and better information on what can truly make us happier.  If we don’t take advantage of that we only have ourselves to blame.

New Year's Resolutions: Why, Where, & How? (hers)

About the same time every year, much of the Western world tells themselves they will become better.  We promise to take our partner out on more dates.  We pledge to spend more time with our kids.  We vow to not work as much (or to work even more).

New Year's Resolutions.  For most of us, this is nothing new.  Not only because we do this every year, but we do this every week of every year.  We are constantly telling ourselves we can and will be better.  The New Year is an excuse few of us need, because we're always trying to grow.

But why?

We grow to adapt, or we grow to flourish.  We adapt because we have to; seasons change, we change our clothing.  We flourish because we want to; spend more time with our children, better relationships with our children.  We grow because we have to or we want to.

Often, we set goals we think we should set, not goals we have to (adapt) or we want to (flourish).  Get that next promotion.  Lose 10 pounds.  Watch less football.  Spend time outdoors.  Depending on who you are, those could be genuine flourishing goals, or completely unenjoyable.

The difficulty, as always, is recognizing what makes you flourish and what doesn't.  This requires two tools: a compass and a walking stick.  The compass to make sure you're pointed in the right direction.  The stick to help you walk it.

The compass is understanding what you want and what you're capable of.  Two recent blog posts guide you through this process with two tests and help you determine your Top 10 Values, and your Top 5 Strengths.  Combining these two help you see what truly matters to you, what you are already accomplishing, and where is the biggest gap.

The walking stick is making goals achievable and enjoyable through the principles of positive psychology.  We outline four goal-setting principles to make your goals work for you in our October 24th, 2011 blog post:

1.  Set approach goals and not avoidance goals
2.  Set intrinsic and not extrinsic goals
3.  Set goals that relate to your personal value system
4.  Set goals that are autonomously chosen

In one sentence:  Set your own meaningful goals for what to do, not what not to do.  By pointing in the right direction and being equipped for the path ahead, goal setting will become what it should be: a joyful engagement with yourself and your surroundings that improves them both.