“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be 
able to do it.” – J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
It’s not always easy to think happy thoughts. Sometimes life throws up challenges, stumbling blocks that can wipe the smiles from our faces and makes getting through the day that little bit tougher. However, positive psychology has proven that taking measures to improve your happiness can help you to deal with the not-so-happy moments in life – and can help you enjoy the best bits even more.
Martin Seligman is the Director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. He claims that optimism is a skill that can be learned and used by anyone:
A pessimistic attitude may seem so deeply rooted as to be permanent. I have found, however, that pessimism is escapable. Pessimists can in fact learn to be optimists, and not through mindless devices like whistling a happy tune or mouthing platitudes…but by learning a new set of cognitive skills. Far from being the creations of boosters or of the popular media, these skills were discovered in the laboratories and clinics of leading psychologists and psychiatrists and then rigorously validated.
At People Lab, we believe in the importance of teaching yourself the new set of cognitive skills that Seligman speaks and writes about. Happiness and optimism don’t always come naturally, so it’s important to make time to put happiness first.
Speaking to Time Magazine, Seligman explained his five happiness factors:
We abbreviate it as PERMA. P is positive emotion, E is engagement, R is relationships, M is meaning and A is accomplishment. Those are the five elements of what free people chose to do. Pretty much everything else is in service of one of or more of these goals. That’s the human dashboard.
If you want to hear more from Martin Seligman on positive psychology, check out his famous Ted Talk, below.
Do you think it’s time to change the way we think about happiness? Let us know in the comments section below.
