Positive Psychology
Positive psychology is a field concerned with the scientific study of strengths, virtues, and characteristics that facilitate optimal well-being. A basic assumption inherent within positive psychology is the belief that all people desire rich and meaningful lives, personal growth, and enhanced experiences within relational, vocational, and recreational realms. Positive psychology research focuses on understanding the qualities that enable individuals to thrive in the face of adversity and successfully reach meaningful goals, as opposed to investigating pathology or maladaptive symptoms. This scientific inquiry into human virtues and strengths includes qualities such as the capacity for compassion, self-control, happiness, resilience, gratitude, courage, self-knowledge, forgiveness, wisdom, and many more.
By understanding these essential human capacities for growth and focusing on where strengths lie, researchers in the field of positive psychology hope to lend scientific credence to educational and vocational environments that allow humans to flourish and foster high levels of productivity and engagement. Positive psychology research provides useful and accessible tools for increased self-knowledge and identification of strengths. Through greater awareness of where your strengths lie, you can begin to cultivate and develop those strengths by choosing to engage in behaviors that will move you closer to your value-based lifelong goals and aspirations.
How to Become More Resilient
“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.” – Pema Chodron Resilience is thought of as the ability to withstand and bounce back from difficult and painful circumstances. It is what makes the difference between a person who gives up or…
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Identify Your Level of Self-Esteem
“Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.” – Eleanor Roosevelt A healthy sense of self-esteem contributes to our overall sense of well-being in ways that extend far beyond simply “feeling good” about ourselves. While self-esteem is a generally stable concept, it can go up and down throughout our lives as circumstances such as…
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How to Use Anger Constructively
“If you kick a stone in anger, you’ll hurt your own foot.” – Korean proverb According to Dr. Martin Seligman, a world renowned psychologist who specializes in positive psychology, the three components of anger involve a thought, a bodily reaction, and an attack. Sometimes the automatic thought that occurs to us in moments of anger…
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Top 10 Self-Control Strategies
Self-control is undoubtedly crucial to both our well-being and survival. It allows us to internalize a sense of ourselves as the masters of our own fate and the captains of our own ships. Without a strong sense of self-control, we lose the ability to trust ourselves to make healthy choices and reject unhealthy ones. The…
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