Goals That Increase Well Being

It is coming up to New Year. So here is a finding that gives some clues as to what might be wise to include in our New Year’s resolutions – if we want to increase our level of well being!


Park, Petersen and Seligman found the following values to be consistently associated with life satisfaction:

1. Hope (optimism, future-mindedness, future orientation)
2. Zest for Life (vitality, enthusiasm, vigor, energy)
3. Gratitude (awareness and thankfulness of good things)
4. Capacity to Love and be Loved (valuing close relationships)
5. Curiosity (interest, novelty seeking, openness to experience)

Whatever goals you set yourself - see if you can weave in at least one of these values.

Vulnerability and Connection

Truly wonderful TED talk by Brene Brown on vulnerability and connection.

She describes her research on 'the whole hearted'.  She found that they demonstrate:

• the courage to be imperfect
• compassion - for self and others
• connection to others as a result of authenticity
• willingness to fully embrace vulnerability as a necessary part of a life well-lived.

'In order for connection to happen we have to allow ourselves to be seen....really seen'

Everyday Mindfulness v Mindfulness During Sitting Meditation

Everyday mindfulness involves maintaining an ‘open, accepting, present focus of attention during day-to-day life.’ It seems to be a life enhancing approach, but do you need to be good at mindfulness meditation to be able to focus on the present in your day to day life?  And do they have the same benefits?

This paper starts to explore this topic. The authors found little relationship between levels of everyday mindfulness and being able to be mindful during meditation. 


The authors also looked at the relationship between personality factors and mindfulness. They report that both 'everyday mindfulness' and 'mindfulness during meditation' are associated with greater ‘openness to experience’ (being curious, interested in new ideas and tending to seek new experiences).

Everyday mindfulness was associated with

·        lower levels of neuroticism, (a tendency to experience more intense and more persistent painful emotions), and,

·        higher levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness.

However, this study didn’t find a relationship between mindfulness during meditation and levels of neuroticism, agreeableness or conscientiousness.

What is unclear is whether being good at everyday mindfulness leads to less neuroticism and more agreeableness or whether people who are more neurotic and agreeable find it easier to be mindful in their daily lives. My pick is that it is a bit of both.

My point here is maybe, just maybe, we can become nicer and less neurotic by putting energy, moment to moment, into being present and accepting. And, although mindfulness meditation seems to be very good for us perhaps my favourite meditation teacher is right - the important thing is to just turn up rather than worry too much about getting it 'right'?

My suggestion about everyday mindfulness is to take the IPIP-Neo (free here) to discover how neurotic and agreeable you currently are. Then focus on building your levels of everyday mindfulness and see what happens. 

Another Reason to Build Self-Compassion

A new study just published in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders has found that Self-compassion is a better predictor than mindfulness of symptom severity and quality of life in mixed anxiety and depression

‘Self-compassion predicts 18–44% of variance in anxiety, depression, worry, and quality of life’

In this community sample of people seeking self-help for 'anxious distress', self compassion had ten times more impact on the level of anxiety, depression, worry and quality of life than did mindfulness.

To put this study in context, the authors used the MAAS mindfulness scale and the self compassion scale in the comparison.

Some experts in mindfulness view the MAAS as only focussing on one aspect of mindfulness - 'open or receptive awareness of and attention to what is taking place in the present' - whereas if you look at questions in the self compassion scale it is hard not to imagine it would be associated with well being.

Having said that, this is still a cool piece of research adding to the data suggesting it is a smart idea to foster self-compassion.

There is more information on self-compassion here.  And some tips on how to increase your level of self-compassion here.

Becoming More Like My Ideal Self - The Part of Me that You Bring Out

I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out.

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

We can all relate to this feeling of becoming a better person in the presence of the one we love. In The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Caryl Rusbult, Eli Finkel and Madoka Kumashiro explore this.  They state that: 

'In harmonious relationships, close partners promote one another’s ideal selves, and each person is likely to move closer to achieving his or her ideals' (Drigotas, Rusbult, Wieselquist, & Whitton, 1999)

So how do we help each other to become closer to our 'ideal' self?

1. Clarify what your ideal self is like. Who do you want to be in the world? What sort of partner, parent, friend, worker etc? Explore this with your partner with openness and curiosity. You are not trying to change each other but support each other in moving in a freely chosen direction.
2. Support each other by:
• Validating the dream 
• Encouraging each other to go for it. Often uncomfortable emotions hold us back - realistic encouragement from a trusted partner can make all the difference.
• Responding positively to attempts to enact new behaviours in line with those ideals - even if the attempt doesn't get the desired outcome.
• Showing compassion when either of you fail to behave in line with those values - whatever you do, don't become the 'values police'. 
• Acting as if your partner has those qualities already - people tend to live up (or down) to our expectations of them
• Displaying the behaviour yourself
• Being a supportive voice of reason - when a plan looks doomed to fail, help each other to brainstorm a more realistic but optimistic plan. 

Getting Feedback

Today, my son told me that my hair smelt strange.
Yesterday, my daughter told me that the last paragraph on a recent blogpost I had written didn't make sense.  She was right. I changed it.

I think that this makes me very fortunate.  I have people in my life who love me enough to tell me the truth in a kind and straightforward way.

Brilliant!

The Complex Psychology of Present Giving

Sheldon (from The Big Bang Theory) demonstrates the complexity involved in Christmas present exchanges in this funny exchange (sorry they won't let me embed it).

'Penny, you haven't given me a gift, you have given me an obligation' - Sheldon

Fundamentally, if we are to give the 'right' present, we have to make sure that the gift not only says the right thing about:

• Who we are (A handmade bag from the Oxfam shop v Perfume from Myer)
• How we see the person we are giving the gift to (Someone who cares about less fortunate people v Someone who deserves to be spoilt)
• The sort of relationship we have (Close? Intimate? Helpful neighbour? BFF?)

but also, our gift to them has to be of a similar value to the gift they give to us - so we don't set up an uncomfortable reciprocation debt.  Aaagh!

I don't feel I do this particularly well. I have conflicting values around wanting to be generous and also wanting to avoid unnecessary consumption/materialism. This conflict tends to paralyse me.  At Christmas, I would like to just make a donation to a charity but many of my friends and family don't seem to enjoy that as much as a carefully chosen 'thing' wrapped in shiny paper!

However, what I can tell you, is that spending time giving to others makes us happier for longer than if we spent the time doing something pleasurable for ourselves.  So one option is to view the time we spend searching for the ideal gift for our loved ones, as time spent giving to them. I know that when it is really clear that a gift was the result of careful thought, it utterly touches my heart.  Another option is to spend less time shopping and stressing, buy them something simple and then spend the time really enjoying their company.

Living on Purpose

“Figure who you are; then do it on purpose.” Dolly Parton
"Figure out who you want to be; then do it on purpose." Patrick Self