Download - Yang-Sheng

interactive online
course
“Foundation of
Positive Psychology”
through the
University of
Pennsylvania,
taught by Dr. Tal
Ben-Shahar,
whose teaching of Dr. Tal Ben– Shahar
Positive Psychology had made it the most popular
course in Harvard University at the time (with 800+
students in one semester). You can find out more
about Dr. Ben-Shahar from his web site (http://
www.talbenshahar.com).
At the end of this inspirational course, Dr. Ben
-Shahar summarized the course with his top 10 tips
to become happier. I would like to share these tips
with some materials I learned from the course so that
the readers may get some basic ideas of how to apply
these tips in their own pursuit of happiness:
1. The questions you’ll ask define the places to go
to, and create your reality.
“What kind of reality do I want to create?” The
questions will define or determine how you will
think or behave next. When you ask “what’s
wrong?” you would automatically look for wrongdoing
or mistakes…. Instead, how about asking
“What is most meaningful to me?” “What is most
pleasant to me?” “What is my strength?” – find the
overlap in answers to these queries will lead you to a
more positive reality “What works best?” My favorite
questions in a difficult or stressful situation:
“What is one thing that is good about this?” or
“What can I learn from this situation?”
2. Believe in yourself and others (think out of the
box). Belief is a self-filling prophecy, and attitude is
everything. Never underestimate the power of belief.
People can go to wars and sacrifice themselves
for a simple belief; therefore, starting with a positive
belief and constructive attitude could make everything
work differently. You cannot achieve or enjoy
happiness with a negative attitude. If you want to be
happy, choose to be happy, and believe in yourself
that you can always be happier…
3. Learn to fail (or fail to learn)
The foundation of success is failure, no shortcut!
Failure is an important part of life or any successful
progress, which offers unique and necessary lessons
for moving closer to success. Do not be afraid of
failure, and do not fail to learn from failures. It is
true that failure does not feel as good as success, but
we learn precious lessons from it. We may simply
label ‘failure” as the successful identification of
what does not work! J
4. Give yourself permission to be human
It is the foundation of mental health – accept
both painful and joyful experiences. Embrace your
emotions, not just positive ones like joy or enthusiasm,
but also emotions like anger, fear or sadness.
Do not try to deny or run away from them. Expecting
to be happy all the time is unrealistic and ultimately
impossible – doing so will only lead to disappointment
and greater unhappiness. Perfectionism
does not bring happiness. Every human-being makes
mistakes, and has negative emotions; therefore, allowing
yourself to be human implies a positive attitude
towards living in reality while finding the
beauty of self through both pains and joys.
© Lisja | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos
28 Yang-Sheng (Nurturing Life) Volume 2, Issue No. 5