Practice One: Focus Improving Positivity Ratio

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1 Practice One: Focus Improving Positivity Ratio When discussing this practice with your clients, it is important to emphasize that it is not about being positive all the time, but rather to work towards a positivity ratio of at least 3:1. That is, 3 positive emotions that uplift you in your day to 1 negative emotion that brings you down. Exercise: 1. To establish a baseline positivity ratio, have your clients track their positivity ratio at for at least one week. They answer the questions and take the test and record their ratio everyday for one week. This is not a requirement, but it will give your clients an opportunity to track their progress and become aware of their positive and negative emotions on a daily basis. 2. Then have your clients brainstorm with you on ways they could: 1. Increase opportunities for positive emotions in their day and; 2. Decrease negative emotions in their day a. It is important here to think of simple things they could do like go for a walk at lunch, spend 5 minutes with dog, go for lunch instead of working through it, call a friend, watch the sunset, listen to their favourite music on their way to work etc. This is not about changing them, it is only about finding simple ways to bring more positive emotion into their day. b. For reducing the negative, ask your client to think about times when they engage in unnecessary negativity like watching violent or depressing shows on TV including the news, staying upset about being cut off on the highway (ruminating), yelling at the kids for silly things that don t matter, being agitated over something that is out of their control etc. It is not about ignoring the negatives that need to be faced in the day but rather reducing the unnecessary negative. 3. Have them try this for 1 or 2 weeks and using the test at: to track their progress. 4. You can debrief with your client to see if this is making a difference in their overall happiness levels. Page 1

2 Practice 2: Increase Optimism The foundation of improving optimism is to have your clients understand the basics of explanatory style. To understand this concept for yourself, it is best to read one of the following books before embarking on this exercise: Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman OR Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman 1. Have your clients test their own levels of optimism by taking the optimism test found at Once there, go into the Test Center and find the Optimism Test. 2. The results will show your client s level of optimism on the Permanence scale and the Pervasiveness scale. The results will also give you a hope scale. After reading the books, these scales will become more clear. (see sample results below for the permanence scale) 3. You can engage your clients in a discussion regarding how to see bad events in their life as temporary vs. permanent and as specific vs. pervasive. This will improve their optimism. The best way to do this is to use the ABCD Reframing Technique on the following page. Page 2

3 Practice 3: Positive Self Talk - ABCD Reframing Technique Psychologist Albert Bandura has defined self-efficacy as our belief in our ability to succeed in specific situations. It is high self-efficacy and not self awareness that drives four major performance factors: 1. The goals people set for themselves 2. The amount of effort they will expend in any given activity 3. Persistence 4. Bounce back quicker. This technique helps clients dispute their inner beliefs for higher levels of self confidence. 1. Have your client reflect on something that recently happened that did not go well and it upset them. 2. Using the ABCD technique below, have your client contemplate their thoughts and feelings about the situation and have them dispute their negative thoughts. 3. Work with your client to have them practice this technique as negative self talk occurs throughout the day. The first step is to have your client gain self-awareness of when they are speaking to themselves negatively. Then, with practice, they can begin to dispute as soon as it happens. Adversity Belief or Negative Self- Talk Consequence Disputation This is the bad event that occurs This is what you believe about yourself when the bad event occurs Could also be ANTs Automatic Negative Thoughts How do you feel as a result? Dispute the belief with a more realistic response Example: During your interview you think you believe you gave a very stupid answer to an important question. I m such an idiot! (permanent) They ll never hire me now (permanent) I m so bad at interviews (pervasive) I feel embarrassed, like I m going to fail. What s the point of sending a thank you note, they won t hire me anyway. I know I didn t give the best answer I could have, but I m not an idiot. I just gave a bad answer that time (temporary). I don t actually know if they won t hire me; That is just me mindreading. I did well on my other interviews so I ll do better next time (specific). I don t want to go on any more interviews! 2010, Why Did You Go Adapted from: The Resilience Factor by Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatte and Feeling Good by David Burns Page 3

4 Practice 4: Create More Meaning in Your Life OR 1. Sit with your client and ask them to tell you a story about when they persevered, overcame a challenge and succeeded at something. An accomplishment that means something significant to them. The best stories are stories of adversity. 2. Review the list of VIA strengths (see following page) and see if you can determine what strengths your client used to overcome these challenges. Share the strengths you see in your client to give them some awareness of what they are calling upon in tough times. 3. Ask your client if they can use the same strengths in this present situation to help them during this tough time or future tough times. Ask how they can use these strengths in different ways to create more meaning in their life. 1. Have your client complete the VIA Survey of Character Strengths at the Test Center at It has 240 questions so ensure your client will set aside a quiet time to complete it. 2. The assessment gives your client their top 5 Character Strengths. Ask your client about a challenge they overcame in their life and discuss how they used their character strengths to overcome this challenge. 3. Ask your client to contemplate how they could use their top 5 Character Strengths in different ways to bring more meaning into their life. Page 4

5 VIA Strengths Peterson & Seligman (2004) 1. Wisdom and Knowledge curiosity/interest love of learning critical thinking creativity perspective 2. Courage valor perseverance integrity/honesty zest 3. Love intimacy kindness social intelligence 4. Justice teamwork equity/fairness leadership 5. Temperance forgiveness/mercy modesty/humility self-control/self-regulation prudence/caution 6. Transcendence appreciation of beauty/awe gratitude hope/optimism humor religiousness Page 5

6 Practice 5: Build better Relationships - Active Constructive Responding 1. Show your client the Active Constructive Response diagram below and explain the concept of an Active Constructive Response. 2. Ask your client to share something good that happened to them week. Demonstrate an Active Constructive Response to them. 3. Give them an assignment to try this at home with their loved ones and co-workers for one week and report back. Source: Gable, E. L., Reis, H. T., Impett, E. A., & Asher, E. R., Capitalizing on Daily Positive Events, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, copyright Page 6

7 Resources & Books: Learned Optimism, Authentic Happiness and The Optimistic Child by Martin Seligman Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson FLOW by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Mindset by Carol Dweck Spiritual Evolution by George Vaillant A Primer in Positive Psychology by Chris Peterson The Resilience Factor by Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatte The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman Page 7