Lessons Learned From a Failed Week

I inadvertently ran a little experiment on myself this week. The week after TEDx happened I was struck with the most crippling lack of motivation I've experienced in a long time. I finally pushed it aside and was able to get a handle on the projects that had been playing second fiddle in my psyche for the past couple months. I realized I have some pretty awesome projects to work on and got super excited to make some progress. Something clicked in my head and I told myself I'd do whatever I needed to push these projects forward. I was ready to bear down and get some serious work done!

Instead of buckling down within the fairly successful framework I've created for myself, I regressed to a younger (and dumber) version of myself. Specifically, I stayed up very late a couple nights in a row to "get more work done." For some reason I thought I'd be able to go to bed at 1 AM and still get up early enough to really wring out all the value in my favorite time of day -- the early morning. Believe it or not, I'm human and when I don't get enough sleep I don't operate very well.

At the beginning of last week I told myself I'd do whatever I could to have a super productive week. Instead, it was one of the least productive weeks I've had in awhile. It's funny that my mind immediately went to, "I'll just stay up later!" to fulfill the need to be more productive. A much better approach would've been making sure I got to bed on time every night, getting up a little bit earlier (since I know I love the mornings), working out and meditating regularly (because when I don't I feel like a failure and that carries over to my work), eating well, working in short and focused bursts, etc. Basically, everything I normally do to accomplish really cool things and feel good about my work. I've been developing these habits and routines for awhile and they all went out the window when I decided I needed to be truly productive.

Last week wasn't a complete bust, however. I may not have been super productive but I did gather some useful data. The best way for me to be productive is to stay within the guidelines and routines I've created for myself. Greater productivity can be found by improving the way I operate and using my time within my current constraints. It's tempting to think that staying up later night after night results in greater productivity. I think I've been collecting data on myself and studying my optimal work habits for long enough to know that wasn't going to work. The last seven days confirmed that for me in a big way.

When's the last time you had a bad week? Instead of just trying to forget it as soon as possible, is there something you can learn from it?

Harnessing Flow to Craft a Meaningful Career

Study Hacks writer and Georgetown professor Cal Newport recently released one of the best books I've read in awhile, So Good They Can't Ignore You. In it Cal describes his "career craftsman" philosophy which is pitted against the "passion hypothesis" (the idea that finding your passion is the key to happiness). Instead, he thinks the way to a fulfilling and meaningful work life is the slow and steady accumulation of expertise and skill in a specific domain. By picking a general domain of interest and then dedicating oneself to systematic improvement in the constituent skills and techniques that make up that domain, Cal postulates you're much more likely to end up with a career you love. This goes against much of the advice peddled by well-meaning adults and advisors to "follow" or "find" your "passion." This tends to set up young people for disappointment and anxiety when a well-defined and socially worthy passion doesn't magically appear in front of them.

Flow and Career Crafting

I think Cal has hit upon something important in his philosophy. Not only does it "feel" right to someone who has been frustrated with his past adherence to the passion hypothesis (i.e. me), but one of the most key concepts in positive psychology fits with it very well. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has carved his niche in the psychological literature with his investigations into what he calls "flow." In the 1970's he began studying people who partook in activities for seemingly no reason other than intrinsic motivation. He looked at rock climbers and painters who weren't gaining fame or wealth but still pushed themselves to physical and mental extremes. How can someone become so wrapped up in a painting or a chess game that they lose track of time or forget to eat lunch? His inquiries into this concept led to the development of flow, or the psychology of optimal experience.

The Balance of Challenge and Skill

One of the best ways to think about flow is to think about the interplay between skill and challenge. If an individual is partaking in an activity that is far more challenging than their current skill level, they are likely to experience anxiety. If they are doing something that is very unchallenging and they possess a lot of skill in the domain, they are likely to be bored or apathetic. There is a "sweet spot" or channel where an individual's skills and the challenge presented by a task are in balance. This is when people are likely to experience flow.

In order to stay in this flow channel an individual must gradually seek out greater challenges as their skills increase. The longer you do something the more you build skills (especially if you're engaging in deliberate practice). If the challenge of the activity remains stagnant then eventually you drop out of the flow channel and experience relaxation, boredom or apathy. However, if you're able to tweak the activity or find a new aspect of it to focus on, you can keep increasing the challenge as your skill improves. I believe this is what Cal is talking about in his career craftsman philosophy. A career craftsman constantly finds ways to uncover new elements of challenge as she develops her skills in a domain.

A Defense of Flow

If you're a regular of Cal's blog, however, you may be asking, "Wait a second, I thought Cal was critical of flow?". Cal is critical of flow because the work that often builds skill is not effortless or time altering or unselfconscious -- all components of the flow state. Instead, it's hard, frustrating, and a constant battle. What Cal describes in the article above is what I believe to be the "arousal" state in the flow model. Arousal is experienced with the perceived challenges are just outside the current skill level. It's not a necessarily pleasant feeling but is instead characterized by a conscious effort of striving to master something very difficult. I think Cal's right, the largest gains to be made in terms of skills are when time is spent in the arousal segment of the flow model. However, this is not a sustainable mode of work. It is something you can engage in for a short amount of time but if you spend all of your productive time in this state you would likely experience burnout and exhaustion before long.

It is the steady balance between arousal and flow, between skill and challenge, that allows the career craftsman to constantly move forward in his or her domain. You don't need a specific passion to experience flow. Indeed, the most powerful aspect of the idea is that it's possible to experience flow doing nearly anything. It's an exercise in attention control that can be practiced and refined. Likewise, the career craftsman can craft a worthwhile career in almost any domain.

The career craftsman needs a myriad of tools available in the hard work of crafting a meaningful work life. I think an understanding of flow theory is an important -- maybe even vital -- tool in that collection.

The Indie Worker In Each of Us

Over the summer I got my first taste of true academic research. While I was working in Prague I helped design a structured interview we gave to the individuals working in the coworking space in which I was working. The goal of the interview was to better understand some of the psychological challenges and benefits of being what we were calling an "independent worker." One of the first things I learned about academic research is how important it is to be very clear regarding the definitions of the terms and concepts you are using. We decided that the distinguishing characteristic (among several) of independent workers is the fact that they work in geographic isolation from other people in their organization (or are the only person in their organization in the case of a solopreneur). This definition, then, includes people working for themselves, people working for companies but telecommuting, freelancers, and even students. The more I think about what it means to be an indie worker, though, the more I realize how important it is for us to all have a little bit of that inside us.

While many people don't fit our specific definition of an indie worker because they work for a company and go into an office every day, the vast majority of us spend at least part of our day in an indie work-like situation. For example, anybody with any kind of side hustle is going to experience many of the same psychological challenges a full-time indie worker face. Even if your side hustle isn't designed to be a business venture, just participating in some kind of personal growth activity after work hours is going to put you in company with indie workers. The research is still ongoing -- but what are the challenges that indie workers tend to face, anyway?

Self-directed motivation

One of the hallmarks of independent work also tends to be one of the most challenging aspects. When you aren't in physical proximity to a boss or other coworkers you don't have to worry about someone looking over your shoulder to check on your progress. In our interviews, this is one of the most commonly cited reasons to pursue an independent work situation. On the other hand, not having that direct motivation can result in some annoying problems with procrastination and lack of self-directed motivation.

Ambiguity

Many independent work situations are fraught with ambiguity regarding how well you're doing with your work. If you don't have a boss or a colleague nearby to give you feedback on what you're doing you can sometimes go for long stretches of time not knowing if what you're doing is any good. It takes a lot of self-trust to self-select a goal or a path and stick with it without knowing for sure if it's the right one.

Social isolation

Working in a coworking space I heard many people talking about how they couldn't handle the social isolation of working out of a home office. While working from home tends to sound amazing to those who have yet to do it, many people who make the switch realize they rarely interact with other people. Many independent workers have been turning to coworking spaces to help fulfill this social need.

These are the same challenges that you'll face if you embark on any kind of side business. In fact, depending on your work situation you may face some of these challenges even in a more traditional job environment. Not every job has direct supervision or accurate feedback which can result in the same motivation or ambiguity problems that most indie workers face on a day-to-day basis. Learning how to overcome these challenges regardless of job situation is a valuable use of time. Despite these challenges, I think it's worth cultivating the ability to work independently, especially if you view yourself as an individual outside the structure of your job. Being a good independent worker hinges upon the ability to accept each of these challenges and adopt strategies for overcoming them. For example, being able to create motivation without the external force of a boss or coworkers is a skill that serves you far beyond a simple work environment. By cultivating the ability to derive enjoyment from the actual process of doing work you're likely to find greater enjoyment in your work, your side hustle, and your hobbies.

Learning how to be okay with being alone, with solitude, is a skill that will serve you beyond the reality of work. At the same time, learning how to utilize tools and institutions like coworking to help alleviate the challenges of social isolation is also a viable path to enjoyment in your work. Finding other people with side hustles or similar hobbies can not only alleviate social isolation, but also help challenge you in ways that improve your business or simple life enjoyment. We have only just begun our research into what it means to be an independent worker. I'm confident we will discover ways to better support indie workers across the world. I'm also confident that we'll discover principles that will reach beyond the typical indie worker and will affect anyone who is involved with a side hustle, a hobby beyond watching T.V, and even those who work in more traditional jobs.

Things have been quiet around here for awhile. The TEDx event I've been planning for the past 11 months finally took place this weekend so I now have more time to direct back on my writing here. Expect the pace of posting to pick up over the next couple of weeks. As always, feel free to email me (samspurlin@gmail.com) or follow me on Twitter if you have feedback.

“See, Be, Do.": A Guest Post from Tammy Strobel

This week's article is a bit of a rarity for SamSpurlin.com as it is not written by me. Tammy Strobel is an Internet-friend of mine from the very beginning of my blogging days (who I also had the pleasure of meeting "in real life" a few months ago). She was the first person I ever interviewed for my old website, The Simpler Life, and I've been following her work online ever since that time. Tammy has a new book coming out called "You Can Buy Happiness (and It's Cheap)."

In a recent email exchange Sam asked me, “What does personal development mean to you?”

Ever since Sam asked me that question, I’ve been thinking about my response. While I was biking around Portland a few days ago, I came up with my answer. For me, personal development is about personal growth. If I’m not growing as a person, then it’s impossible for me to improve my skills or cultivate new ones. 

I grow through reading, writing, and photography. Reading exposes me to new ideas and perspectives. Writing helps me clarify my own beliefs, and photography helps me slow down and be mindful enough to notice the details in my everyday life. 

All three of these activities bring an incredible sense of meaning and happiness to my life. They also remind me of a concept called, “see, be, do.” I learned about “see, be, do,” in Twelve by Twelve by William Powers. He argues that if you are trying to grow yourself, first you have to see the problem, learn to be, and finally do something about it. 

For example, I’m working on slowing down. Before I could slow down, I had to seethat I was in a hurry all the time. Second, I needed to be present in each moment which was difficult for me. As Powers says, ". . . being was indeed the most difficult part in an era where clutter — in both stuff and activity — eclipses the sweetness of solitude, the aliveness of the present moment." 

Finally, I had to do something and curtail my self-imposed busyness. I started to say no more often to meetings, meet-ups and other commitments. By saying no to requests, I had more time to grow myself through reading, writing and photography. 

What about you? How do you define personal development? Share your definition in the comments section.  

P.S. I recorded a small audio blog about this topic too. You can listen in here.

Tammy Strobel is a writer, photographer, and tiny house enthusiast. She created her blog, RowdyKittens.com, to share her story of embracing simplicity. Since then, her story has been featured in the New York Times, The Today Show, USA Today, CNN, MSNBC, and in a variety of other media outlets. Tammy's new book is called, “You Can Buy Happiness (and it’s Cheap).” 

Sanity, Grad School, and Doing Cool Stuff

For better or for worse, I've developed a reputation of somebody who takes on a lot of work and (generally) does it well. To some, I appear hyper-productive whereas most of the time I feel anythign but. Granted, I'm only three days into the second year of graduate school, but I feel a little bit different about this year than I have in the past. I'm working on more interesting things, have greater responsibilities, my classes are harder, and yet, I'm actually working less than I used to.

I've committed myself to clearly delineating when my day ends and when my relaxation and rejuvenation begins. Sometime between 5 and 7 every day I review what I've completed for the day, make a rough plan for tomorrow, and then turn off my computer. From then on I don't check my email, do any kind of school work (including reading for class), or any kind of extracurricular work. 7 until 11 is reserved for me to make dinner, unwind, and read somethign for fun.

When I wrote my Back to School Manifesto a week ago, I was a little bit worried that I was being too ambitious. I knew I had a huge plate of work ahead of me this year and saying that I wasn't going to stay up late to do work or read felt a little bit risky. I thought that this commitment to a more sane work style would result in less output and I'd just have to live with it. I was prepared to do just that but my experience over the past week has actually been the complete opposite.

By committing myself to a fixed work schedule I've actually accomplished more work in less time than I ever have before.

The end of the work day isn't when I fall asleep

Giving an end to my day other than no longer being able to keep my eyes open gives me something to shoot for. You don't sprint a marathon -- that's just stupid. You can't see the finish when you're standing on the starting line so you have to pace yourself. Likewise, when I'm starting my day without clearly defining when I've finished the race I'm setting myself up for a long slog of average output. I'd much, much rather focus my energy into a shorter but more powerful burst. Sitting down to my work in the morning and looking ahead I know that for better or worse I'm calling it quits at 7 PM. If I don't want to put myself into a massive hole then I need to keep myself in line for those 9-10 hours and get as much done as I possibly can. Setting a finish line I can actually see added some urgency back into my day.

I need all my brains

Second, clearly dividing the time I'm working from the time I'm not-working lets me use the entirety of my mental faculty on both. I am not a genius. When it comes to my cohort here at grad school, I'd place myself as decidedly average in most facets of being a student. Therefore, I need to make sure I'm bringing 100% of my focus and ability on each school or work activity I'm doing. If I can't do that then I can't keep up. In order to bring my A-game every time I sit down to work, I have to make sure I've rested and rejuvenated well. For many students it's a perverse badge of honor to treat yourself like garbage. Late nights at the library, sleep deprivation -- sometimes it seems like a competition to see who can be the most miserable. I opted out of that mindset as quickly as possible. I'm asleep by 11 o'clock most nights, I read books for fun, and my weekends are work-free except for a 2-3 hour block where I do my Weekly Review. All of this allows me to bring the entirety of my mental faculty during the week.

No complaining until I'm perfect

One of the most common complaints I hear is that there "aren't enough hours in the day." I used to say it all the time. And then I took a look at how I was actually spending the hours I was given. It's kind of sickening how bad I am/was at using my time well. I vowed to never use that complaint again unless I was using my productive hours to 100% capacity and still felt the same way. By the same token, I told myself that stayig up late or working long hours on the weekends are signs that I've failed during the week. There's no reason for my work to spill over into those time blocks if I'm using my time well. If I get to the position where I'm using my work hours to 100% peak capacity and still have too much to do, then maybe I'll rethink my position on this (but really, that's just a sign that I've taken on way too much).

Maybe we all have enough time but are just really, really bad at using it well? I challenge you to not say you don't have enough time to do what you want until you take a super close look at how you're using the time you already have.

A Letter to the Freshmen

My second youngest brother is starting his first year of college in a week. Consider this my letter to him and everyone else starting college (or grad school or any other new phase of life):

Hey Joe,

How's it going? As your big brother I feel obligated to impart all my endless wisdom to you. You lucky, lucky man. Here's the deal, I know you've picked a major already and that's awesome. I'm sure you're getting a taste of this already, but everybody's favorite question after they've figured out what you're studying is asking you what you're planning on "doing with it." Are you going to be a chemical engineer? Go to med school? Do cancer research? What does one actually do with a chemistry degree?

I'm sure more than one person is going to sit you down and say, "Just follow your passion." On the surface, that sounds like decent advice. Who doesn't want to do their passion for a career? But I'm here with my big-brotherly advice to tell you it's bullshit. That kind of thinking makes it sound like your passion is out there somewhere, maybe hidden in a tree or under a rock, and all it requires is climbing enough trees or turning over enough rocks to find it. One day, when you least expect it --there will be your Passion. It'll be shiny and exciting and the solution to all your professional problems for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen that way.

The only way you're going to "find" your passion is if you stick with something for long enough to actually build some skills and expertise. It's not about finding the perfect thing for you right now. By picking a major that you're interested in you're already on the right path. You're avoiding the multi-year search for the "perfect path." Good. You're on a track and that's the first step. But what do you do next?

At this stage in the game, your focus should be on building the skills needed to move forward in your area of study. All of those things that your classmates find annoying or really hard -- those are the things you should master. The stronger you are in the basic skills of your profession the better foundation you'll have for tackling bigger questions later on. When you get things wrong on a test, find out why they're wrong. The hard question at the end of the problem set that nobody seem to get right; figure it out.

Once you've developed the habits to truly become a master of the techniques and skills that allow you to do well you must turn your attention to a question. Instead of plotting out a career path based on a specific job, pick a question that fascinates you. Figure out what you should do, what classes you should take, what skills you need, and what connections will help you answer that question and let that guide your decisions. Chances are you aren't going to feel passionate about a "job". But a question -- a question that burns at the base of your skull -- that will sustain you into a truly interesting career.

When it comes to passion most of us have been using the wrong verb. "Finding" seems to be the verb of choice when it really should be "building" or "developing". When you get to my age (you know, the ripe old age of 25) you begin to see the difference between people who are looking for a passion (most haven't found it) and those who have developed a passion (they're some of the happiest and most interesting people you'll meet). You've got plenty of time to change your mind and make mistakes. Just always remember that you're constantly building your passion and that conceptualizing your future career as some kind of proverbial game of hide-and-seek will likely leave you looking under rocks and climbing trees. You're a chemistry major -- not a professional tree climber and rock explorer. Get in there and build the skills that will let you develop, not find, your passion in that domain.

Have fun in your first year of school and try to make as many mistakes as possible. Mistakes imply action, and like a good hockey player, it's easier to change directions when you're already moving.

Good luck dude,

Sam

edit: A few people have expressed disappointment that I appear to be criticizing my brother's major choice in this letter. I apologize for not being clearer in my writing-- that's not what I'm trying to say at all! I'm just saying that he shouldn't worry about finding a specific passion within chemistry right now. If he focuses on building general skills and abilities relevant to his major he will end up building himself a passion. I'm super proud of him and excited to have a chemist in the family!

What is your message to someone starting college this fall? What do you wish you had known when you started your freshman year of college? Interested in this conceptualization of passion? Read more from Cal Newport at Study Hacks -- the writer who first turned me on to this new way of thinking about passion.

Introducing the SamSpurlin.com Productivity Retreat

What if you had five days completely distraction free to work on some creative project you've had on the back burner?

The responsibilities of real life often result in delaying the projects we want to finish. Almost everyone I talk to has some kind of creative endeavor in progress they wanted to finish a long time ago but haven't been able to complete. Some people have a novel, a screenplay, a non-fiction book, a dissertation etc. There are 101 different distractions and excuses that can keep us from creating something we want to create.

With this problem in mind, I'd like to invite you to a new project I'm starting. In January 2013, just after the New Year, I'm planning on hosting a "productivity retreat" in Southern California. At this time I'm still confirming the location and exact dates but I can share the basic details with you right now.

The idea is to go somewhere cool with minimal distractions with a handful of passionate people and spend approximately five days doing nothing but making our creative projects reality. Each day we'll spend large blocks of uninterrupted time together working on our projects. We'll have structured time to ask for feedback, help each other through sticky parts, and also relax and rejuvenate. Each night we'll have optional workshops led by leaders in fields of flow, meditation and mindfulness, creativity, productivity etc. Depending on our location, we'll have some sort of physical excursion such as a hike through the mountains or time at the beach to help us clear our minds and attack our work with renewed vigor each day.

In the future, I hope to do this on a much larger scale. Since this is the first iteration, I'm going to do this event basically at cost. Whatever it costs me to rent the cabins and buy food will be what it costs for you to attend. I won't be making any profit from this event. I'm also keeping this first iteration very small, so it will only be open to the first eight to ten people who sign up. If this sounds like something you might be interested in, I highly recommend you sign up for the mailing list below. When tickets go on sale I'll notify this list before I make a public announcement.

How cool would it be to end the first week of 2013 having already completed the project that has been weighing on you for a long time? Talk about starting your new year on the right foot.

(If you're reading this in a RSS reader click through to see the email submission form.)

Be the first to know when the Productivity Retreat tickets go on sale!

Time Management or Energy Management?

In a couple weeks I'll be leading a workshop for incoming graduate students at my university. I've been trying to articulate the biggest lesson I've learned in the past year. What do I wish I had understood better when I started graduate school? I think the main change in my perspective has been this: managing your energy is exponentially more important than managing your time.

Go hard or go home?

It's easy to think that the best students give 100% to everything they do. It obviously makes sense, right? Those who achieve the most are obviously doing everything at the very highest level they possibly can at all times. That's what I used to believe but now I realize I don't think that's true. For the first couple of weeks, some students are able to give 100% to everything and they momentarily appear as if they are all-stars. Within a couple weeks though, they can no longer keep up that pace. It's impossible to give everything you do 100% as a graduate student.

At first, I felt badly about this. I felt like I was somehow cheating myself out of the true graduate school experience by not staying up until 3 AM every morning and talking about how little sleep I get. I thought the measure of a good graduate student was how much time I spent with my studies and how long I was able to seclude myself in the library each week.

I quickly realized this was stupid.

Do everything well, do nothing well?

Your impact in graduate school is measured in a very different way. You obviously have to do well in your classes and stay up to speed with what's going on. That's a given. But that doesn't require you to put 100% of your energy into class assignments. In fact, if you're putting yourself into your classes 100% you're probably missing out on opportunities to make a true impact. In graduate school it's expected to do well in classes so when you do well, nobody cares. Instead, people (i.e. professors) care about the other things you get involved with. They care about your involvement in a research lab. They care about your assistance in a grant they're writing. They care about your efforts to start a business or start your own research or generally just do something other than do well in their class.

Time for some strategic slacking

Looking back on this realization, I think it applies to non-students as well. You can't go through life giving 100% of your effort to everything. It's a recipe for burnout and frustration. Instead, the truly high level operators get very good at figuring out where they can scale back their effort in order to save themselves for the opportunities and activities that have a much larger impact. For example, is it really worth staying absolutely on top of your email if it takes you hours everyday and results in you losing an opportunity to work on an exciting project with a colleague? Or, is it worth taking hours and hours to fill out a routine report absolutely perfectly if nobody is actually going to read it in-depth and it's just going to get instantly filed away? If doing something routine leaves you too drained to really pour yourself into something that matters, what's the point?

At a certain level, I feel a little dirty even writing this. I was raised to do things well no matter what. I was always told the true test of character is what you do when nobody is looking. I believe that's the case when it comes to issues of morality but when it comes to doing great work, you have to cut corners on the work that doesn't matter so you can focus on what does. Figuring out the proper balance of full effort and partial effort is what often separates people who do and don't make an impact in your field.

The important thing to remember with all of this, though, is that saving your energy does you absolutely no good if you don't fully engage with those activities that really matter. If you cut corners just for the sake of cutting corners then you're missing the point. I wrap up a class paper even though I know with a couple more hours of work I could make it 5% better so I can spend those hours on something that actually matters, like a grant proposal. Getting 95% on a paper instead of 90% is not worth the couple of hours I could spend doing something that could help catapult my career forward far more than an A over an A- on a single paper could.

Find high impact activities and dominate them

Getting good at this requires you to shift your thinking from managing time to managing effort. We all get the same amount of time in a day. However, we all get to allocate our energy uniquely. I much prefer to give the majority of my energy to the activities that will give me the largest return. Figuring out which activities those are -- that's the hard part. And that only comes with experience and experimentation. My message to the incoming students, then, is to not measure themselves based on how much time they spend in the library as compared to the rest of their cohort, but to work hard figuring out where they can work less hard. Take the energy saved by working less hard and apply it to something that matters, something difficult, something in which they can make an impact.

Where can you allocate your energy better? What is taking up a disproportionate amount of your energy as compared to the returns you get from it? How can you fix it?

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Video Games Have Flow Figured Out

I'm learning more about myself just by paying attention to how I feel in certain situations. I've recently realized that I'm drawn to activities and programs that focus on small, incremental steps of improvement. Let me share some recent examples.

I've started a bodyweight conditioning program that focuses on 6 major "master moves" (such as handstand pushups, one armed pushups and other insanely difficult things to do). Right now the thought of doing any of these master moves is downright farcicical. However, each move has been broken down into 10 intermediate steps that build on each other. The first step to doing one armed pushups, for example, is simply doing pushups leaning against a wall. And then leaning against a table. And then kneeling pushups -- and so on. The program specifically tells you to start at the beginning even if you can succesfully complete later steps. The focus is on building the body awareness, joint/ligament strength, and mental strength necessary to do the later moves. I've really enjoyed it because I have smaller goals to shoot for (each intermediate step) and I can see physical evidence of getting stronger when I'm able to complete more reps than I did last time.

Another recent example comes from a much less productive aspect of my life. I've recently been playing some video games (Starcraft 2 *ahem*) that have various "achievements" that are earned for doing things within the game. Although I've already "beaten" the game I've been playing recently, I've started going through and earning the various achievements that I didn't get the first time through. It's kind of silly how good it feels to complete an achievement and be able to scratch it off my list (this same feeling probably partially explains the rush I get when I finish something on a to-do list).

Two other websites I've been using for personal development, Duolingo and Khan Academy, also use the achievement model for tracking progress. It's nice to be able to look back and see how far I've come and to know precisely what is ahead of me. Even the website I use to track my workouts, Fitocracy, uses the achievement model. This idea of instant feedback, which is essentially what you get by earning or not earning an achievement, is the core basis for the success of this model. It makes sense when you look at Csikszentmihalyi's research on flow, as well.

One of the required components of experiencing flow is constant and immediate feedback. Video games provide this by the level of success you're experiencing in the game. Almost anybody who enjoys playing video games will tell you it's incredibly easy to fall into a flow state while playing them. A lot of times, though, it can be harder to find flow in things that are less "fun". I've been finding myself finding flow a lot more often recently and I think it's partially because of these services I've been using that provide feedback in a more visual way. Fitocracy gives me points and gives me badges when I work out. I can log in and see how far I've come in my physical strength. When I'm studying French in Duolingo I'm more likely to stick with a study session for longer if I'm at a point where I'm close to moving on to the next "level". In my bodyweight workout routine I can see where I am in the progression to "mastery" and I know exactly whether I'm moving forward or not.

There's a lot to be said for this video game model of achievement and progress tracking. There are even some apps that try to take this concept and apply it to traditional to-do lists. I haven't found one that really does it well, yet. Ideally, I could give my to-do list to a program, it'd automatically break up larger projects into smaller chunks, and would provide me with achievements like, "Write for 20 minutes 3 days in a row," or, "Make 5 phone calls in 2 days," or other goofy things like that. It seems silly, but turning my productivity into more of a game and harnessing the idea that immediate feedback helps facilitate flow could be prety huge.

It's something I'm going to keep playing with in the future and I'd love to hear any thoughts about what you do to keep yourself engaged with your work.

Did you know I send out a monthly newsletter for free? Each month I write an exclusive article about conscious personal development for newsletter subscribers. Sometimes there are even other goodies (like discount codes for books and coaching). 

A Paradox of Personal Development: Self Acceptance vs. Self Improvement

The more I learn about Buddhism and develop my own meditation practice the more I think about one of the core paradoxes of happiness. It seems there are two paths you can take on the path to greater well-being. You can work to close the gap between where you currently perceive yourself to be and where you want to be. That's generally called personal development. The other path is to close the gap between who you perceive yourself to be and who you want to be by shifting who you want to be to who you are. I'm calling this self-acceptance.

I think this is a fundamental aspect of being human: what is the best balance between personal development and self-acceptance? Too much of either would appear to result in less-than-ideal results. If you're 100% focused on personal development then you lose awareness of the present. Being obsessed with being "better" can end up being a profoundly unhappy way to live as you're constantly thinking about how the future can be different from the present. There's nothing wrong with wanting a better future for yourself but if it comes at the cost of enjoying the present you have to ask yourself if it's worth the price.

On the other hand, the other end of the continuum doesn't seem optimal either. Complete self-acceptance with no interest in personal development results in a lack of preparedness for the future. Working on yourself helps you be ready to take advantage of opportunities when they arise. Whether that is something as simple as getting into better shape so you can play with your kids or being strong enough to save someone from an emergency situation, personal development of some nature is what prepared you. Complete lack of interest in personal development also means that you're not interested in improving yourself for the benefit of the people around you. I do lots of annoying things that I'm trying to be better about because I don't want the people I care about to have to deal with it.

There is clearly some optimal point on the continuum between complete self-acceptance and personal development that we should be aiming for. In the past, I thought of this as a static place where once I found it I'd know it. Now, I've come to think of the continuum as much more fluid. I think that optimal point changes depending on the situation in your life. For example, sometimes I think too much about what I could be doing to improve myself. I'll make lists of habits I want to change, things I want to learn about, and online courses I want to take. I become acutely aware of how who I want to be and who I currently am are vastly different. At times like these it can be helpful to take a step back, re-engage with my meditation practice with new dedication, and try to cultivate some self-acceptance. At other times I can find myself becoming complacent. When complacency sets in it means I've stopped challenging myself. That's when I need to scale back the self-acceptance and kick my butt a bit.

What seems important to me now, and I think I'm getting better at this, is figuring out where I am on the continuum and where I need to be. I think a lot of the mental anguish we experience in our lives is caused by not recognizing our mental state. We feel something unpleasant and we leave it at that. Feeling unpleasant leaves us cranky and irritable. But if you can feel unpleasant and then identify WHY you feel unpleasant, that's a whole new story. I'm getting better at labeling my emotions for what they are. A labeled emotion is going to have a much less severe impact on your mental well-being (both bad and good, though).

Learning how to label emotions and recognize where you are on the self-acceptance/personal development continuum is a topic for another article, unfortunately. The sneak peak, though, is that it comes from training your mind. How do you think you develop this ability?

Being Fast Isn't an Advantage Anymore

There's no comparative advantage in being fast anymore.

A comparative advantage is when you're better at something than all of your competitors due to your environmental (or otherwise) advantages. For example, Canada has a comparative advantage in producing maple syrup as compared to Dubai (for pretty obvious reasons). It'd be really stupid for Dubai to try to match Canada's maple syrup output considering they are situated in the middle of a desert and Canada is inundated with maple syrupy goodness.

Applying this idea to personal productivity, it used to be that you could have a comparative advantage in productivity and effectiveness if you were super fast in responding to requests and dealing with information. Before everyone had smart phones you could gain a significant advantage over other people by quickly returning emails or looking up information. Awhile ago, it would have taken some serious skills and dedication that not everyone else would've had. You would've reaped the rewards of having a comparative advantage. You would be seen as more productive, get the promotions, the adulation, and everything else that comes with being seen as a high performer. Dealing with multiple streams of information quickly and efficiently used to be something that got you noticed.

Not anymore.

Now, almost everyone can multitask pretty well. Anybody with a smart phone can respond to emails instantaneously or look up random tidbits of information at a moment's notice. Today's technology has flattened the playing field when it comes to dealing with information efficiently. Sure, some people are better at it than others, but overall there's no significant advantage to be gained by being "good" at handling lots of information.

Where's the new comparative advantage then? As multitasking and instantaneous communication become the norm, how can you stand out? I think the new comparative advantage will go to those people that can cut through the noise of always-on information and think deeply, with full concentration, and high levels of creativity, for a sustained amount of time. Almost any kind of work that ends up being new or noteworthy requires somebody (or a team of somebodies) who eliminated distractions long enough to wrestle with some hard questions. It's not easy to do -- especially since the normal operation of our society is doing an excellent job at eradicating the skills that make this possible.

As a former student of history and a self-proclaimed history nerd, I read a lot of biographies. A hobby of mine has been to take note of the people in these biographies who have done amazing things and try to find points of similarities. Obviously, they all had different styles for doing remarkable work. However, I have found one common factor that seems to unite anybody who gets a biography written about them -- they had a very developed ability to focus. Cutting out distractions and diving deep into a problem seems to be a nearly universal skill that remarkable people have.

Unfortunately, I think this ability is being swiftly destroyed. Is that worrying to anyone else? One of the only unifying characteristic of people who do great things (in my admittedly amateur research) is being largely removed from our society! Constant distractions, notifications, instant gratification, and constant streams of information allow us to never develop our ability to focus if we don't choose to do so.

That's why I think that those people who are cultivating this ability are going to reap the rewards of being a rare commodity. Being able to focus and think deeply will get you noticed in a sea of people who are skimming along the surface. The ability to dive deep and come back with important insights, creative connections, or innovative solutions is going to be something that is reserved for those who have honed their concentration and focus.

This is part of the reason why I think meditation is going to become an increasingly "normal" thing to do over the next 50 years. While still somewhat in the domain of the mystical, meditation seems to be the single best way to develop the ability to focus. Working out is the best way to strengthen your body and meditating seems to be a great way to strengthen your mind. I hope to see the day where meditation is taught in an effort to inform people about healthy living just like eating vegetables or getting enough sleep.

Let's stop acting like we live in a world where multitasking and being constantly connected will give us some kind of advantage. It's old news by now. Almost everyone can do it. What almost everyone can't do, however, is truly think.

What are you going to do to make this comparative advantage work for you?

Small Changes, Big Effects

I recently made a simple tweak to my workflow that has completely changed my mental clarity.

I recently wrote about how my GTD system turned into a database of information that was unwieldy and overwhelming. Luckily, I was able to accurately critique my situation and realize what my system lacked curation. Once you get good at maintaining a GTD system it's easy to let it get out of control. Paradoxical, I know. Reintroducing a certain level of curation helped me regain my composure when it came to keeping track of what I wanted to do.

The real difference-maker, though, was something completely different. Before I introduce it, let me explain what my brain felt like a couple weeks ago.

I have a lot of large and interesting projects that I'm currently working on. I recently moved to Prague and am working on writing a research proposal. I'm organizing a day long TEDx event for over 600 people. All of my volunteers live in the United States and I'm in Europe so the already daunting task of leading a team of 20 volunteers is compounded by distance. I'm trying to build my coaching and consulting business while challenging myself to write more in-depth and well-researched articles (like this one on passion or this one on grit). I've also just started working on a major product that I'm hoping to release to my readers some time before the end of the year. Needless to say, I have a lot going on.

Most days I felt like I was in a constant struggle to move all of these projects forward. It was as if I had 25 soccer balls lined up on an open field. Each soccer ball represented some kind of project or commitment. Each day I would go from ball to ball to ball just barely tapping each of them down the field. I'd tap the first ball a couple inches and then move on to the next one. And then the next one, and the next one. I'd look back at my progress at the end of the day and all my projects had moved forward an inch or two. Perhaps some people would look at this and appreciate the amount of work that had to go into moving so many balls just a couple inches, but I usually felt profoundly deflated.

I decided to change my approach to getting those soccer balls down the field. Instead of tapping all of them forward a couple inches, I decided to focus on one or two and really boot them as far as I could. In GTD-speak, I told myself I'd focus on one "Area of Responsibility" per day. In that first week I decided to do this I worked on TEDx stuff on Monday, SamSpurlin.com stuff on Tuesday, coworking stuff on Wednesday, TEDx stuff again on Thursday, and left Friday open to work on whatever most had my attention. This simple tweak in how I approached my workday allowed me to get SO much more done (or at least feel like I accomplished more).

Why does this work?

I think the key to adopting this approach requires a couple things. First, you have to have a certain level of control over deciding when you're going to work on things. There are many jobs where that luxury isn't possible. Luckily, all of my work has pretty nebulous due dates so it's merely up to me to figure out how it all gets done. The second key is actually scheduling your week in advance. I'm not talking about breaking down your task list and assigning it to 15 minute blocks. I've tried scheduling things like that and while it may work for a day, the first time something unexpected happens and your schedule gets completely shot it can feel like a waste of time. My previous mindset was one of, "Ok, this project I'm working on is important and I like it. But, I really need to be moving this other project forward. I haven't done anything for it in awhile." That's how I found myself interacting with 20 projects a day and feeling like I got nothing done. Now, when I begin to feel stressed out about the other things I need to do my mental chatter goes something like this, "Man... I really should be writing for SamSpurlin.com instead of doing this research. Wait! I've got all of Thursday scheduled to work on SamSpurlin.com stuff. Awesome! I don't have to worry about it right now."

Being good at GTD made it easy to shift between projects. I always had a next action written down and ready to go; just like you're supposed to when you adopt GTD. And because I was so good at GTD I always had a well (perhaps over) populated project and task list. The problem was that even though tasks were out of my head and in the system, I felt like I should do something to move the project forward all the time.

It's kind of silly as I look back on this problem and what I've written so far. I realize now that I was good at focusing on one thing at a time but I wasn't giving myself enough time to actually get dirty with a project. I'd brush it off, engage with it on a superficial level for an hour or so, and then feel so worried about everything else I needed to do that I'd end up putting it back on the shelf and engaging with something else. It really was just a matter of giving myself enough time to really dig into it and feel like I've given made significant progress. Roughly scheduling my week into Areas of Responsibility or significant projects seems to release my brain from feeling like it had to be doing everything at once all the time.

This may be old hat to a lot of you but I was always highly resistant to scheduling my week in advance. I realize that I've failed with it in the past because I've tried to take it to too granular a level. There's a continuum of planning that I had largely left uninvestigated, though. Are you having trouble feeling like you've accomplished anything at the end of the day? If so, try committing a specific day of the week for the projects that are swirling in your head and give yourself permission to go deep with whatever you're working on right now. You're likely to feel better at the end of the day and get more meaningful work done as well.

Predictors of Success: Growth Mindset

Our beliefs lead to our behavior. The way we think about the world and the things that happen to us affect the actions we take. Two people can experience the exact same stimulus and react in two totally different ways. Carol Dweck and her associates have developed a line of research to help us better understand the various types of beliefs we can have about ourselves and the world. She has identified a continuum she describes as having a Fixed Mindset or a Growth Mindset.

The easiest way to think about these types of mindsets is to look at them through the lens of failure. When somebody with a Fixed Mindset experiences failure they take it personally. As Dweck says, "Failure has been transformed from an action (I failed) to an identify (I'm a failure)." On the other hand, failure when you have a Growth Mindset is an opportunity to learn. Who do you think experiences the greatest amount of success in the long run?

The way we develop our particular mindsets has a lot to do with the type of praise or encouragement we were given when we were younger. Dweck has found that parents and teachers who praise a child's effort, instead of their accomplishments, help support a Growth Mindset. On the other hand, praising accomplishments or how "smart" a child seems to be can lead to the development of a Fixed Mindset. If you're constantly being praised for being smart and then run up against something difficult that takes effort then your "smartness" can take a hit. On the other hand, being praised for effort can result in a difficult task being seen as an opportunity to increase effort even further.

Effort is a key concept when talking about the difference between Growth and Fixed Mindsets. Being good at things is not the sole worry of someone with a Fixed Mindset. Instead, it's important to be good at things while also not having to spend a lot of effort. It's important to be perfect. As a result, most people with a Fixed Mindset stay firmly entrenched in what they know and what they already do well. They do not expand the boundaries of their abilities or interests because it would be a threat to their identity as a "smart" person.

As you can imagine, the Growth Mindset approach is largely the opposite. Increasing difficulty is not a signal to stop, but a signal that you're heading in the right direction. A Growth Mindset uses difficulty and setback as guideposts for where effort should be spent. In one study, children who tested as having more of a Growth Mindset had to be wrestled away from difficult puzzles and wanted information about where they could get more puzzles like the ones they were having trouble with so they could practice at home. Children with a fixed mindset couldn't get away from the puzzles fast enough. When faced with the opportunity to either complete a puzzle they had already completed successfully once, or to try a slightly harder puzzle, Fixed Mindset children were content to complete the same puzzle again.

Luckily, mindset, like any belief, can be changed. Your predilection for having a Growth or Fixed Mindset may be originally genetically set, but it appears to be able to be changed over time. An important first step is simply learning about Growth and Fixed Mindsets. Becoming aware of the difference and thinking about your own beliefs can set you in the direction of changing them to a more conducive approach. Another avenue to changing mindsets is to learn about the plasticity of the brain. Dweck has used this concept to develop a workshop and software program for adolescents that helps them learn about how the brain is like a muscle. Using your brain more strengthens it just like going to the gym and lifting weights strengthens muscles. This can help eliminate the belief that anything that doesn't come naturally or immediately is not possible.

I think one of the most interesting implications of this research into mindset has to do with happiness and success. There are lots of people with Fixed Mindsets who are wildly successful. Talent is completely separate from mindset and many people have an absurd amount of talent. There are also people with Growth Mindsets who are absurdly successful. What's interesting is that those successful people with a Fixed Mindset have expended all the time and effort into being successful because they are striving for some kind of external reward. Whether it be prestige, money, power -- a Fixed Mindset is not satisfied until it attains those. Somebody who is equally successful but has a Growth Mindset may reach the same level of success but it is a byproduct of the enthusiasm for what they do. They tend to be happier than those who have fixated on external proof of success (I wonder if obsessive/harmonious passion is related to Fixed/Growth Mindset at all?).

Looking at the way you deal with failure and success can help you figure out what kind of mindset you have. If you're unhappy with your personal development it's possible you've been operating under a Fixed Mindset. If you can shift that to a more Growth-oriented mindset you're likely to find greater success and be happier in the process.

Carol Dweck's book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, is a great place to learn more about this idea and get more ideas about how you can improve your own mindset.

30 Days Will Not Change Your Life

I think I can be unnecessarily hard on myself sometimes (I did just draft an article tentatively titled "I Do Dumb Things"). I get disappointed with myself when I don't follow through with habit changes as completely as I imagined I would. I've started and failed a myriad of activities, hobbies, and new habits. Just a couple of highlights from my own personal Wall of Shame include; meditating every day for over two months, going to a meditation retreat, and then not meditating for 5 months after that; still biting my nails; wasting huge swaths of time doing stupid things on my computer; eating like an idiot more than I should (donutsssssssssssss) and I'm sure many others that I'm conveniently forgetting. I started thinking about why I seem to have had trouble with certain habit changes but have done fine with others. What's the difference? And then, a stroke of insight slapped me on the back of the head -- maybe I've been miscalculating the size of these habit changes.

The Marathon Metaphor

When training for a marathon you don't strap on your shoes and go out for a 15 mile run as your first training session. That's stupid because a marathon is a huge thing that needs to be broken into smaller steps as you train for it. First you run a mile, then you bump it up to two, then five and eventually, after many months, you're running 26.2 miles. Nobody looks at you funny if you tell them you're training for a marathon and going out for a three mile run, especially when you've just started. Why, then, do we think changing some other behaviors or reaching other goals is something that can be done over the course of 30 days? Stopping biting fingernails can be like running a marathon for some people. They are completely different domains but I think it might be a bad idea to think of this habit change differently from training to run a marathon. It must be broken into steps and you must not beat yourself up if you still haven't run a marathon (or stopped biting your nails) after one or two or even three months. 

The nice thing about training for a marathon is that it's easy to break it up into smaller chunks. Miles are nice and convenient units of measurement that help you see you're making progress over time. Habit changes like not wasting time on the computer or stopping biting your nails are not as easily broken into smaller segments. What if you were able to, though? What if instead of shooting for complete mastery over the way you work at your computer you just aimed for an incremental improvement over the next 30 days? I worry that perhaps we are shooting for unrealistic goals. If you told someone you were going to run a marathon in 30 days (especially with no physical activity background) they'd tell you to hold your horses, cool your jets, perhaps to even take a chill pill. So why don't we respond similarly when someone says, "I'm going to start a 30 minute daily meditation practice in 30 days!" or, "I'm going to completely stop biting my fingernails in one month!" or, "I'm going to work completely distraction free from here on out!" All of these are admirable goals but not particularly realistic. It's romantic and exhilarating to think you can become a completely different person in 30 days. Undoing 20 or 30 or 50 or 60 years of NOT being that person, however, is not something that will be easily vanquished. You can make incremental changes over the course of one month and when you add that on top of another month where you made an incremental change and another and another and another, you suddenly have the makings of a new habit or begin closing in on a new goal (your behavioral marathon, if you will).

For the next habit change you have in mind, try to break it into smaller chunks and focus on only one of those chunks for the next 30 days. If you can resist the feeling of impatience I think you'll set yourself up for a much more sustainable change. Almost anyone can do anything for 30 days. It's incredibly hard to make those 30 days stick forever, though. Take your time, make small changes, and enjoy your new behavior. Below is an example of how you could break up the goal of "stop biting my fingernails":

• Spend a month thinking about and writing about why you want to stop biting your fingernails. Get every single reason, thought, and impulse down on paper.
• Write down what you were doing and/or thinking about immediately before each time you started to bite your fingernails.
• Keep a running tally of every time you notice yourself biting your fingernails.
• Pick a hand. Focus on only using the nail clipper on that one hand for an entire month. Notice the difference between your hands. Which one feels better?
• Switch hands. Focus on only using the nail clipper on that one hand for an entire month. Notice the difference between your hands. Which one feels better?
• Spend a month not biting your fingernails. If you do, notice what you were thinking/doing when you did. 
• Look at your notes and figure out how you can address those specific thoughts/activities (I've noticed I bite my fingernails when I'm reading so I gave myself something to chew on while I read, like a toothpick).

And so on. If it feels absurdly slow -- it should. Let's think about this for a second. If you're trying to make a habit change that has thus far eluded you I think we should probably treat it with a little more gravitas than, "Just put your head down and focus for 30 days. Then you'll have it licked!" If you've had success with that, good for you. Some habit changes may be susceptible to that approach. The ones that seem more like a marathon or have been especially stubborn require a more systematic approach.

It takes awhile but if you break it into smaller steps, like training for a marathon, I think you're much more likely to be successful in the long-term. What would you rather have, a month (maybe two) of not biting your nails before you revert or many months of working toward not biting your nails, a couple months of "kind of" biting your nails, and eventually not biting your nails at all -- forever? You could go out and walk/run 26.2 miles right now but you'll probably end up in the hospital and hate running. Or, you could build it up over time and become healthier and potentially gain a new passion.

What is Positive Psychology?

I recently decided to wipe the slate and start my blog from scratch. However, there are some articles from my past that I'd like to update and reintroduce to the blog. For the next several weeks, I'll be sharing some of these articles. If you've been following my writing since the beginning of The Simpler Life, you may recognize some of them. More than likely, however, this will be brand new content to you.

Inevitably the first question I’m asked any time I tell someone I’m in a graduate program in positive psychology is, “What’s positive psychology?” It’s a logical question that I’m going to do my best to answer in this short article. Obviously, explaining any academic discipline in 1000 words or less is a tall order, but I’ll try to lay out the basics.

Positive Psychology as a Discipline

Traditionally, the focus of psychology has been on diagnosing and “fixing” mental disorders. Schizophrenia, phobias, obsessive compulsive disorder and other mental sicknesses are usually what psychologists are looking to diagnose and correct. This is obviously very important work that strives to improve the quality of life for many, many sick people. However, positive psychology focuses on a different aspect of human behavior.

Instead of taking people who are in the negative range of the mental well-being continuum and trying to elevate them back up to neutral, positive psychologists are interested in studying how to take people who are perfectly healthy and elevating them to an even higher level of well-being. Instead of going from −7 to −1, the aim is going from 0 to +8. This is a fairly new, and yet, ancient aim. Philosophers such as Aristotle, Socrates and Epictetus all asked the same question that positive psychologists ask, “What does it mean to live a good life?”

The Two "Fathers" of Positive Psychology

Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi are generally considered the “founding fathers” of positive psychology and each head up graduate programs at their respective universities (Seligman at University of Pennsylvania and Csikszentmihalyi at Claremont Graduate University). Obviously, it’s not that well-being and the other aspects of positive psychology weren’t being investigated prior to Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, but they led the charge in creating a specific subset of psychology focused on the positive approach.

What Do Positive Psychologists Study?

The topics positive psychologists are interested in are incredibly broad. A good place to start is with the research interests of the two most well known positive psychologists, Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi.

Martin Seligman and Optimism

Seligman first did work on learned helplessness. This is the idea that animals, and people, can learn to become helpless when they are placed in a situation in which they have no control. This helplessness can then be transferred to a completely different situation that is actually under their control. Because of the helplessness that was learned in the first situation, most animals then don’t even try to escape in the new situation. If you think you’re helpless, what’s the point of even trying?

However, Seligman noticed that there was always a minority of test subjects that were resistant to learned helplessness. These subjects were very resilient and led him to ask, why don’t they become helpless when most of the other test subjects do? Thus, his research into "learned optimism," the antithesis to learned helplessness, was born.

Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi and Flow

Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi is best known for his work on the concept of flow. Flow is the state of mind you enter when you’re working on something that challenges your abilities, provides direct feedback on your success, and is autotelic (you do it just for the sake of doing it). Any time you have lost track of the time because you were completely engrossed in a project or sporting event is probably an example of being in the flow state. Why can some people enter this state with nearly everything they do and others seem to never experience flow? How can work and school be structured to become conducive to flow? Can entering the flow state be taught and practiced?

The Positive Aspects of Being Human

These are only two of the many topics that positive psychologists cover. Other topics include motivation, mentoring, effective leadership, organizational dynamics, happiness, emotions, longevity, health, decision making, character, and developing passion. As you can see, positive psychology is truly the science of studying what is right with people and how to live a better life.

Over the next several weeks I will be unveiling a series of articles that break down some of the more important topics, issues, and introduce the most important people of positive psychology.