哈佛幸福课第十一课英文字幕.docx

1、哈佛幸福课第十一课英文字幕Positive Psychology Lecture 11Hi! Good morning! So todays lecture is about change. And things are going to change today. Our relationship is going to change today. So stay tuned.Last time, last time we ended by talking about the different kinds of change. The first approachthe gradual a

2、pproach, like water wearing down stone, chipping away gradually slowly taking our time. The second approachthe acute change, the sledge hammer breaking stone creating a new pathway, a new channel. The important thing to keep in mind with both forms of changes, with all forms of changes, lasting chan

3、ge that iswhich is what we are aboutnot just the spike and the return to base level. The thing to keep in mind about change is that neither is quick-fix. Even when we pick up that sledge hammer, even when we pick it up, we need to do a lot of work before the preparation. So for example, gradual chan

4、ge, slow change would be doing the gratitude exercise every day, slowly becoming more and more of a benefit finder, gradually looking more at the positive, creating a new neural pathway neuron by neuron.Remember neuroplasticity and neurogenesistwo very important concepts. Because just by knowing by

5、understanding that our brain changes in and of itself makes us more likely to change. And this is work done by Carol Dweck, whom Ill discuss in future courses when we discuss perfectionism. And then the sledge hammer example is like the Eureka experiencethe great insight that doesnt come in a vacuum

6、. It comes after a lot of hard work after a lot of preparation. You know the 99% of perspiration that leads to that inspiration. So no quick-fix. And the belief in quick-fix, the expectation of the quick-fixthat is one of the reasons why levels of the depression are so high today. Because people are

7、 frustrated. They are disappointed. They think theres something wrong with them when they dont succeed in the quick-fix. But they have justI just write in the book that its possible if I do these five things, Id be happy for the rest of my life. And I do these five things, and Im not happier. And I

8、begin to question myself. No quick-fix. It takes time. No five easy steps to happiness.Before we go to the change process, there are a few things we need to understand. The first thing to understand is thisdo I, do you really want to change? And its not a trivial question. It is not a rhetorical que

9、stion because very often on the conscious level we may be saying yes, but on the subconscious level something is stopping us. Let me show you an example. So this is the study done by Langer andand Thompson back in the 80s. And here is what they did. They brought students in or participants in. And t

10、hey asked them whether they wanted to get rid of certain characteristics, like rigidity or being gullible or grimness. And they asked them whether they wanted to get rid of these characteristics and whether they succeeded in becoming better in this area. Were you able to introduce change, so were yo

11、u able to actually become less rigid, if this was important for you to change, or less gullible, or less grim? So this is the first two questions that they asked. Did you want to improve it? Did you wanna change this? And then after, they answered these questions. There was the second part of the st

12、udy where they asked them to evaluate the positivethe following positive characteristics. Consistency, is it important to you? Is it important to you to be trustworthy? And how important it is for you to be and to be perceived as a serious person? And here is the interesting finding of this research

13、. Those individuals who rated the positive traitsthe ones in yellow who rated them highas personally important to them were less likely to change the negatives. Do you understand implications of the study? Lets say I do wanna get rid of rigidity. I dont like being rigid. However, at the same time, c

14、onsistency is a very important value to me. Im less likely to change my rigidity because they are associated in my mind. And yeah, I dont want to be rigid. But at the same time subconscious is talking here I want to be consistent. Dont let go of this rigidity because I couple them, I associate them

15、together. Not wanting to get rid of one because I dont want the baby out with the bath water. And to me they are linked. The same with gullibility and trustworthiness. We can say that the other side of gullibility someone whos trustworthy. Now going to the extreme. I become gullible. However, I dont

16、 get rid of my gullibility because I dont want to also get rid of my trustworthiness. Same with grim. I may be grim but thats also subconsciously a sign of my seriousness.You know for years, literally years, when Ive been thinking and writing and analyzing the notion of perfectionism, I couldnt unde

17、rstand why it didnt get better, for very long time. Because I knew perfectionism was hurting me. I read the research. I look through personal experiences. I knew it was hurting me in terms of my well-being for sure, but also in the long term in terms of my success. And yet I couldnt get rid of perfe

18、ctionism until I read the study. And I asked myself, Whats tied in my mind? What goes hand in hand is drive and ambition. And if I had to define myselfthis is one of the first thingsand because I didnt want to lose these characteristics, my subconscious didnt let me, stopped me from getting rid of t

19、he perfectionism, perfectionism which I define as a debilitating fear of failure. Well have a whole week on perfectionism. So well get more in depth if youll understand what it means. And it was only once I understood that for me these two things go hand in hand, I was able to unpack them to disting

20、uish them. I said I want to keep one not the other. Or for example, worry and anxiety. Look Ive mentioned these many times before, next time Ill talk to you about the process that I underwent to overcome anxiety. Part of me since the time I cant remember myself being anxious whether its before match

21、es in squash, whether its before exams, whether its before speaking up in section when I was an undergrad. And I wanted to stop that. I didnt want that. However, I didnt let go of worry and anxiety because I also sort with responsibility. Well if Im anxious, it can mean Im responsible. So I prepare

22、for class much more as opposed to just let go and become a slacker. So I associated a positive trait which is responsibility. And remember Brandon? No one is coming very important traitresponsibility. But that prevented me from letting gosubconscious level, not conscious of the worry and anxiety tha

23、t I often experienced.Guilt, again there is good guilt, there is bad guilt. You know it is. Well, I dont want to get rid of guilt because what that means Im not being empathic and sensitive toward other people. Very often we connect the two. They go hand in hand. Another couple is the notion of simp

24、lifying. This is something very personal to me. I wanted to do less because I knew that taking on too many activities was actually hurting mewas hurting my productivity, creativity, well-being. I couldnt simplify. Why? Because I associate it in my mind with losing my edge. So I didnt let go. Or faul

25、t-findingwe talked about this a week ago. Why do people not let go of fault-finding? Why do they remain pessimistic? Because they connect it with the sense of realism. I dont wanna stop being realistic. I dont wanna be one of those detached Pollyannas. And therefore I dont let go of my fault-finding

26、.Happiness. One of the most significant barrier to peoples happiness is that they associate happiness with slacking off, because the dominant paradigm. If Im happy now, I ignore experiencing pain. It means Im letting go. It means Im not gonna be successful. It means Im gonna lose my edge. It means I

27、m gonna lose my drive and ambition. So our subconscious prefers to keepkeep us unhappy, so that we dont lose the other things that we value highly, things such as ambition, things such as having an edge, things such as our hard work. Now of course, when we look at them we know that they dont necessa

28、rily have to go hand in hand. On the contrary, for example, happiness, we know from the broaden and build theorythe positive emotions are actually associated with higher levels of successwhereas Ill talk about after spring break, when we talk about perfectionism. We know from research, youll be able

29、 to connect it also in the person. Many of you will be able to connect it in the personal level. We know that letting go of this fear of failure and coping, putting ourselves on the line more, learning from failures looking at it as aas a stepping stone that contributes to our success in the long te

30、rm. It doesnt need to take away from our drive and ambition on the contrary. And the key if we wanna overcome this fear of failure or the worry/anxiety, or the guilt, or the slack of happiness, or getting a better understanding of these characteristics.For example, understanding that I want to let g

31、o of my fear of failure, the debilitating fear of failure, not just fear of failure, because every one is afraid of failure to some extent, but to let go of the debilitating fear of failure and yet maintain my drive or ambition. So more in nuance understanding that you need to go hand in hand. Or, I

32、 cant, you know, I never used to be able to say no to people. You know, such a short word, such an easy word, so difficult at times to say. Why? Because I see myself and now I want other people to see me as empathic as sensitive as underas a nice guy. And then I unpack the two. And it really doesnt

33、have to hand in hand. I can say no to people very sensitively because very often when I say yes to others, Im saying no to myself, and in the long term, very often to the relationship. So now I had a better more nuance understanding of when I can say no and when I dont want to say no while maintaining