Amazing work by Author Mr. Martin P Seliggman, the father of Positive Psychology. How to Change Your Mind and Your Life

1. BOOK REVIEW BY
NAYANKUMAR AND
SUDHANSHU
11- JULY- 2020

2. Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, has spent decades
of research trying to find out why some people maneuver through their
lives so easily, while others fall prey to DEPRESSION.
His answer: They’re OPTIMISTS.
He calls optimism and pessimism explanatory styles, they are the way
in which we explain bad events in our lives.
“Curing the negatives does not produce the positives.”

3. Learned helplessness is the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that
follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn't matter!.
Explanatory style is the manner in which you habitually explain to
yourself why events happen. It is the great modulator of learned
helplessness.
Exploring Optimism/Pessimism

4. 1. Optimists see problems as temporary, pessimists as permanent.
If optimists spill their coffee they won’t say “I always spill my coffee and ruin my
clothes.”, but rather “I spilled my coffee this time, but I won’t spill the next one.”
2. Optimists see problems as specific to a situation, pessimists
make them a general case.
Being on a team assignment where one person doesn’t deliver their part, a pessimist
is likely to say: “This team sucks.” and write off the entire team as lazy.
An optimist would say: “One person is not very helpful, but I’m sure the rest of the
team will do great work.”
Optimists Vs Pessimists

5. 3. Optimists see problems as externally caused, pessimists blame
themselves.
When getting a divorce, both people will think one of them is the major cause. An
optimist will always attribute the failure to an external source, in this case, their
former spouse (“He never wanted kids anyway”).
The pessimist is likely to blame herself (“I never made time for her that’s why she
left me).
Luckily, both styles are acquired and can be learned.
Optimists Vs Pessimists

6.  Being an optimist is being healthier.
Studies found optimism boosts your immune system, and even increased the health of
cancer patients.
Optimists are likely to take good care of their bodies, because they believe that their
choices will make a difference. Pessimists are prone to junk food and no exercise, as they
believe it won’t matter.
 Pessimism can likely be a cause of depression.
Believing that nothing you do will change anything can of course make you depressed.
A study where people had to press buttons to make noises stop found symptoms of
depression in them whenever the experiment was rigged so that the buttons had no
effect.
Optimists Vs Pessimists
Advantages and Disadvantages

7.  Optimism is also a deciding factor in professional sports.
Seligman looked at baseball teams in 1985 and determined the New York Mets
were the most optimistic team, the St. Louis Cardinals the most pessimistic.
Guess who won the World Series one year later? The Mets.
 That same optimism will also carry you through a successful career
As Seligman’s study with Metropolitan shows. He hired people for them who
underperformed skill-wise, but showed great optimism. The new employees
outperformed even those with better skills.
Optimists Vs Pessimists
Advantages and Disadvantages

8. Cognitive Distortions – The 3 P’s
Three cognitive distortions tend to underpin the way we understand our
experiences: personalization, pervasiveness, and permanence. By tackling these
distortions, we can learn to be more optimistic.
Personalization can be thought of as an internal vs. external attribution style. If
something bad happens, a pessimist will attribute it to internal factors. They’ll see
that failure or setback as something that’s their fault, personalizing the outcome.
Optimists externalize instead; they aren’t to blame so that next time may be better.
How to Improve Optimism

9. Pervasiveness describes the global or specific element of adversity or a negative
event. A global or pervasive attribution is pessimistic and closely related to
catastrophizing, “I did a terrible job; I’ll never be hired again – EVER.” Someone
who views an undesirable outcome as pervasive will also be more inclined to
believe that it will impact other aspects of their lives, too: “It means I’m a bad
student, too, and unlovable (again).” Optimists see positive events as pervasive, it
can be argued, rather than negative ones.
Permanence is about whether we view a negative situation as fleeting or lasting
and unchangeable. A pessimistic explanatory style sounds something like: “I’ll
always be a terrible dancer, it’s just who I am/how it is.” A positive one sounds more
like: “I probably didn’t dance so well because my leg is currently hurting, but I’ll be
back on top soon.” The key takeaway here is that the situation or circumstances
are not fixed or unchangeable.
How to Improve Optimism

10. The acronym ABC refers to:
Adversity – e.g., fighting with a friend;
Beliefs – e.g., “Wow, I’m an awful friend and always
will be”; and
Consequences – e.g., you don’t try to make peace
with your friend, because you can’t change who you
are.
Your explanatory style is how you get from A to B,
and this is what Seligman argues that we can learn
to change. It’s where one, two, or all of the 3 P’s
come into play. Which one(s) did you notice here?
How to Improve Optimism – The ABC Technique

11. A: Activating Event (something happens to or
around someone)
B: Belief (the event causes someone to have a belief,
either rational or irrational)
C: Consequence (the belief leads to a consequence,
with rational beliefs leading to healthy consequences and
irrational beliefs leading to unhealthy consequences)
D: Disputation (if one has held an irrational belief
which has caused unhealthy consequences, they must
dispute that belief and turn it into a rational belief)
E: Energization/New Effect (the disputation has
turned the irrational belief into a rational belief, and the
person now has healthier consequences of their belief as
a result)
How to Improve Optimism – The ABC Technique

12. There are our tacks to take in effective disputation with yourself.
Evidence - What is the evidence both for and against the belie!?
Alternatives – Is there any other way to look at the adversity?
Implications- What if your dark explanation is right? Is it the end of the world?
Usefulness – Sometimes the accuracy of your explanation is not what really
matters. What matters is whether thinking about the problem now will do any
good.
How to Improve Optimism
Disputation by Externalization of Voices

13. How to Improve Optimism – The ABC Technique
One Example from the Book

14. Correlation to Coaching

15.  To know the underlying beliefs of the clients
 To challenge the beliefs of the client to build optimism that would
lead him to shift his perspective of the adversity he is facing
Understand Client’s explanatory style and tailor coaching questions
accordingly
Actively use ABC(DE) Technique to help client realize its true WHO
As a grounding technique for Coaches
Use of Optimism Assessment test
Application in Coaching

16. A – Activating Event – the client makes a mistake.
B – Belief – the client has a thought that says she is a failure and that she is not
good at anything.
C – Consequence – the client feels awful about her mistake and about herself in
general, but she remembers that she can question the cognitive distortion.
D – Disputation – she questions the thought. She tells herself that everyone makes
mistakes and that one mistake does not mean she is worthless or that she is not
good at anything.
E – New Effect – the client accepts that we all make mistakes and replace the
negative thoughts with this positive thought. She commits to learning from her
mistake and trying again in the future.
You can see the important work happening in D (Disputation). The client has
realized that her thoughts are simply thoughts, they do not determine who she is.
She takes control by rejecting the thought and purposely replacing it with a more
realistic and more positive thought.
Coaching Example

17. There are several questions for each step, including:
Activating Event
What is the Activating event?
What has happened?
What did I do?
What did others do?
What idea occurred to me?
What emotions was I feeling?
Consequence
Am I feeling anger, depression, anxiety, frustration, self-pity, etc.?
Am I behaving in a way that doesn’t work for me (drinking, attacking, moping, etc.)?
Beliefs (Dysfunctional)
What do I believe about the Activating event?
Which of my beliefs are my helpful/self-enhancing beliefs, and which are my
dysfunctional/self-defeating beliefs?
Coaching Example : Indicative Questions

18. Dispute
What is the evidence that my belief is true?
In what ways is my belief helpful or unhelpful?
What helpful/self-enhancing belief can I use to replace each self-defeating or
dysfunctional belief?
Effective New Belief and Emotional Consequence
What helpful/self-enhancing new belief can I use to replace each self-defeating or
dysfunctional belief?
What are my new feelings?
This would be a great resource to hang in a classroom or
office as a reminder of the connection between beliefs and
emotions beliefs?
Coaching Example : Indicative Questions

19.  Optimism can be learned
 ABC DE technique I will use to move away from pessimism towards optimism
 Pessimism has it’s role, especially in high-risk work/jobs. For example – safety
at workplace, flying airplanes, finance functions, risk analysis.
 One of the most beneficial choices that you can make based on these studies is to
learn to cultivate an attitude of optimism. You will not only lead a more happy
and peaceful daily existence, but your future will be impacted in countless
positive ways as well.
Personal Takeaways