How to Enjoy Your Day Today

WOULD YOU LIKE TO enjoy your day today? Sure you would. Here is one way to almost guarantee it: Try to help others enjoy their day more. I don't mean going around massaging people and washing their cars. I'm talking about the way you look at them and talk to them and listen to them. This simple method is more useful, sophisticated, and effective than it may at first appear. Let me explain.

First off, we are social animals, and your brain rewards you with pleasure when you show goodwill toward others of your kind. Who you consider "your kind" is up to you, and it's flexible. You can think about the fact that this person is part of your family, your neighborhood, your company, your city, your country, or even a member of your species. You can think about it any way you want, so think about it in a way that lets you feel the two of you are the same kind. Then your friendliness and kindness toward them will trigger your brain to make you feel good.

Second, this method takes your attention off yourself and puts it out in the world. Even if you still felt grumpy or tired, you wouldn't notice it as much because your attention is off yourself. It's also true that the very act of paying attention to yourself and your problems can make you feel worse. It is a kind of first-stage self-help to focus less of your attention on your own problems. This method is a great way to do that.

And third, the tones of voice and facial expressions of the people around you affect your mood. Why is this important? Because when you try to help people, it changes how they interact with you. When you see the change in them, it'll change the way you feel.

So how can you do it? Other than giving them money, how can you help people? The simplest way is with a kind of amiable extroversion. In the American Heritage Dictionary, extroversion is "interest in one's environment or in others as opposed to or to the exclusion of oneself." Even when you feel withdrawn, the act of speaking up makes you feel less introverted. It makes you feel bolder and more alert.

Be outgoing and kind to others, especially when you feel like withdrawing. It makes you feel better. Be your sincere self. Avoid being phony. Don't try to act like someone you're not. But be outgoing and kind to people, not just in your actions, but in your thoughts too.

Make others feel good, and help them feel good about themselves. Volunteer nice comments to people. Voluntarily say nice things about people — behind their backs and to their face — and avoid talking badly about anyone when you can.

Be helpful when and where you can. Try to be constructive. Avoid being destructive or critical.

This includes listening, which is a form of reaching out (to draw others out).

Extroversion is a characteristic of happy people. Look around you at people nearby and ask yourself, "What do they need?" One needs a little cheering up. Another needs a smile from you. Or for you to listen to a problem, or show an interest, or give a pat on the back, or a compliment. Or just simple human kindness — not only expressed outwardly, but also demonstrated in your thoughts (forgive people, try not to judge them, etc.).

If you're so busy with your work you don't have time for this stuff, then you probably don't have your own anxieties on your mind much either. Work tends to take up enough attention. But if it doesn't, make it your personal mission to raise the general tone of the people around you. A higher tone is needed and wanted in this world and you can help.

Here's a true story and an example of the principle: Forty miles from Paris was the Forest of Fontainebleau. Artists came from all over to paint there. It took two days to walk from Paris to this forest, but an artist in his early 20's named Pierre had often done so.

One day, Pierre was painting when a dazed, mud-splattered, ragged man stumbled out of the forest and gasped, "Please help me! I am dying of hunger."

The ragged man was Raoul Rigaud. Pierre fed him and heard his story. Raoul was a journalist who had opposed France's authoritarian government in some of his writings. Now the authorities were after him. They had surprised Raoul at his home, but he sneaked out the window and barely escaped out of Paris. Now he was exhausted, and had decided to give himself up. He could not go on like this.

Pierre felt sympathy for Raoul. He convinced Raoul not to give himself up. Pierre borrowed an artist's smock and painting kit from a nearby village, and over the next few weeks they spent together, Raoul became, to all eyes, just another visiting artist to the Forest. A very grateful Raoul was eventually able to contact friends in Paris and they arranged for him to flee France.

Years went by.

One day Pierre was painting by the Seine river when some national guardsmen stopped to look at his work. All of a sudden, one of the guards grabbed the painting and accused Pierre of being a spy for the Versailles forces. He said this painting was a painting of the Seine area showing vulnerable points and strategic locations to guide the Versailles troops. The guards were getting agitated, and a small group of people had gathered. "A spy!" they shouted. The soldiers placed poor Pierre under arrest and marched him to the town hall where a firing squad was on permanent duty to handle things like this.

The crowd grew into a mob. They were now shouting, "Kill him! Kill him!" But Pierre was not a spy. He was just a poor painter.

Pierre's "trial" and conviction was nothing more than a nod from the captain. Pierre's hands were tied. He was dragged down to the firing squad. He closed his eyes. This was the end.

But when he opened his eyes, he saw the Public Prosecutor standing in front of him. The Prosecutor happened to be passing by when he saw what was happening. "Surely you remember me!" said the Prosecutor, and he embraced Pierre.

It was Raoul Rigaud! Because of his kindness and optimism years before, Pierre was saved. And the world was better off for it — Pierre's artistic ability continued to blossom, bestowing on the world a genius with color and light and shadow. Because of his kindness to a stranger in trouble, Pierre-Auguste Renoir had saved his own life.

It may not necessarily save your life, but acts of kindness and extroversion toward others will raise your mood. Helping others enjoy their day more will help you enjoy your day today.

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Feel Better About Yourself, Honestly and Truthfully

WHEN I FIRST read Martin Seligman's book, Learned Optimism, I took his questionnaire, which is designed to discover if you are pessimistic, and if so, in what way. The questionnaire uncovered a mistake I was making — a tendency to not take credit for good things I did. Up until then, I considered that characteristic a virtue: I wasn't a braggart (read more about this).

But the trait had an entirely different slant after reading Seligman's book. I saw that trait in a new light. At work, for example, I paid attention to the mistakes I made, even if I was doing a good job. I disregarded and overlooked the things I did right and focused my attention on what I was doing wrong.

The trait is apparently driven by anxiety, and it also maintains anxiety. Aaron Beck, one of the founders of cognitive therapy, said this tendency is very strong in people suffering from anxiety. And, in fact, I used to suffer from a lot of anxiety.

I found a simple solution to this problem. The solution counters the tendency to overlook your good works and sends your mind in a healthy direction.

Here it is: Occasionally ask yourself, "What am I doing right?" And really think about it. Try to think of several things you're doing right.

If you are unsuccessful at first — if you can't think of anything you're doing right — just keep asking the question. Don't give up. Persist in asking until you come up with answers.

This exercise is surprisingly relaxing. It will relieve some of your tension. It will help you feel better. It's a relief to realize you've done some things well.

In the car, on the way home from work, ponder the question, "What did I do right today?" Lying in bed before nodding off, ask yourself, "What did I do right today?" What can you take credit for?

Go ahead and feel good. It doesn't do any good to feel like a loser. It accomplishes nothing. In fact, it hinders.

Bragging may be a social blunder, but giving yourself credit in the privacy of your own mind is healthy and anxiety-reducing.

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How to Deal With Rude People in a Way You'll Feel Good About

“IF WE COULD READ THE secret history of our enemies,” wrote Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” I just finished reading the book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln and I found a good example of what Longfellow was talking about.

Before Lincoln ran for president, he was a small-time attorney. But one day he was invited to participate in an important trial. He was to be co-counsel for the prosecution with a distinguished attorney named George Harding. Harding wanted Lincoln because the judge deciding the case was familiar with Lincoln and liked him.

After Harding hired Lincoln, the case was moved to another city (with a different judge) so Harding hired a different co-counsel, Edwin Stanton. Lincoln didn’t know this and kept working on the case because this was a big opportunity, or so he thought. But Harding and Stanton ignored and shunned Lincoln, at one point referring to Lincoln as a long-armed ape.

Stanton did not want Lincoln involved in the case, and Stanton made this painfully clear. Stanton avoided him at mealtimes, letting Lincoln eat alone even though the two attorneys ate and stayed at the same hotel. Stanton never asked Lincoln to even show him the considerable amount of work Lincoln had already done on the case.

As I was reading this, I thought Stanton was clearly a rude, mean person. Stanton insulted and humiliated Lincoln. A little later in the book, I learned more about Stanton, and he had enough sorrow and suffering in his life to disarm all my hostility.

Stanton had been married and was deeply in love. He was happier than he'd ever been in his life. They had two children together. Everything was wonderful, but then one tragedy after another tore his world apart. First their daughter died of scarlet fever. While he was still reeling from that heartbreak, Stanton’s wife died of bilious fever.

Stanton almost went insane with grief. Stanton’s sister came to live with him, and she said he often wandered through the house at night sobbing, and screaming, “Where is Mary!?”

A little while later, Stanton’s younger brother got a fever than damaged his brain. He was “unhinged” and purposefully cut his own neck with a sharp instrument and bled to death, spraying blood all over the room, even up to the ceiling. Stanton lived nearby and had to come take care of things. His brother had a wife and three kids that Stanton was now responsible for.

His brother’s gruesome suicide was the last straw. Before these tragedies, Stanton was a cheerful man, full of goodwill toward others. From that point on, and for the rest of his life, Stanton was glum and grumpy. And sometimes his grumpiness was perceived by others as just plain rudeness.

I imagined myself losing my son, losing my wife, losing my brother, and in so doing, I didn’t resent Stanton for his rudeness to Lincoln. I felt profoundly sorry for him. Nobody should have to endure that much pain. And if I knew Stanton personally and knew what he had gone through, I would easily forgive him for any rudeness he showed me. I believe that's what Longfellow was talking about.

There is only one problem with Longfellow's very sensible outlook: We don't very often find out the secret history of our enemies. Maybe the point is to give people the benefit of the doubt. If someone treats you poorly, you can reasonably assume they have sorrow and suffering enough to disarm your hostility, and you'll probably be right. And even if you're not, you have saved yourself a little suffering. Sympathy feels better than anger.

I would like to add one caveat to this practical advice: Some people may be more than rude. Some people may actually harm you or deplete your resources or take advantage of your good nature. They are a special case we cover in another article (read it here).

But for the normal, relatively harmless (but grumpy) people you come across in the course of your travels, it will probably save you unnecessary suffering if you make Longfellow's assumption. If someone is rude to you, assume they have sorrows and suffering you don't know about.

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Stop Needing Approval and End Your "Approval Anxiety" Now

ONE OF THE MOST common anxieties is "needing approval" or the fear that someone might disapprove of you. I used to suffer from approval anxiety quite a bit when I was younger, and I gained some relief from a simple passage in the book on social anxiety, Dying of Embarrassment: Help for Social Anxiety and Phobia:

It's okay if some people dislike you or disapprove of you sometimes. In fact, it's inevitable.

Even well-known and widely-admired people are disliked or even hated by some people. Reminding yourself of this can be a relief. It's a kind of perfectionism to try to get everyone to approve of you, and the effort causes extra stress hormones, and leads to even more anxiety.

Most of us have a need for approval, at least to some degree. It is normal to want to fit in and be accepted by others. In a species as social as ours, where being accepted by the group has been important to survival, we're bound to have some built-in desire or instinct to try to be approved of by our fellow group members. Those born without a need for approval would be less likely to have any offspring in a hunter-gatherer group. One of the most important things our species has relied on to survive is banding together — for hunting, defending against enemies, and helping to raise children.

Social anxiety is an important evolutionary development, keeping people cohesive as a group, improving our chances of surviving during dangerous or difficult times. But of course, times have changed.

One thing that has made our need-for-approval instinct so much more troublesome for modern people is that we now interact with so many strangers. It is an unnatural situation, and we have not evolved to deal with it. It's much easier to learn to get along with a small group of people you have known all your life. But those days are over. Approval anxiety is a natural result.

But there are things you can do to stop needing approval so much. You can alleviate much of this natural and perfectly understandable approval anxiety.

The first step is something simple but immensely effective: Remind yourself that no matter how perfect you try to be, some people will dislike you. You cannot get everyone to like you. Even if you were able to achieve it for a moment, someone would dislike you because you were so popular! Every time you feel some approval anxiety, immediately remind yourself that you cannot get everyone to like you. Say it to yourself emphatically and repeatedly.

Getting everyone to like you is an impossible goal. Remind yourself of that fact over and over. This will go a long way toward ending your anxious need for approval, and help you live a more enjoyable life. It will help you be in a good mood more often.

Click here to learn more about lowering stress and anxiety>>>

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Overcoming Setbacks

A WOMAN wrote to me about what she called her "eating disorder." My answer to her seemed like a good way to start the New Year. No matter what goal you choose to pursue, you will face setbacks. If you know how to overcome setbacks, it will greatly increase your chances of accomplishing your goal. If you don't know how to overcome setbacks, your goal is as good as lost. Here's how I answered the woman:

I don't know much about eating disorders, but I can help you overcome setbacks, and that might help you get what you really want. You said in your first message you don't want to think of yourself as such a failure all of the time. You fight with it every day of your life and it's killing you inside.

I have one simple skill to teach you. Learn this skill, and learn it well, and some of what you fight with will disappear. The skill is explaining setbacks to yourself. A setback is when something happens that you didn't want to happen, or when something doesn't happen that you wanted to happen. That means you have setbacks several times every single day. There are very few days when everything goes exactly the way you want them to.

When you hit a setback, you explain it to yourself. You decide what caused the setback. That's what your explanation is: It is an attribution of cause. For example, you said you had an issue at work and you didn't handle it well. That's a setback, and your mind will automatically explain it. You can't help it. That's what your mind does. It says, "X caused this setback."

Some people with a setback like that will assume Johnny was having a bad day. Someone else with the same kind of setback might assume it happened because "I have no self-control." Someone else might explain the setback in this way: "I didn't get enough sleep." But one thing is certain: You explained that setback to yourself. And the way you explained it determined how you felt about it and what you did about it.

The way you explain setbacks determines, to a large degree, how you feel and what you do. If you explain setbacks in a certain way, you will retain your determination. If not, you will lose your determination. Can you overcome your setback or not? Your explanations are the deciding factor.

There is a tremendous amount of research on this subject. If you'd like to read about some of it, I recommend Martin Seligman's book, Learned Optimism, or David Burns' book, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy.

But I'll give you an example of the research here. This was an experiment done on the Berkeley swim team. First they tested the swimmers to find out how each swimmer explained setbacks, and then the coach gave them all a failure. They were doing timed heats, which means they swim up to one end of the pool and back, and the coach gives them their time. Then they swim up and back again, and the coach gives them their time again. It's one method they use for their workout.

Keep in mind these are accomplished, successful athletes we're talking about. They know how a lap should feel. So when the coach gave them a time that was slower than the real time, they all had a feeling of failing. Something was wrong. It was a setback for each one of them.

What happened next is extremely revealing. The swimmers who were in the habit of making good explanations for their setbacks swam their next heat faster. The ones who made the worst explanations swam their next heat slower.

What makes an explanation good or bad? A good explanation if it doesn't have a lot of mistakes in it. A bad explanation contains a lot of mistakes. Here is a list of the seven most common mistakes people make in their thinking:

1. Insufficient evidence: This means you've assumed something without enough evidence to justify that conclusion. With the evidence you have, you could just as easily and just as plausibly justify other conclusions, but you have jumped to the one you jumped to for no other reason than that is your habitual way of explaining events. Psychologists call it your "explanatory style."

2. Distorted responsibility: This means you've taken too much or too little responsibility for something. If you can't control the outcome of something and it goes badly, but then you blame yourself for how it turned out, you're taking too much responsibility. You're taking more responsibility than you have the power to control. On the other hand, if you can control something, and you say you can't, you're taking too little responsibility.

3. Overgeneralization: If you used the words always, never, everybody, every time, nobody, etc., you're probably overgeneralizing.

By the way, these are mistakes our brains are prone to. Our brains don't function perfectly. We have the ability to generalize, which is one of the things that makes us smart as a species, but our brains are so good at it, we sometimes overgeneralize. I knew a lady who had two bad marriages. Her explanation of this setback was that "all men are pigs." Think about it. There are three and a half billion men on the planet. She sampled two of them and assumed all men were like that. That's overgeneralizing.

4. Mistaken unchangeability: If something can be changed and you assume it can't, your assumption can become a self-fulfilling prophesy. I've seen people do this with depression. Getting depressed is usually preceded by a setback. But getting depressed is itself a setback. And many depressed people assume that depression cannot be changed, and because they've assumed that, they take no steps to change it, which makes it stay the way it is.

5. Exaggeration: This one is self-explanatory.

6. Unjustified certainty: Of course, some of these mistakes overlap with each other. Almost all of them have this element in them. There are very few things we know with certainty, and when you have concluded something depressing with certainty, it is worth looking at it to see if you really know it for sure. If you don't, and if you realize you don't, it can lighten the intensity of the negative feeling. It will greatly help you overcome a setback.

7. Plain assumption: Most of our explanations are an assumption.

Now if you look at these seven mistakes, you can see they are simply common sense. So why would you make those mistakes in your thinking?

The reason you make those mistakes is that you've been explaining setbacks to yourself since you could explain setbacks. Maybe since you were five years old. And most people experience several setbacks a day.

What happens when you practice anything several times a day for that many years?

What happens is you stop being aware you're doing it. It has gone completely automatic. So you explain these setbacks automatically, and the way you feel and what you do ensues from what you have concluded, but you aren't even aware you're doing it!

The first step in improving the way you explain setbacks to yourself is to memorize that list of seven mistakes.

The second step is to make setbacks trigger an "explanation check." This is the only hard part. There are only these two steps, but it will be difficult to do this second one. You will decide to do it, and a week later you'll find you haven't caught yourself once. A setback happens, you explain it, and you go right on. Then later you'll look back and think, "Oh yeah, I was supposed to check my explanation."

But if you keep trying you can do it. Do you believe me? If you don't, or if you try and fail, then check that explanation! Keep trying. Make this something you focus on for the next few months. Have a necklace made for yourself that says, "CHECK EXPLANATIONS EVERY SETBACK" and wear it around your neck. Write it on a card and carry it in your pocket. Put it on your screen saver of your computer. Post it on the bathroom mirror, on the dashboard of your car, on the referigerator door. Put it in your closet where you'll see it every morning. And try try try. You will fail a lot. Each time you realize you've gone the whole day and didn't once catch yourself explaining a setback, that itself is a setback, so check right then how you're explaining it.

And to find out what your explanation is, simply ask yourself, "What caused it?" What do you think caused that setback? Not what you think you should think. But what do you naturally and automatically assume caused that setback.

Say you have a disagreement with someone at work and you lose your cool. You get mad and yell at someone. Later, when you're thinking about it, it bothers you. So ask yourself, "What do I think caused it?" What do you think caused you to lose your cool? Write it down to make it easier. Let's say you write, "Jim is a jerk."

You lost your cool because Jim is a jerk.

Now look at that statement and then look at the list of seven bad explanations. Go right down the list. Do you have sufficient evidence to justify your conclusion? Maybe you do. Okay, next: Distorted responsibility. Were there some actions you could have taken that you didn't take that would have made it go better? Probably. Think about what you'll do in the future or what you could do now, in the way of training, that would make things go better in the future.

Next, overgeneralization. Bingo. Anytime you label someone, you can be pretty sure it is an overgeneralization. Everyone has good points and bad points. Human beings are complex. It is a mistake to summarize something very complex with a simple label. It's overgeneralizing. Try to make a more accurate statement: Jim did something I didn't like.

Do you see how that statement isn't as upsetting? It takes some of the intensity out of the negative feeling.

Please be clear you are not trying to make your explanation positive. All you're doing is clearing up the mistakes. You're just trying to make your explanations more in line with reality as you know it today rather than reality has you knew it when you formed your explanatory style many years ago.

Here's what you do. Step one: Memorize that list. Really get to know it well. Memorize it so well you can say it off the top of your head without really trying. That should take you about a week.

Step two: Remind yourself over and over in every way you can to check explanations after every setback. If you really concentrate on this, within a month, you should be able to form the habit, so that the bummed feeling you get after a setback will remind you to check your explanations. The setback itself will trigger the explanation-check.

And every time you can, after a setback, ask yourself, "What do I think caused the setback?"

And then look at what you've come up with. Match it against that list of seven mistakes.

Not only will this be good for your health and your general feeling of happiness in the long run, but you'll feel better immediately. The moment you realize your assumption is a mistake, the spell is broken. It immediately stops affecting your feelings. Only things you really believe affect your feelings. That's one of the reasons positive thinking doesn't work when it doesn't work: If you don't believe it, it has zero impact on your feelings.

But when you think, "Jim is a jerk," and you feel angry because of it, as soon as you recognize it as an overgeneralization, your feeling of anger diminishes. Immediately. You now don't believe Jim is a jerk. Now you think maybe he doesn't speak very nicely to you sometimes. That's more in line with reality and not as angering. It reminds you that you don't speak very nicely to people sometimes. We're all just human. That doesn't mean you have to love Jim, or even like him. Remember, this is not trying to do anything positive. Just take the nonsense out of your explanations.

If you find one of your explanations is true, okay. Leave it alone. Don't try to make it nicey nice just because it makes you feel bad. Sometimes you will feel bad, because sometimes reality sucks. But more times than not, your explanations that are making you sad or angry or worried are actually wrong. They contain mistakes.

Here's another way to analyze your explanation: If your worst enemy came up to you and said it, would you accept it, or would you argue with it? How would you argue? What would you say?

Once you're able to look at your explanation, it's pretty easy to see what's wrong with it. The only reason you haven't done that before now is that your explanations are automatic and zip by too fast and too unnoticed to analyze.

Are you willing to try this? I believe many of the problems you have, even ones that don't seem related to this, will clear up if you will do this. And it will make a huge difference in your ability to overcome setbacks.

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