Cam Findlay

Posts Tagged ‘positive psychology’

Having completed the optimism questionnaire as part of the leadership paper my optimism level is apparently “-2″ that being leaning slightly into the pesimistic realm (the scale being -9 to 9).

I am taking this as a healthy dose of pessimism as I am always one to hope for the best, plan for the worst to a realistic level.  This is very useful in working out risk and planning contingently around projects and goals.

However sometime a little pessimism can get you down and it is always good to try and self-improve so my plan next it to work at increasing my levels of learned optimism through positive affirmation techniques, gratitude writing and reading more about positive psychology.

I just picked up a copy of Meiron Lees “D-Stress” book from the local university book shop which looks to be an interesting and practical read around improving optimism.

We have been looking at hope as part of leadership at university, particularly “Hope theory” part of positive psychology which sets out that hope is the perception of attainable goals which you can reach through multiple pathways and sustained motivation (also called agency thinking).

I ran my BHAG goal through a Hope goals assesment questionare to get a better idea if my goal meet the criteria of being “Hopeful” for my personal development assessment.

First the goal itself:

Leading a community of technology developers which helps make online technology intuitive and encouraging the business world to adopt and understand technology to build communities around ideas and products.

My goal is something I have ownership over, that is it fits within my values and purpose in life.  It is attainable and an approach goal. It is also a goal that others might have similar goals to (which is great as I can ally with those that share similar ideas, goals and hope as me).

Pathways to my goal are many, I could find others that are also working towards this goal and work with them, start my own company, work freelance, do consulting work or contribute to and help lead online communities around building and using new technologies.  All these ways to acheive my goal fit within my values though I do want to learn more around project management particularly Agile Software Development which is entirely feasible and within my power to go out and learn.

Motivation towards this goal (Agency) is my main barrier at the moment however putting my goal into a personal development plan (PDP) and working through how to reach this goal has been building excitment and hope that I can reach my goal.  I ended up adding a section or sub-goal into my PDP around building more positve self-talk through learned optimism and affirmation  techniques.  Those internal resistences always pop up when we set a lofty goal but being something I really want to do I’m positive a little self improvement can do no harm.

Anyway, My PDP was handed in on Monday so once the lecturer has had a chance to mark it I will be releasing here on the blog so keep checking back.