Improve Your Daily Life Through Positive Psychology

Some of the stress we experience comes from negative emotions that we feel unable to control.

But what about the feelings we can genuinely influence?

According to research in positive psychology, the share of happiness we can influence is estimated to account for 40% of our well-being. 

External factors account for 10% of our happiness and are often linked to our living conditions. The same research also points to genetic factors, which account for 50% of our happiness.

What about the remaining 40%? 

Positive psychology aims to understand the secrets of optimistic people. In this article, psychologist Clémence Ruelle discusses the positive attitudes we can all cultivate to improve our own happiness.

Our teale tip

Start with what Clémence Ruelle calls “the three good things”.

Name three things that make you feel good and bring you positive emotions. 

List three things you do every day that contribute to your well-being: watching a sunset, having breakfast with your child, and so on.

These things do not require a major commitment from you. 

So ask yourself: have you had your three good things today?

Cultivate gratitude 

The first lever that can significantly increase your tendency towards happiness is gratitude.

What do we mean by gratitude?

Gratitude means appreciating the things we have and never taking anything for granted. Ultimately, it means being satisfied with little, which is often a powerful antidote to negative emotions.

Gratitude helps us feel happier because it has several positive effects on our well-being.

• It increases our ability to empathize with others. When we show appreciation for what someone has given us, we strengthen the bond of trust we share with them. Empathy therefore reinforces mutual trust. 

• Gratitude increases our ability to be satisfied with what we have. Welcoming what we have in a positive way creates more positive emotions than envying what we cannot have. By accepting our emotions and circumstances, we also become more comfortable with ourselves and with what we do or do not possess. 
• Some studies have shown that gratitude protects against negative emotions and stress. The more time you take to appreciate what you have, the more able you become to let go in response to life events.

Cultivate optimism

For Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, optimism means seeing the future in a more favorable light and believing that the future will be more promising than the present.

It is not about forcing ourselves to think positively, but rather about cultivating a particular way of seeing things. 

Optimism is a personal interpretation of the events that happen to us. It is less about victory, failure, or success than about causality.

Optimism affects our thoughts, which affect our emotions: what do I attribute my victories, successes, and failures to? Was it luck or pure chance? 

Optimists tend to see the bright side and take ownership of their successes, while pessimists are more likely to attribute them to chance.

The good news is that optimism can be developed! 

We can influence our tendency to view success or failure as the result of internal or external factors. Although we each have a greater or lesser tendency towards optimism from birth, we can use techniques to strengthen our ability to remain optimistic despite the ups and downs of everyday life.

Open the teale app to discover our activities designed to strengthen this natural asset :)

Living in the present through positive psychology

We have reviewed the benefits of gratitude and optimism.

Let us now consider another benefit that is just as important for our balance: the power of the present moment.

In everyday life, we spend most of our time thinking about yesterday and tomorrow. Yet grounding ourselves in the present is essential for protecting positive emotions. 

It is exhausting for the mind to anticipate what might go wrong tomorrow or regret what went wrong yesterday. To avoid draining our resources, we can strengthen our ability to live in the present. 

This is one of the principles of mindfulness meditation, which considers that we can train our minds to develop more positive emotions.

Try to live fully in the present moment. Why is this so important? 

• It helps us stay grounded in what we feel at the moment we feel it. The problem with rumination is that it may often be based on real events, but it also contains a great deal of imagination. Ultimately, the present moment is the only thing that is deeply real. 
• Living in the present is a powerful tool for reducing the negative impact of stress by developing the positive emotions associated with what we feel right now.

Positive psychology is not a magical or unrealistic world. On the contrary, it is an approach that seeks to understand why some of us feel well. 

Research now tells us that well-being is ultimately a balance between positive and negative emotions. To support our well-being, we can therefore see gratitude and optimism as a first step towards calmer emotions.

Mental health is like physical health: take care of it ;)

Contact our team.

Key takeaways 💡

• Positive psychology is not a magical or unrealistic world. It is an approach that seeks to understand why some of us feel well and experience more positive thoughts.
• Gratitude means appreciating the things we have and never taking anything for granted. Being satisfied with little is often a powerful antidote to negative emotions.
• For Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, optimism means seeing the future in a more favorable light and believing that the future will be better than the present.
• It is exhausting for the mind to anticipate what might go wrong tomorrow or regret what went wrong yesterday. To avoid draining our resources, we can strengthen our ability to live in the present.