Thinking positive thoughts or wishing for good things to happen is unlikely to lead to constructive change or transformation. As I write about in Everyday Vitality, without taking steps to mobilize what we care about and to embody our values, our dreams will stay where they started–in our head.
New York University professor of psychology Gabriele Oettingen has found that people who spend time envisioning how good it will feel to reach a goal without taking any concrete actions toward it are less likely to achieve it. In a study of obese women who enrolled in a weight-loss plan, Oettingen found that women who had positive fantasies about their weight loss—such as showing off their new body to a friend who had not seen them in a year, or supposing that it would be easy to resist a leftover box of doughnuts—were less likely to lose weight than those who were realistic about the challenges they faced.
Oettingen found a similar pattern across multiple domains, including quitting smoking, starting a relationship, doing well on an exam, and getting a job. Fantasizing about being successful without actually pursuing it also undermined motivation. Dreaming turns out to be devitalizing. In fact, participants in a study who were asked to generate positive fantasies about the week ahead felt less energized and later reported poor accomplishment and lower mastery of everyday challenges. Moreover, they were less likely to put in the effort and persist when setbacks occurred. Oettingen theorizes that “mentally attaining” what you want obscures the actual need to apply the effort to make it happen.
Mental Contrasting
Instead of fantasizing, try mental contrasting, which combines being optimistic with being realistic. Mental contrasting means imagining a positive outcome while recognizing the potential obstacles involved and planning actions to overcome them. Based on her research about mental contrasting, Oettingen recommends setting what she calls WOOP goals to close the gap between one’s present reality and desired future.
The four steps are as follows:
1. Imagine something meaningful and important to you that can be attained within a specific time frame. Put the goal into words.
Examples: “I want to do well on my math test.” “I want to feel more gratitude while living my life.”
2. How would you feel? Imagine feeling this way and put it into words.
Examples: “I would feel deeply engaged in my work.” “I would feel proud of myself.” “I would feel tremendous relief.”
3. Consider what can hold you back from achieving what you wish for. Say it to yourself or put it into words.
Examples: “I have a hard time saying no.” “I get distracted by social media.” “I am always exhausted.” “I am a procrastinator.”
4. What is an executive action you can take to tackle this obstacle? Make what is known as an implementation intention (aka: an action plan) to confront the obstacle when it arises.
Example: “If someone offers me a drink, I will say, ‘No, Thank You.'” “If I get distracted by my phone when I am with my family in the evening, I will leave it on my desk.” “If I feel like eating junk food, I will go for a walk around the block.”
Mental contrasting has been found to be an effective technique with stressed-out college kids at increasing their physical activity, and with helping people to make healthier choices about what to eat. Students improved their grades and time management using WOOP. Nurses who performed a daily WOOP exercise to reduce work stress reported psychological and physical symptoms and increased vigor and engagement after three weeks.
WOOP may sound like a silly acronym but it’s a powerful tool.
A combination of denial and distraction all summer shielded me from the reality that my son Baker would be leaving for school soon. Monday afternoon it hit me like a ton of bricks. After a long drive, I turned around to ask Baker and Vivian what they wanted for dinner but before I could say anything I was awash in tears.
There they were brother and sister, peacefully together, in the most ordinary of moments. Baker was asleep with his head nestled next to Vivian’s. Schnitzel rested cozily on Vivian’s lap, her tail doubling as an eye mask for Baker. Panda, ever the burrower, had wedged herself into the gap between Baker’s back and the seat.
All those backseat moments came flooding back—Baker reading Roald Dahl’s The Witches to his little sister, the two of them falling asleep with their heads on each other’s shoulder, and the vision of them holding hands while buckled into car seats. It wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns. There were arguments about music, temperature and, of course, territory. Like all self-governing states, borders mattered. They were always accusing each other of encroaching upon the other’s sacred space. Sometimes the land disputes became so intense, I was forced to pull over on the side of the road.
After lamenting to a friend about their annoying fights, she sent me the lyrics to a Trace Adkins song:
You’re gonna miss this
You’re gonna want this back
You’re gonna wish these days hadn’t gone by so fast
These are some good times
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
But you’re gonna miss this
All I know is that I am going to miss all of it—the fights, the peace, and just being together in those ordinary moments that, when you think about it, are extraordinary.
How parents navigate these transitions has been on my mind a lot and I was recently invited to discuss Empty Nest Syndrome on the Today Show. While not an official diagnosis, it captures the grief and sadness parents sometimes experience when their children leave home. The anticipatory dread is often worse than the reality.
For most parents, the transition is bittersweet. While they miss their kids, they also report positive experiences. When it comes to emotions, we’re taught to consider moods as binary: you’re happy or sad, calm or anxious. Ask your friends, “How was your day?” or “How are you?” and they’ll probably answer along positive or negative lines. In reality, we can be both. There is value in recognizing that far more nuance exists in emotional states than we often allow for, and that negative and positive emotions can exist side by side. As many empty nesters find, endings can be new beginnings.
For many there is a silver lining. A national survey of over 1,000 parents of young adults found that while 84 percent of parents missed their kids once they moved out, 60 percent were glad to have more time with their spouse or partner or for themselves and 90 percent were happy their kids were independent. Greater freedom, reconnecting with partners and friends, pursuing goals, finding new hobbies, fewer day to day stressors, and travel are among the many ways an empty nest can unlock freedom and fulfillment.
Is there a friend you never had time to see? Make plans for lunch. Is there a place you always wanted to visit? Call your travel agent. Does playing Bridge appeal? Join a card club. Reframing the transition as a gateway and not a dead end unleashes possibility and potential. The key is to replace the stillness with a new rhythm. Your child’s life will be filled with fresh experiences. Make sure yours is as well.
Instead of an empty-nester, reimagine yourself as an emerging eagle.
There is increasing scientific evidence that the nonstop barrage of disturbing and infuriating stories impacts mental health. Studies show it can worsen feelings of anxiety, sadness and helplessness. People who were glued to coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings were more likely to report feeling more upset than those who were actually at or near the site.
Along similar lines, relentless exposure to Covid-19 news was associated with greater psychological distress. Negative news stories have also been shown to exacerbate personal worries that are unrelated to the content of the story itself. In other words, a story about a disheartening political situation can amplify concerns about your relationship with your partner. Catastrophizing is contagious.
News FOMO–fear of missing out on the latest headlines–creates a revolving door of rumination. Constantly checking for updates and doomscrolling in search of new information rarely yields better understanding. According to news surveys, following a breaking event provides the illusion of being in the know but is unlikely to boost your knowledge of the news.
How do we stay on top of the issues without feeling overloaded? While tempting, news avoidance is not the answer. Instead of burying your head in the sand like an ostrich, the key is to optimize how, when, and from where you get your news.
Here are a few tips that have helped me and my patients stay sane and avoid news-induced negativity:
1. Turn off notifications and digital alerts from news sources on all your devices.
2. Designate a time—either once or twice a day—to get your news fix from an established source, not social media. One of my favorite trusted sources is Jessica Yellin on Instagram. It’s news, not noise.
3. Read or watch stories that intelligently present digested and reliable information about what has happened.
4. Skip commentary and media that predict what might happen. Listening to pundits and so-called experts weigh in on the future is basically glorified gossip and of little value. Learn the facts, don’t follow opinions.
5. Avoid checking news first thing in the morning and before bed. It might hijack your day or interfere with your sleep.
6. Be deliberate about generating positive emotions on bad news days. Researchers have found that the best way to learn from negative emotions is to experience them alongside positive ones.
Once you gain control over how you get your news and where you get it from, not only will you be calmer and more productive, you will be better informed and in a position to make better decisions about what you want to do about it.
According to a study from the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science, we almost always tend to add something. This is known as subtraction neglect.
“Think about your own work and you will see it. The first thing that comes to our minds is, what can we add to make it better,” says Leidy Klotz, Copenhaver Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Systems and Environment. “Our paper shows we do this to our detriment, even when the only right answer is to subtract.”
The tendency to improve through addition is evident in every aspect of our lives. We add meetings to solve problems at work, we add homework to improve academic performance, we add an ingredient to perfect a recipe, we add apps to boost efficiency, we add products to enhance skin, but rarely consider how the alternative could be transformative. The more is more mindset is certainly apparent in the world of medicine. If a patient presents with a new symptom, their doctor will typically add a medication. Perhaps subtraction neglect helps explain why so many people end up with tackle boxes full of pills. The result of additive change is full medicine cabinets, closets, schedules, and landfills.
In a Character Lab missive, Prof. Klotz observed that it’s only when encouraged to consider deletion do people brainstorm more creatively. Just because we have a tendency to make additive changes doesn’t mean we don’t have a choice.
The next time you need to solve a problem, deliberately think about what you can take away. Trust me, less can be more.
I have always wondered about compatibility. What draws two people together. More importantly, what keeps them together? Many believe that chemistry is the answer. This notion of chemistry—an unknowable elixir of passion and fairy dust is appealing. It’s predicated on a magical ideal, a perfect fit, a coupling that is meant to be.
Over the years, researchers have tried to gain a better understanding of what makes a relationship work by focusing on the individuals in it and how their personalities align. Dating websites have hopped on this bandwagon too, matching singles based on preferences and personality type.
But this approach is missing a critical point. A recent landmark study of over 11,000 couples found that what matters far more than your personality (or your partners for that matter) and the fact that you both like horror movies, is how you interact with one another on a daily basis.
Yes, individual characteristics and personal attributes like income, satisfaction with life, age, and empathy mattered but not as much as the characteristics of the relationship itself.
Put another way, even if an individual is anxious or prone to irritability but manages to establish a relationship characterized by appreciation, sexual satisfaction, and minimal conflict and believes their partner to be committed and responsive—they can have a thriving and satisfying connection.
Breaking it down, here are the 5 most powerful predictors of a happy relationship:
1. Perceived-partner commitment: “My partner wants our relationship to last forever.”
2. Appreciation: “I feel very lucky to have my partner in my life.”
3. Sexual satisfaction
4. Perceived-partner satisfaction: “Our relationship makes my partner very happy.”
5. Low conflict
In other words, having a great relationship is less about finding the perfect person and more about putting in effort every day to cultivate a great relationship.
The study’s first author and the director of the Relationship Decision Lab at Western University, Samantha Joel, puts it this way:
“The dynamic that you build with someone — the shared norms, the in-jokes, the shared experiences — is so much more than the separate individuals who make up that relationship.”
Bottom Line: Great relationships don’t just happen. They are worked on. Every single day.
While social distancing, what is the best way to stay connected to the people we love? Thanks to modern technology, there are many options. Zoom, email, text, FaceTime, and phone calls are among the many ways to stay in touch.
However, not all communication media strengthen connections equally. According to a new study, voice-based interactions (phone calls and video chats) beat text-based interactions (emails and texts) hands down. Given the clear advantage of picking up the phone, why do we all-too-often opt to send emails and texts instead?
Anxiety about having an awkward conversation turns out to be the main reason we choose typing over talking. However, according to the study, these fears are largely unwarranted. Before reconnecting with a loved one, participants anticipated discomfort and awkwardness, but after making an actual phone call, they were pleasantly surprised to find this wasn’t the case. Moreover, they felt more meaningfully connected after a phone interaction than participants who interacted with a loved one via email.
It is worth noting that seeing a person on a video call wasn’t a better bonding experience than a good old fashioned phone call. So if the thought of being on camera on Zoom or Facetime fills you with dread, know that a landline will do the trick.
Bottom Line: Emails and texts are great for basic communication but if you really want to connect with a loved one this holiday season, put them on speed dial.
