Positive Psychology Column for 10-19-03 By Tom Muha, Ph.D. The road to happiness is paved with positive reinforcement Do you ever wonder what’s wrong with you that you can’t seem to achieve the level of success and satisfaction that you want?  Well, that’s what’s wrong with you.  You are focusing on your weaknesses rather than on your strengths. I have to admit that my profession of psychology has some responsibility for giving you the impression that if people could just overcome their problems, they’d be happy.  Isn’t that what most of the self-help books have been telling us? But, honestly, in my 30 years of practice that’s not been my experience.  I’ve seen lots of people change their lives, and it’s always been accomplished by recognizing their assets and building on their strengths. I’ve seen people with incredible talent who’d spent their life doubting themselves start to live their dreams.  These amazing transformations were the result of people coming to believe that it’s possible for them to create the life they want to have. Trying to overcome your weaknesses is a waste of your time and energy (and money if you’re sitting in a therapist’s office focusing on what’s wrong with you).  It sounds good to say that you’re trying to deal with your problems by facing them, but it’s just reinforcing your negative image of your self. When we look at what’s wrong with us, that’s all we see.  The effect is to magnify our problems and mask our strengths.  Then fear takes over, limiting our options to the sparse menu of fight, flight or freeze. The road to change leads to your spirit, purpose, values, intellect, character strengths, and proactive choices.  First you find the vision of your life; then you take responsibility for moving in that direction. Focusing on your dreams and your affirmative attributes is what produces positive outcomes because it creates good energy to be using your strengths. You’ll find that your efforts become self-rewarding, and rewards are far more powerful than punishments. Parents often get caught in this trap when trying to change their children’s behavior.  They tell me they’ve exhausted all of the punishments they can think to use to stop their child’s bad behavior, all to no avail.  They expect that I’ll have some super punishment that will eradicate their child’s misbehavior. When I suggest they ignore large amounts of misbehavior and start to focus on their child’s positive behavior, they stare at me with an incredulous look.  Often they tell me that there is little or no positive in what their child is currently doing. What a classic example of how we distort our perceptions when we become focused on the negative.  So I begin to model for the parents how well the ignoring negatives - reinforcing positives approach will work.  After telling the child that they need to raise their hand in order to interrupt the adult conversation, I proceed to ignore the child’s disruptive behaviors to get attention.  Within one or two hours, I’m spending most of my time and energy telling the young person what a great kid they are for following my raise-your-hand rule. Now if the parents could just change their behaviors as quickly....  But the parents are filled with fear that their child will turn out badly, and that they’re a failure as a parent. Facing fear is the start of the change process.  Rather than reacting to the negatives, we must have faith in the positives.  I believe that these parents have love in their heart for their child.  They’ll get much better results by spending most of their energy expressing their positive emotions towards their child by affirming their offsprings good qualities. The same principle works when you are dealing with changing your own behaviors.  Stop berating yourself about what’s not working.  Structure some small new behaviors into your life that can be easily accomplished.  Then give yourself generous amounts of accolades for having accomplished those first steps. Tell yourself that your initial success is ample proof of your abilities to ultimately reach your goals.  Constantly remind yourself that you have some terrific character strengths that will enable you to maintain your energy to tackle the two-steps forward, one-step back change process. When thinking of the past, remember the times you made your greatest gains.  Your pride was derived from overcoming your toughest challenges.  Focus on the steps to success that you used during those times. When your faith is tested, turn to the higher power for support.  Consider Albert Einstein’s advice, “When the solution is simple, God is answering.”   Tom Muha is a psychologist in Annapolis. He welcomes your comments and questions. To contact him call (443) 454-7274 or email him at tom@achievinghappiness.com.