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How to Succeed at Failure

Three takeaways:

  1. This article provides practical advice on turning a major disappointment or failure into a life-defining opportunity for personal growth.
  2. A first step is realizing that “ruminating over a failure keeps it front and center and can lead to catastrophizing” – making it much more drastic in your mind than it is in reality. This can lead you to depression and anxiety, and then more failure.
  3. Brooks offers three handy tips for contextualizing failure in a productive way, based on conversations with Xiaodong D. Lin, a professor of cognitive studies at Columbia University’s Teachers College who has spent decades studying human failure.
    • Think About Other’s Past Failures (As Well as Your Own)– One must take the time to remember that even the most successful people have failed and slipped up countless times. At the same time, analytically breaking down your own failures can lead to a sense of control and understanding that alleviates frustration.
    • Stop Angling for Success– Chasing success above all else is a mistake. Remember that perfection is unattainable, and you will learn gradually to see the progress in each setback- and that the sting of failure is temporary.
    • Keep Your Ideals Front and Center– Nobel Prize winners do not set out to win the Nobel Prize. They set out to solve specific problems. To make new discoveries. A failure committed in the pursuit of a goal or purpose will more easily translate to productive learning.
    • People who pursue a greater sense of well being find meaning, learning, and purpose in their failures– using them to grow stronger and more effective.

From Arthur C. Brooks at The Atlantic:
Read the whole story.

Note: At the time of this posting The Atlantic offers five free article views per month.

This site may contain links to articles or other information that may be contained on a third-party website. Advisory Services Network, LLC and MAP Strategic Wealth Advisors are not responsible for and do not control, adopt, or endorse any content contained on any third party website. The information and material contained in linked articles is of a general nature and is intended for educational purposes only. Links to articles do not constitute a recommendation or a solicitation or offer of the purchase or sale of securities.

The Difference Between Hope and Optimism

Four takeaways:

  1. People tend to use hope and optimism as synonyms, but that isn’t accurate. A 2004 paper from The Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology determined that “hope focuses more directly on the personal attainment of specific goals, whereas optimism focuses more broadly on the expected quality of future outcomes in general.”
  2. In other words, Optimism is “the belief that things will turn out all right,” an assumption that Hope does not make. Hope is more powerful, “a conviction that one can act to make things better in some way.”
  3. Hope involves personal agency, and thus is more practical and linked to individual success. In 2013, researchers defining hope as “having the will and finding the way” found that high-hope employees are 28 percent more likely to be successful at work and 44 percent more likely to enjoy good health and well-being.
  4. Brooks lays out three steps to maximizing the practical value of your sense of hope:
    • Imagine a Better Future, and Detail What Makes It So
    • Envision Yourself Taking Action
    • Act!

From Arthur C. Brooks at The Atlantic:
Read the whole story.

Note: At the time of this posting The Atlantic offers five free article views per month.

This site may contain links to articles or other information that may be contained on a third-party website. Advisory Services Network, LLC and MAP Strategic Wealth Advisors are not responsible for and do not control, adopt, or endorse any content contained on any third party website. The information and material contained in linked articles is of a general nature and is intended for educational purposes only. Links to articles do not constitute a recommendation or a solicitation or offer of the purchase or sale of securities.

The Stories That Bind Us

Five takeaways:

  1. This article asks– what practical steps can we do to make families function more harmoniously?
  2. The single most important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of all: develop a strong family narrative.
  3. Psychologist Marshall Duke developed the “Do You Know” test to predict childhood happiness and future success in young people; they found that the more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned.
  4. Dr. Duke said that children who have the most self-confidence have a strong sense of “intergenerational self.” They know they belong to something bigger than themselves.
  5. A family is more likely to be successful and harmonious if it tells a positive story about itself. Families need to “create, refine, and retell” this narrative to be able to bounce back from difficult moments or periods.

An interesting 2013 piece from Bruce Feiler at The New York Times:
Read the whole story.

Note: At the time of this posting New York Times offers ten free article views per month.

This site may contain links to articles or other information that may be contained on a third-party website. Advisory Services Network, LLC and MAP Strategic Wealth Advisors are not responsible for and do not control, adopt, or endorse any content contained on any third party website. The information and material contained in linked articles is of a general nature and is intended for educational purposes only. Links to articles do not constitute a recommendation or a solicitation or offer of the purchase or sale of securities.

Are We Trading Our Happiness for Modern Comforts?

Five takeaways:

  1. Here Brooks points out that while average household income risen over time, average happiness has fallen. Why?
  2. The General Social Survey has been measuring social trends among Americans since 1972, and shows a rise in unhappiness from 1988 to the present– despite many metrics showing an increase in quality of life.
  3. Brooks reminds us that although material comforts can provide a thrill or sense of security, they do not inject life with meaning.
  4. The rise of technology, similarly, promised a utopian vision of a happy and thrilling future; it has not delivered on that promise at all- in fact making us less happy and more socially isolated.
  5. Brooks offers three principles for warding off a life of empty consumption: 1. Don’t make frivolous, short-sighted purchases 2. Be skeptical of government or big tech companies whose sustenance involves taking your attention, winning your vote, and separating you from your money. 3. Don’t trade love for anything: love is the leading indicator of happiness known to man. It is never to be taken for granted and completely irreplaceable.

From Arthur C. Brooks at The Atlantic:
Read the whole story.

Note: At the time of this posting The Atlantic offers five free article views per month.

This site may contain links to articles or other information that may be contained on a third-party website. Advisory Services Network, LLC and MAP Strategic Wealth Advisors are not responsible for and do not control, adopt, or endorse any content contained on any third party website. The information and material contained in linked articles is of a general nature and is intended for educational purposes only. Links to articles do not constitute a recommendation or a solicitation or offer of the purchase or sale of securities.
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