Did you know you have SUPERPOWERS? Yep, you do...
Though they don’t have a cape, underpants or a tight bum, Joy, Love, Awe, Gratitude and their accompanying positive friends that your ultimate SUPERPOWERS. It isn’t chronic stress and pressure that lead to optimal performance. Rather positive emotions simply make us nicer to each other and more open to learn. And you can intentionally grow them and feel them more each day.
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Who doesn’t want to feel happier, more connected and more hopeful about the future? Right now, it’s a great idea to flood every brain, classroom and home full of joy, laughter and good humour.
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We aren’t asking you to be Pollyanna as you may need a lobotomy to feel positive all the time. So called “negative" or more difficult emotions are completely normal too and help us focus on threats or challenges. Unfortunately, too many negative emotions can make us feel anxious and exhausted, and problems become bigger than they need to be. NOW is the time to cultivate our inner SUPERPOWERS as the perfect antidote to months of adapting, isolating and worrying about what might happen next.
Which of the following 7 steps will you action to invite more of JOY and her SUPERHERO GANG into your life, home or class?
1. Start by allowing yourself to slow down and prioritise JOY for you, your family and classroom. As a society we’ve become quite addicted to stress, as if somehow feeling constant pressure and overwhelm is the key to achievement. In reality, we are ALL more efficient and creative when we work in focused sprints with relaxed and happy recharge points throughout the day. We might need to collectively Marie Kondo our lives and allow ourselves to prioritise joy, happiness and fun. Yes, it’s actually optimal.
ACTION: Ask yourself, “If JOY were my priority how would I go about my day?” List 3 things that make you and the children in your life laugh out loud. Create an opportunity every day for 3 intentional Happy Breaks of 10 minutes each (silly activities like thumb wrestling are perfect.) Prioritise them as non-negotiable and enjoy them.
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2. Gratitude changes your entire body chemistry for the better! In Reboot we use the Lucky Heart as a daily routine to focus on the positives. There is at least a nickel-lining in every situation and interaction, the more you focus on them the easier they are to find.
ACTION: Embed an “I’m so lucky…” routine into your life, classroom or home using our Lucky Heart (image above.) Try to find 5 things every other day that you fee grateful for. I feel so lucky to be where I am with my peeps right now.
3. Even Dad jokes are OK. When people laugh we bond closer to each other and feel safer. Encourage laughter with a funny opener to learning sessions, seeking out comedies and people who make you laugh and feel good. Positive emotions open up the brain to new learning as we feel more safe and motivated to explore new people, ideas, and situations (Friedreikson, 2001.) Instead of narrowing our focus as ‘negative’ emotions do, the ‘happy’ neurochemicals affect our brains in ways that increase our awareness, attention, and memory. Positive emotions are an ideal way to marinate the brain for new synaptic connections.
ACTION: Collect 3 funny images and a film clip to show your class or children at home. Use whatever appropriate humour you have and encourage spontaneous laughter as a norm.
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4. Streamline your morning. A cruisy and enjoyable morning sets you up for a great day. If we rush around in the morning, struggling to get everyone ready we tricky a cascade of stress hormones and pressure that are hard to turn down once work has started. Pro Tip: no kid ever died of embarrassment arriving to school in PJs, they just didn’t do it again.
ACTION: Experiment by getting prepared the night before for a positive day. Prepare the night before, pack your bags, choose your clothes, put things in the car, get the breakfast stuff out and make the morning as smooth as possible. Set up for the next day at work by writing up your priorities and pulling out all equipment or items you might need.
5. Build your Wall of Awesome! Images of times that you loved and had fun invoke those emotions in you again. Gather up images and trinkets gathered from positive experiences, engagement and connections and create a screen saver or physical collage. Just looking at these images can set the tone of your day or boost you up when you most need it. If you are happy at work chances are you will feel more capable and greater job and workplace satisfaction (Schutte, 2014.)
ACTION: Gather up 10 images of time that you really enjoyed. Create digital collage or slideshow of these and use them as rolling screen savers on your devices.
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6. Weed, seed and feed the relationships in your life. Toxic relationships and people stuck on a negativity loop are an epic drain on your positivity. While it’s important to support those close to us when they need it, some people enjoy their own drama and want everyone around them to fall into their black hole of self-focused tragedy. THIS IS EXHAUSTING. Try weeding out relationships that leave you losing your will to go on and start actively feeding the relationships that leave you energised and excited about life. Hang with the positive among us as positive emotions are contagious and create a kind of ripple effect (Linley, Joseph, Maltby, Harrington, & Wood, 2009.)
ACTION: dedicate 2 x 10 minutes a day to intentionally connect or be kind with people that you really enjoy being with. Reach out in person or virtually and invest in the creation of a positive relationship. Kindness feeds positivity and positivity feeds kindness.
7. Play, play, play! No one has to teach little kids how to play. It’s a part of our DNA, a part that many adults have done their best to squash. Play leaves us feeling relaxed and positive and positive emotions supercharge our ability to cope with stress, recover after stress (Ong, Bergeman, Bisconti, & Wallace, 2006, Tugade, Fredrickson & Barrett, 2004) and improve our resilience (Cohn, 200x.) When we feel positively, we are more optimistic and can find more solutions to our problems. We feel more confident about our abilities and are more likely to give things a go. The power to be positive is in our hands. It’s our ultimate SUPERPOWER and gives us the boost of optimism and joy we need sometimes to keep going in the marathon of life. Remember to feed your Wild Brain first and then shove over the other stuff to make room for joy, fun, friendship, relaxation, gratitude, and kindness.
For more check out Positivity (2009) by Barbara Fredrickson.
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