This video, titled "Positivity Builds Stronger Habits," by Deb Ford, discusses how having a positive outlook can help you achieve your New Year's resolutions and other goals. It explains the "Happiness Advantage," a concept from Harvard research that shows positivity improves creativity, productivity, and overall well-being. The video also provides practical steps to become more positive, such as practicing daily gratitude, using "noise canceling" meditation, and the "doubler" technique to reinforce positive experiences. Additionally, it covers how to create an environment that supports good habits and manage stress more effectively.
Key Takeaways
1
Being more positive can make your goals and resolutions "stickier" and easier to achieve.
2
Thinking positively can lead to a 31% higher productivity, 23% lower stress, and a 40% increased chance of promotion, according to Harvard researcher Shawn Achor.
3
Positive people are more likely to see opportunities, while negative people might miss them even when they are obvious.
4
Happy people generally live longer, are healthier, have stronger hearts, better immune systems, and less disease.
5
To become more positive, practice daily gratitude by writing down three new, specific positive things that happened in the last 24 hours.
6
Implement "noise canceling" by setting an alarm for mini-meditations where you focus on your breath and gratitude, which helps quiet a cluttered mind.
7
Use the "doubler" technique by spending two minutes writing down detailed descriptions of one positive experience from the past day to strengthen the memory and brain's connection to joy.
8
Create strategies for success by making good habits easier and bad habits harder, like hiding the TV remote or preparing healthy food in advance.
9
Change your language from "I'm going to try" to "I don't do" for habits you want to quit (e.g., "I don't do sugar"), which can increase your success rate by 80%.
10
Surround yourself with people who support your goals and best self, as good habits and success are contagious.
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0:01
good morning and welcome to the new
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year's edition of today's nutrition
0:06
where we look at what is new in research
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what's hot in the news or any topic that
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can help us lose weight be healthier or
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live longer better well it's a a week
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into the new year and did you make any
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New Year's resolutions or did you break
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them already well this is the show for
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you today I'm going to help you be more
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positive and show you how those
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resolutions can be stickier if you are
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more positive you know and I love New
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Year's resolutions it's like a fresh
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year a new calendar yeah it's a blank
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slate blessings new possibilities that
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are so inspiring every year I design my
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year to be the best one yet right past
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is over and done eyes forward the future
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is yet to be written by you why not I
1:00
don't know about you but I don't want to
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just sit back and just see what gets
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thrown my way I want to set my eyes for
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something and do what it takes to get
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there like aim and fire I I don't maybe
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hit the exact goal but as someone once
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said if you aim for the Stars you will
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at least hit the moon and that's not
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shabby it's progress so today I'm going
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to talk to you about the Happiness
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Advantage
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when it comes to goal setting and how to
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use it to help make more progress
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towards your goals and it's all about
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positive
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psychology positive psychology it's a
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tool that not only can help us flourish
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and be more likely to succeed but also
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to help cope with the difficult times in
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life cuz we all have them we never no
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one ever gets out of this without some
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stress so there's this Harvard
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researcher and he's a super popular
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lecturer at Harvard his name is Shan
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acor New York Times bestseller author of
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The Happiness Advantage and big
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potential he gives us this research
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thinking positively triples your
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creativity it gives you
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31% higher productivity 23% lower stress
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25% greater
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performance 40% more likely to get a
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promotion and how about this
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19% more likely for a doctor to give the
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right
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diagnosis we want our doctors to
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practice positivity
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right it's amazing to see how the world
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the way we see it can affect our life
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and and here's like a weird one if you
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think
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people are lucky if if a person thinks
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that they're lucky they really are when
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positive people well they see more
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opportunities in fact negative people
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can look at the same information and
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when they watch their eyes track over
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the material negative people don't even
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see the opportunity it can be there bold
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as can be positive people will see it
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and can act on it negative people don't
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even see it even though it's right there
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so thinking positively act actually
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helps us see the opportunity and that's
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a super competitive Advantage happiness
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leads to success because you're going to
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see the opportunities and be able to act
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on it at New Year's positive people look
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at it as a chance to set goals and
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design a plan to achieve them and how
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about health and happiness
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Journal of health and well-being there
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was a review of over 100 research
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articles happy people live longer and
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are
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healthier the heart is stronger less
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inflammation in the blood vessels the
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immune system works better they have
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less disease they have less aches and
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pains on the opposite negative States
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people that are chronically negative
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looking at the glass half empty well
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that down regulates the health of the
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body down regulates the immune system up
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regulates the inflammatory compounds
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which is also going to affect
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cardiovascular situations more apt to
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have blood pressure problems on and on
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so how do we get more
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positive well some people may have a
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little genetic
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Advantage but that can change at any
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time because of what we know it is the
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environment of around those genes that
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turn them on and turn them off you know
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that's the epigenetic effect and your
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mind is one of the biggest epigenetic
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tools we
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have even at 84
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years they can help a person with just a
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little bit of work rewrite their
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negative default and here's how it goes
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there's like three three like
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easy quick little things that are doable
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that can change everything first thing
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gratitude daily gratitude writing down
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three new things over the last 24 hours
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that has happened to you University of
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Pennsylvania found that doing this 21
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days later the optimism score was super
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high key is it had had to be new didn't
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have to be big didn't didn't matter big
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or small didn't matter but it had to be
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specific so you know you couldn't just
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be grateful for your kids you had to be
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grateful for that hug that somebody gave
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you and then a sentence around it that's
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going to train the brain to scan for
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positive things so three things over the
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last 24 hours three new things okay and
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then write a sentence about
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second thing what they call noise
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cancelling and I've started to do this I
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really like it so you set an alarm for a
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couple times a day and it's like just a
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little mini meditation you're still you
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focus on your breath you Center You
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observe
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inhale positive things exhale gratitude
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for life when the W mind wanders you
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just bring it back to gratitude
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this works because when the mind is
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cluttered you know scattering here there
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everywhere it's actually sensing danger
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and it's constantly scanning for what
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can go wrong keeps you in the fight ORF
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flight in the stress response by
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cancelling out it's a super powerful
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habit you know I set a real Pleasant
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alarm not one of those n n on the phone
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I I set just a real Pleasant music music
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on my phone and several times a day and
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it helps to remind me to do the reset so
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what is the noise that we want to be
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canceling out you know if it's useful if
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it's timely it's good but if it's
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hypothetical it's distracting to
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happiness it's noise and they' actually
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found that it can change the gamma waves
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in the brain so these things are
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measurable it's it's not woooo it's I
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love how science has just proven all
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this stuff okay the third thing it's
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what they call the doubler so you think
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of one positive experience you've had in
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the last day 24 hours for 2 minutes you
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write down as many details as you can
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about that experience what were you
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wearing what did they say what color was
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the room what color were their shoes was
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the Sun out was it cloudy the brain
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stamps it in stronger and it really
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helps the brain to connect the dots and
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really
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underscore happiness and joy you know so
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I I I challenge you to do some of these
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things three boy you're just on the fast
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track but daily gratitude three new
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things noise counseling and the doubler
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it's amazing how fast the brain can
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actually rewire so how do you stay in a
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positive environment when you're
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surrounded by
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negativity you know if you're exposed to
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just 3 minutes of negative news in the
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morning you have a 27% increased risk of
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describing your day as unhappy so don't
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do that second thing if you pay whatever
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you pay attention to has big impact so
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personally I choose only to allow good
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things in devotions affirmations reading
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something inspirational something that
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is going to help your heart to
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grow that's big cuz you know negative
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people are just people who are suffering
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they actually do put out negative
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phermones that's why it affects the
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entire environment so you may need to
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strategically Retreat put a little
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distance between some of those negative
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people you know maybe maybe move your
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chair where you don't have to be looking
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at somebody in your office that maybe be
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triggering some things you know so
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anyway one of the biggest obstacles for
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keeping moving forward to these New
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Year's habits is to think you don't have
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time when you don't have time how do you
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still how do you instill these new
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habits any new habit even thinking
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positively when you think you don't have
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time because new habits you know they
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have what they call an activ
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energy the initial push
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and you talk about willpower whatever as
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the day goes on you lose your capacity
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to have willpower so by the time you
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come home at the end of the day your
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willpower is remarkably less than when
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you first start out in the day so we
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want to make it
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easier easier to keep doing what you
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want to do and you know in my programs I
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call it
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putting putting together these
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strategies for success you know so if
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you want to watch less TV hide the
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remote maybe don't have the TV front and
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center if you want to drink more water
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set it out if you want to change what
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you eat clean out the cupboard maybe
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make a a menu for the week fix the food
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ahead of time make good habits easier
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bad habits harder sounds simple it
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works how about you're super stressed
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you know we talk about how stress has a
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huge impact on our life well it really
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does impact impact our immune system and
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our cognitive help you know health and
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and you know it's interesting if people
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perceive the stress as good it's going
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to have 23% less effect isn't that
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interesting so however you see it
12:00
acknowledge it and own it see the
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meaning in it and then redirect the
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emotional response so that you're
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looking at the Sunny Side so okay I
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sprained my ankle I acknowledge that I
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can't do my normal exercise so I see the
12:19
meaning of it okay well can't be doing
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what I normally do so redirect what
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you're going to do I can do other things
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you know as just all about how you look
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at it so I'll bet there's some area in
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your life you want to improve a goal you
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want to check off this year rather than
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having it on the same list next year so
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I'm going to focus on a health goal here
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but it could be an academic goal a
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business goal a family goal
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anything you don't want to make it
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something that you're ignored till the
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next first week of January next year so
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to accomplish a goal you have to have
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good things things you want to be doing
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every day routines that support the goal
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like improved health so I I like to
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watch and follow Robin Sharma he's the
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author of the 5 a. Clum club and also
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the monk who sold his Ferrari and he's
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got a whole bunch of what we call Micro
13:17
habits and that those micro habits are
13:21
fabulous you know and he also talks
13:23
about this Keystone habit the one habit
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that raises all the other habits so it
13:29
could be committing to exercise even if
13:32
it's just 5 minutes every morning your
13:34
day hinges on that or it could be you
13:38
know taking a digital Sabbath a day free
13:41
of Technology whoa that's really nice or
13:44
walking a certain amount of steps every
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day don't make it so big that it's
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unachievable make it just 1% better
13:53
every day one of the things I loved to
13:56
do a few years ago and I'm doing it
13:57
again is every night before I go to bed
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I have my yoga mat right there and I do
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a plank every day I add 1 second doesn't
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seem like much but by the end of the
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month that's 30 more seconds you know
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two months that's another minute so you
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just keep going I love it so you know
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micro steps um and one I think a big
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thing is is to stop thinking of yourself
14:28
like a victim you know that I think that
14:32
is really important it's it's the take
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charge kind of thing um you
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know how we look at things is really
14:42
important there is
14:45
the and this this was really an
14:48
interesting bit of research that when
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somebody says I don't do you know if you
14:53
would talk to somebody that quit smoking
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they are a
14:58
nonsmoker
14:59
it's not like they're trying to quit
15:01
because if you try you're giving
15:03
yourself an out every time it's it's
15:06
what I call a wimpy word but if you
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don't do pop if you don't do sugar you
15:15
are increasing your success rate by
15:20
80% the Wimpy I'm going to try I hope I
15:24
can I'm working on it if you instead say
15:30
I don't do
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overwhelm I don't do
15:36
stress that's pretty good you know I I
15:40
really like that don't do the overwhelm
15:42
using positive words you know like I was
15:45
saying before we need to use these
15:47
positive powerful words because our
15:50
brain is listening to what we're saying
15:53
if we're telling ourselves over and over
15:55
again we're a stress eater you're an
15:57
emotional eater what you you think
15:59
you're going to do the next time you're
16:01
stressed your brain is going to send you
16:03
for what it is being told but instead
16:07
you know think of yourself as a positive
16:10
strong person that's a biggie you know
16:14
maybe just do
16:16
that and you're going to increase your
16:18
success rate by
16:21
80% love it there's so many things but I
16:25
had a client recently that was in
16:27
management and she wanted to keep
16:30
working on sealing in her exercise habit
16:34
so to increase her daily movement she
16:37
implemented an exercise challenge at
16:39
work for anybody who wanted to
16:41
participate yay she knew she had goals
16:44
and the best way to achieve those goals
16:47
was to surround herself with others who
16:49
were wanting to go in the same direction
16:52
success is contagious research shows
16:56
that good habits are contagious but so
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are bad ones keep that in mind when
17:02
you're hanging out with people do they
17:04
support your best self or do they
17:07
support your bad habits and lack of
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goals little habits build amazing
17:13
results they're like the little hinges
17:16
that swing that big
17:18
door one last thing that I have to say
17:21
that setting goals accountability is a
17:24
powerful tool I I used to dislike that
17:27
term a lot but no more accountability
17:30
absolutely pushes us to be better to not
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give up to focus on the better
17:36
possibility so if you need a help with
17:38
that accountability I absolutely will be
17:40
your best friend pushing you forward go
17:42
to my be my website de.com sign up for a
17:45
program shoot me an email and we have a
17:48
solution for your challenge hope you
17:52
have a happy healthy New Year and I hope
17:55
I gave you some H some tips that will
17:57
help you or someone you love as always
18:00
have a wonderful day and matter of fact
18:03
have a terrific new year
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Positivity Builds Stronger Habits
Deb Ford DCN RDN
8 views
Jan 24, 2024
18:06
Did you make any new year’s resolutions? Did you break them already? Well this is the show for you today. I am going to help you be more positive and that can make these resolutions more ‘sticky’.