哈佛公开课《Positive Psychology 1504》学习笔记 -- Beliefs
4
Beliefs
4.1 Beliefs shape reality
4.1.1 Notes
1. Beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies. Very often they determine how we perform, how well or how poorly we perform. They often determine how good or not so good our relationships are. They are the No. 1 predictor of life success as well as wellbeing.
2. They appreciated that potential and that potential appreciated. They watered, they shed a light to it and the seed germinated and grew.
3. Shift their attention to something that was there all along.
4. It works-- beliefs as self-fulfilling prophecies. We create our reality.
5. Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be, and he shall become as he can and should be.
4.1.2 Thinking
相信自己，相信他人，善于挖掘自己、他人的潜能，怀抱信念去努力。如果自己不相信自己或他人，这种潜意识会成为事情成功的最大障碍。如果连自己都不相信，又怎么可能会变成现实呢？
Treat a man as he can and should be, and he shall become as he can and should be.
4.2 How it works – The power of situation
4.2.1 The power of situation
6. Last time we talked about the power of the situation, we talk about how beliefs become self -fulfilling prophesies. And how it is through the situation that we very often create expectations, believes of people. And these believes become reality.
7. OK, so we know that the situation is powerful. We know that it makes a difference. Can we also create a powerful, positive situation to bring out the best in people? And the answer is yes.
8. Priming means planting a seed, planting a belief, planting a word, or a picture in our mind, consciously or subconsciously. And how that actually influences our behavior.
4.2.2 How to create positive environment
4.2.2.1 NOTES
9. The question then is, how can we create a positive environment for ourselves, where we are primed by the positive, where we can be happier, more successful and so on.
10. Have pictures of people you love or places you love, the importance of these things is that even if you don't see them, you see them. So on the subconscious level it's still there. So have pictures of people you love, have pleasant object, whether it's memorabilia, whether it's flowers, whether it's art, your favorite art.
11. Have these things on your wall create(s) the environment where you feel warm, where it's fun for you to be there.
12. I have on my wall a list of quotes and they are there even if I don't see them, I see them. And they prime me, they remind me, they create the environment for me.
13. Have you favorite books next to you.
14. Listen to music, but listen to it mindfully, not just as background music but the music that inspires you, whether it's rocky, whether it's Eminem, whoever it is.
15. Watch films that inspire you.
16. All these things help you to create an environment that is conducive to growth, to success, to well being. A lot of this is done on the subconscious level which is the power of the priming.
17. And finally this is what positive research is about. If we constantly focus on "negative" research, anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, we are primed by this research, we are primed by this work. And it creates reality.
18. You know, this indirectly and conjunctionally relates to, some of you may know, the Isenberg principle, is that when you measure a phenomenon, you are changing the phenomenon; when you are measuring a phenomenon, you are also changing yourself. So by researching the positive we are also priming ourselves with the positive.
4.2.2.2 Thinking
当我们研究或关注正能量，事实上我们也会被正能量所影响。创造一个让自己感觉愉悦、积极的环境，我们的潜意识也会因为这而改变，最直接的方式就是将家或办公桌收拾成自己喜欢的样子，比如保持干净整洁，在墙上挂自己喜欢的照片或图画，在桌子上摆放自己喜欢的东西，在书桌上放基本自己喜欢的书，欣赏让自己享受的音乐或电影，买几件自己喜欢的衣服，做自己喜欢的发型，多往乐观积极的方面去考虑问题等等，都会让自己的心情受到影响，心态也会随之改变。
同样地，当我们用积极的心态和别人去沟通和交流，当我们多鼓励和欣赏对方，对方也会因此也改变。
4.2.3 Self-help movement books
4.2.3.1 NOTES
19. we create the world through our thinking, that our mind creates the world.
20. "Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve."
21. "Whether you think you can or can't, you are right."
22. “Have great hopes and dare to go all out for them. Have great dreams and dare to live them. Have tremendous expectations and believe in them.
23. No.1 best seller all over the world, that's right, The Secret. The secret to success is, what they call, the law of attraction. The law of attraction is that you attract to your life whatever you imaging ,whatever you believe it.
24. And people were drawn to this message. Why? Because it's empowering, because it makes them feel that things are possible.
25. And here is the issue, with much of what's going on in the self-help today, self-help realm today, it draws on a truth, a real truth and then blows it out of proportion. So yes, there is some truth in the fact that our mind creates reality. But that's only part of the truth. We create reality or rather we co-create reality.
26. If you believe that you are likely to succeed, you are much more likely to succeed. But that has to come with a lot of hard work and persistence, it has to come with a lot of failure, and learning from that failure.
27. So it's just half of the equation and what these self-help books and messages do is overpromise and under-deliver, which at times can be destructive.
4.2.3.2 Thinking
所谓的相信自己，所谓的信念，是在事实的基础上，怀抱希望去努力，而不只是没有行动的想。只有想法没有行动是毫无意义的，否则，如果是只要每个人都相信自己能行就能行，世上怎么会有难事呢？
If you believe that you are likely to succeed, you are much more likely to succeed. But that has to come with a lot of hard work and persistence, it has to come with a lot of failure, and learning from that failure.
4.2.4 The power of the mind
28. "Beliefs in personal efficacy affect life choices, level of motivation, quality of functioning, resilience to adversity and vulnerability to stress and depression." Those you believe in themselves, who have confidence, do well across the different areas in their lives.
29. "People who regard themselves as highly efficacious act, think, and feel differently from those who perceive themselves as inefficacious. They produce their own future, rather than simply foretell it."
30. In other words, what he's talking about here is that these people are scribed in their lives. They create their own lives as oppose to those that are being prescribed by others. They are more resilient, better able to deal with hardships and difficulties. In other words, better capacity as we discussed earlier to deal with difficulties.
31. Believing in oneself can be learned. It's cultivated over time.
32. "the level of our self-esteem, in another words, the level of our belief in ourselves, has profound consequences for every aspect of our existence: how we operate in the workplace, how we deal with people, how high we are likely to rise, how much we are likely to achieve and, in the personal realm, with whom we are likely to fall in love, how we interact with our spouse, children, and friends, what level of personal happiness we attain."
33. Very low levels of correlation between material affluence and wellbeing, or between where we live and wellbeing, very high correlation between self-esteem and wellbeing.
34. So self-esteem matters. The internal matters and what we are doing when we enhance when we raise our levels of belief in ourselves is we are transforming our mind, we are changing the form, so that we see we interact, we see the world differently, we perceive different things, we experience things in a different way. Whether it’s successes that we then celebrate, or failures that we then learn from and turn into opportunities.
4.2.5 How beliefs create reality
4.2.5.1 Notes
What comes, what mediate between beliefs, expectations and actual performance in the real world?
? Motivation:
35. The first one is very straight forward, relatively simple, it’s motivation.
36. So, if I believe that I can do well, and think about your own past experiences, when you believe that you could do well in something, you are much more likely to be motivated than if you think that you are hopeless and have no chance, you are much more likely to resign and not do anything. You are much more likely to be motivated before the event whatever the event may be, in training, in practice, as well as during the event, while it’s taking place. Because they were motivated, they worked hard. So motivation makes a difference.
? Consistency:
37. There is another thing though, in addition to motivation, and that is the notion of consistency or congruence.
38. We all have a mental schema of the world, a mental schema of the way the world should be, or to be or is. This is inside, the schema.
39. And then, there is the outside world. In the outside world, actual things take place. This is, has nothing to do with my schema. It’s outside. It happens regardless of my schema.
40. So there is what’s inside and what is outside, and here is the key point. The mind likes when there is consistency, congruence between the two, and if there is no congruence, if there is no consistency, then we experience a sense of dissidence, then we experience disease.
41. Doesn’t feel good, doesn’t feel right and we do, very often, everything that we can to get the two on par again. Either by changing the external reality or by changing our mind to match the external reality. We don’t like when there is inconsistency.
42. There are a few ways in which we can create this consistency again.
43. This is the first thing we can do - update schema.
44. The second thing that we do, which happens much more often than the first one, is ignore or discard in external information. We ignore and discard external information that doesn’t match our schema.
45. The third thing we do, we actively seek confirmation. We actively seek confirmatory data.
46. The fourth thing is much more directly, creating a new reality.
? Interpretation:
47. The thing though is, that after we perform with high motivation, low motivation might looking for consistency. All that is left us to do is interpret our performance. Was it successful or not successful, and good or bad?
48. And there are two forms of interpretation. One is the objective interpretation, this is the reality. It’s objective. But then, there is also the subjective interpretation based on my beliefs.
49. It wasn’t just sitting his room and saying, "I believe therefore I will achieve." It was I believe and I will work even harder now, with more motivation and so on.
? Beliefs Expectations:
50. The most successful people in history are also very often, the people who had failed the most times.
51. Learn to fail, or fail to learn, there is no other way to succeed.
52. There is no other way to learn, in terms of how to work, and there is no other way to learn in terms of learning how to succeed as scientist, or as a politician, or as an artist.
53. No short cuts. It’s not enough to just sit down and think, and conceive and believe. We need to do much more than that.
4.2.5.2 Thinking
信念为什么可以改变现实？当我们怀抱希望的时候，我们会更加有动力有激情去做事情。每个人的头脑中都会对某件事情的既定印象，当我们实际行动所产生的结果和我们所想像的不一样的时候，人的潜意识会让想法和实际变得一致，可能是改变原先的想法，也可能是去改变现实。对同一件事情，不同的人在不同的时候有不同的解读，信念、行动和努力，会影响事情的最终结果。
很多人的成功，除了有信念以外，还付出了锲而不舍的努力，从失败中学习和总结，使理想变成事实。
不要害怕失败和尝试，怀抱希望去努力，虽然最终也可能是失败，但是，如果一开始就否定，又怎么可能会有好的结果？
4.3 Optimizing optimism
4.3.1 NOTES
4.3.1.1 Be optimism
54. The optimist starts with high levels of beliefs, high levels of expectations, motivation, incredibly high. The mind looking for consistency, performance, not so good, not as good as the expectations were. In other words, unrealistic. However, the interpretation, because of high levels of beliefs, the subjective interpretation is, OK, so, what if I learn from it? This is an opportunity; I’ve actually got better this time. What if I learn? And they still have high levels of beliefs and high levels of expectations. Motivation is high ,the mind looks for consistency, they perform, still not good, not as good as they expected, unrealistic. But the interpretation, still, what if I learn from it? I’ve gone even better this time. I’ve shown what doesn’t work. And they continue.
55. But they believed that they can do it, and they continue to persist and to work hard again and again. 5 times,10 times, sometimes 5000 even 10000 times, until they bring the ―unrealistic reality‖ and make it realistic to match their beliefs over time. So even though in the short term, the reality may not match, I may run the mile for the next 10 years in 4 minutes and 12 seconds or 4 minutes and 2 seconds. But I’ll get there eventually and make my unrealistic ―expectations‖ and goals realistic. Through a lot of failure, through a lot of hard work, through a lot of persistence.
56. How do I interpret my failure? As end of the story, catastrophe, give it up? Or as an opportunity for success? So he distinguishes, and we'll talk about it more next time, he distinguishes between interpreting an event as permanent or temporary. What can I learn from it and how can I do better next time.
57. Learning to interpret events subjectively as optimists leads to much higher success.
58. Also it associated with social and physical mental health. For example, our immune system ,psychological and physical immune system is actually stronger as a result of being optimists.
59. Resilience levels, a lot of research by Karen Reivich shows that if you teach people to interpret things positively, optimistically, they are much more likely to succeed.
60. People who were taught optimistic interpretation style become happier, those who learn it are eight times less likely to experience depression.
61. People who learn to interpret things more positively actually live longer.
62. Optimism can be learned.
4.3.1.2 Realistic optimism
63. Now the thing is that you may be wrong at times. And sometimes you may really believe in something, and believe it that you have realistic expectations and not succeed. And as we’ll talk about in a few minutes, it doesn’t matter that much. Because even if we don't success we just bounce back up. And continue working hard. The key though is as much as possible, to attain this balance.
64. The Graceful Integration between high level of beliefs and connection to reality.
65. Positive thinking is not THE secret. Yes, it’s part of the secret. Yes, it’s part of the success formula. Yes, it’s part of the happiness formula. But it’s not all. False optimism sooner or later means disillusionment, anger and hopelessness.
4.3.1.3 The secret of success
66. The secret of success is optimism, passion and hard work. It’ll be very hard for you to find successful men and women through out history who did not have all three.
67. Optimism, belief, faith that they can do well, that they can succeed.
68. Passion, love for what they were doing.
69. And hard work. There is no substitute for hard work.
4.3.2 Thinking
对同一件事情，乐观的人和悲观的人有着完全不同的解读，当所设定的目标和预期不一致而经历失败的时候，乐观的人会将失败看成是临时的所遇到的困难，会去思考可以从失败中学到什么，从而使得事情往好的方向发展。
乐观的人更容易成功，面对困难更容易克服，也会更加健康。
但是，这也并意味着什么都持乐观的态度，也就是说要避免盲目乐观。因为人也有错误的时候，即使我们很乐观地相信某件事情，但是当这件事情历经证明不可能的时候，要懂得去分辨，懂得去平衡。
The secret of success is optimism, passion and hard work.
4.4 Raising our beliefs
4.4.1 How to increase the base level of well-being - Coping
4.4.1.1 Notes
70. The ups and downs around a base level of well-being. Now there is good news here and there is bad news here. The good news is I can take more risks. It’s not the end of world if she says no. It’s not the end of the world if I fail here or if I don’t get my dream job. It’s okay. I’ll recover. We all do. So that’s the good news. The bad news is…so I’m stuck? So I was born with this base level according to my genes and I can’t really improve? How do I raise this base level of happiness? And it’s possible. And we’ll talk about… the whole course is about raising the base level of happiness.
71. How can we raise that base level? One of the things is coping, putting ourselves on the line.
72. On one thing you can do right now when you get out of class to raise self-esteem and that is to cope as opposed to avoid. To cope meaning to put yourself on the line. To take risks not when you’re in your panic zone but when you’re in your stretch zone. To risk failure. To handle things, to deal things, to confront things that are important to you. To try out for that play. To speak out in session if you haven’t. To go out to a place where you really want to go but never really try. To try. Because people who cope overtime have the same or sometimes more ups and downs. But their ups and downs look like this. Still ups and downs. Permission to be human. But the base level increases.
73. By seeing myself behaving a certain way, I reach a conclusion about my self-esteem or benevolence or generosity or whatever it is. Self perception theory. And if I cope, if I try things out then I see that this is a person with courage. This is a person who tries. And my conclusion about myself would be I must have high self-esteem. And my self-esteem as well as happiness level overtime will actually increase. Meaning by looking at behavior.
74. When we fail after coping we realize that the actual pain that comes with failure is far less than the pain we imagine and that we associate with failure. I just got over it. Okay, so I didn’t do well in here or she said no. but I got over it. Whereas I imagine it in my mind I think it’ll last forever. Just like those tenured or not tenured professors thought that their pay will last forever whereas it goes away. So when I realize the pain of actual failure is far less than the pain associated with failure, I become more confident. I can handle it. I’m actually much more resilient than I thought I was. And my self-esteem increases. My happiness as a result increases too.
75. And finally there is more success because there is no other way to succeed. There is no other way in terms of learning how to walk. There is no other way in terms of succeeding in art or in science or in business or in politics. Learn to fail or fail to learn.
4.4.1.2 Thinking
人生有起有伏，不会一直处于高峰，也不会一直处于低谷。人的幸福感也是如此。我们不能因为害怕失败、害怕跌倒而不去尝试，而是应该去面对。努力突破自己，可能会受伤，但没有想像中那么可怕，这也是唯一的想要突破，想要提升的方法。
4.4.2 How do we become more of an optimism
So how do we become more of an optimism? I want to talk about three techniques. First is to take action, to just do it, to put ourselves on the line. Visualization, many of you are familiar with that, especially athletes as, as a technique. And finally, cognitive therapy, which at least according to research, is the most successful, most effective therapeutic intervention out there today
4.4.2.1 Take Action
NOTES
76. Rather than talk, we need action. We need to put hard work into whatever it is, we want to be more confident about, and we need to cope. We need to put ourselves on the line. Very simple!
77. Why? Because hard work and coping inevitably leads to success, more success at least than we had before, that success contributes to our self-efficacy, to our self confidence. And then, that self confidence in turns, in turn motivates us to work harder. We started to believe ourselves more.
78. One of the things that I wish for you is that you fail more. And, coupled with that, I hope that when you fail, you will also learn to interpret it in a different way than most of us usually interpret failure.
79. When we see ourselves cope, when we see ourselves work hard, we derive conclusions about ourselves, our self confidence goes up, our motivation goes up, our belief goes up and so on and so on in an upward spiral of growth.
Thinking
让自己更乐观、更自信的方法是行动起来去做自己想要做的事情，并且付出努力认真去做，遇到问题勇敢地去面对。因为努力会让成功变得更加可能，而成就感会增强自己的自信心和认同感，会让自己感觉更加愉悦，这也会成为继续努力的动力。
只有想没有做是没有用的。回想以往在学习和工作的过程中，其实，也是因为努力付出了，这种努力带来了某种程度上的成就感，从而又让自己感觉更加自信。
4.4.2.2 Imagining Success
NOTES
In other words, my brain does not know the difference between the real thing and the imaginary thing. Our imagination, least for the brain is no different than the real thing.
Now, when I imagine success, what happens in a sense is that this is the real thing between the real thing and the imaginary thing. Now if I imagine success over and over again in my mind, remember what the mind does not like is inconsistency. In other words, if I create success in my imagination and I persist with it, not just visualize it once or twice, but over and over again. And therefore, it will bring up the external reality to match this internal schema.
The key is to focused not just on the destination, visualize the journey as well as the destination, to visualize both your destination of getting there, your journey of getting there, as well as the destination itself.
Thinking
当我们渴望某件事情成功的时候，可以去想像通过怎样的努力成功了，成功之后的情景是怎样的。很关键的一点是，不能只是想像成功的瞬间，还需要想像成功的过程，因为这样会促进自己去行功去付出，从而使得成功变成现实。
其实，这是很有道理的，因为从小到现在，自己一直会幻想某件事情实现之后是怎样，自己在某种情境下怎样处理问题、怎样努力，现在再回头看看，一路走过来，当自己怀抱希望去想像和努力的时候，事情更能往自己所希望的方向发展，而当自己只是埋头苦干或光想不做的时候，往往就很挫败。
4.4.2.3 Cognitive Therapy
NOTES
80. Its basic premise is that thoughts drive emotion.
81. So for example: there is an external event. I perceive that event, and what I do then after I perceive that event, there is evaluation of that event, in other words, a thought about that event. And then, as a result of that thought, that evokes an emotion.
82. Event ,evaluation, thought, emotion, and then that leads to action.
83. What cognitive therapy says is that if we want to change emotions where we need to intervene is here, is that the level of evaluation and the level of thought. And if we can change that, we also change our emotion.
84. Specifically, what cognitive therapy saying is that we need to restore sense of rationality, a very important try out coming up and I get nervous. Cognitive therapy is not saying stop feeling nervous, but what it is saying is that sometimes our thoughts are irrational.
85. That event led to an irrational thought, irrational evaluation of the situation. It was just once, it was temporary, and that led to difficult emotions such as resignation: nobody will ever want me again. And what cognitive therapy does is just restore but, you know they are, what? 3200 other men at Harvard.
86. Where do I distort the reality? Where do I have distortion in terms of evaluation? That lead to certain negative emotions that are unnecessary, because if I restore rationality I will not feel the same emotion to the same degree.
87. 3Ms (Magnifying, Minimizing, Making up)
A. Magnifying (exaggerating)
- Permanent and Pervasive (over-generalizing)
- All-or-nothing thinking
B. Minimizing (underplaying)
- Tunnel vision
- Dismissal of positive or negative
C. Making up (fabricating)
- Personalization or blame
- Emotional reasoning
Thinking
当遇到挫败的时候，不要一直沉埋在这种压抑中，我们应该知道，每个人都会经历起伏，失败、痛苦是不可避免的，但也不是一直都会伴随的，它是临时性的、是部分的，而不是长久的、全局的。
我们可以换一种角度，用另一种心态理性地、客观地去看待，不夸大、不缩小、不捏造。
4.1 Beliefs shape reality
4.1.1 Notes
1. Beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies. Very often they determine how we perform, how well or how poorly we perform. They often determine how good or not so good our relationships are. They are the No. 1 predictor of life success as well as wellbeing.
2. They appreciated that potential and that potential appreciated. They watered, they shed a light to it and the seed germinated and grew.
3. Shift their attention to something that was there all along.
4. It works-- beliefs as self-fulfilling prophecies. We create our reality.
5. Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be, and he shall become as he can and should be.
4.1.2 Thinking
相信自己，相信他人，善于挖掘自己、他人的潜能，怀抱信念去努力。如果自己不相信自己或他人，这种潜意识会成为事情成功的最大障碍。如果连自己都不相信，又怎么可能会变成现实呢？
Treat a man as he can and should be, and he shall become as he can and should be.
4.2 How it works – The power of situation
4.2.1 The power of situation
6. Last time we talked about the power of the situation, we talk about how beliefs become self -fulfilling prophesies. And how it is through the situation that we very often create expectations, believes of people. And these believes become reality.
7. OK, so we know that the situation is powerful. We know that it makes a difference. Can we also create a powerful, positive situation to bring out the best in people? And the answer is yes.
8. Priming means planting a seed, planting a belief, planting a word, or a picture in our mind, consciously or subconsciously. And how that actually influences our behavior.
4.2.2 How to create positive environment
4.2.2.1 NOTES
9. The question then is, how can we create a positive environment for ourselves, where we are primed by the positive, where we can be happier, more successful and so on.
10. Have pictures of people you love or places you love, the importance of these things is that even if you don't see them, you see them. So on the subconscious level it's still there. So have pictures of people you love, have pleasant object, whether it's memorabilia, whether it's flowers, whether it's art, your favorite art.
11. Have these things on your wall create(s) the environment where you feel warm, where it's fun for you to be there.
12. I have on my wall a list of quotes and they are there even if I don't see them, I see them. And they prime me, they remind me, they create the environment for me.
13. Have you favorite books next to you.
14. Listen to music, but listen to it mindfully, not just as background music but the music that inspires you, whether it's rocky, whether it's Eminem, whoever it is.
15. Watch films that inspire you.
16. All these things help you to create an environment that is conducive to growth, to success, to well being. A lot of this is done on the subconscious level which is the power of the priming.
17. And finally this is what positive research is about. If we constantly focus on "negative" research, anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, we are primed by this research, we are primed by this work. And it creates reality.
18. You know, this indirectly and conjunctionally relates to, some of you may know, the Isenberg principle, is that when you measure a phenomenon, you are changing the phenomenon; when you are measuring a phenomenon, you are also changing yourself. So by researching the positive we are also priming ourselves with the positive.
4.2.2.2 Thinking
当我们研究或关注正能量，事实上我们也会被正能量所影响。创造一个让自己感觉愉悦、积极的环境，我们的潜意识也会因为这而改变，最直接的方式就是将家或办公桌收拾成自己喜欢的样子，比如保持干净整洁，在墙上挂自己喜欢的照片或图画，在桌子上摆放自己喜欢的东西，在书桌上放基本自己喜欢的书，欣赏让自己享受的音乐或电影，买几件自己喜欢的衣服，做自己喜欢的发型，多往乐观积极的方面去考虑问题等等，都会让自己的心情受到影响，心态也会随之改变。
同样地，当我们用积极的心态和别人去沟通和交流，当我们多鼓励和欣赏对方，对方也会因此也改变。
4.2.3 Self-help movement books
4.2.3.1 NOTES
19. we create the world through our thinking, that our mind creates the world.
20. "Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve."
21. "Whether you think you can or can't, you are right."
22. “Have great hopes and dare to go all out for them. Have great dreams and dare to live them. Have tremendous expectations and believe in them.
23. No.1 best seller all over the world, that's right, The Secret. The secret to success is, what they call, the law of attraction. The law of attraction is that you attract to your life whatever you imaging ,whatever you believe it.
24. And people were drawn to this message. Why? Because it's empowering, because it makes them feel that things are possible.
25. And here is the issue, with much of what's going on in the self-help today, self-help realm today, it draws on a truth, a real truth and then blows it out of proportion. So yes, there is some truth in the fact that our mind creates reality. But that's only part of the truth. We create reality or rather we co-create reality.
26. If you believe that you are likely to succeed, you are much more likely to succeed. But that has to come with a lot of hard work and persistence, it has to come with a lot of failure, and learning from that failure.
27. So it's just half of the equation and what these self-help books and messages do is overpromise and under-deliver, which at times can be destructive.
4.2.3.2 Thinking
所谓的相信自己，所谓的信念，是在事实的基础上，怀抱希望去努力，而不只是没有行动的想。只有想法没有行动是毫无意义的，否则，如果是只要每个人都相信自己能行就能行，世上怎么会有难事呢？
If you believe that you are likely to succeed, you are much more likely to succeed. But that has to come with a lot of hard work and persistence, it has to come with a lot of failure, and learning from that failure.
4.2.4 The power of the mind
28. "Beliefs in personal efficacy affect life choices, level of motivation, quality of functioning, resilience to adversity and vulnerability to stress and depression." Those you believe in themselves, who have confidence, do well across the different areas in their lives.
29. "People who regard themselves as highly efficacious act, think, and feel differently from those who perceive themselves as inefficacious. They produce their own future, rather than simply foretell it."
30. In other words, what he's talking about here is that these people are scribed in their lives. They create their own lives as oppose to those that are being prescribed by others. They are more resilient, better able to deal with hardships and difficulties. In other words, better capacity as we discussed earlier to deal with difficulties.
31. Believing in oneself can be learned. It's cultivated over time.
32. "the level of our self-esteem, in another words, the level of our belief in ourselves, has profound consequences for every aspect of our existence: how we operate in the workplace, how we deal with people, how high we are likely to rise, how much we are likely to achieve and, in the personal realm, with whom we are likely to fall in love, how we interact with our spouse, children, and friends, what level of personal happiness we attain."
33. Very low levels of correlation between material affluence and wellbeing, or between where we live and wellbeing, very high correlation between self-esteem and wellbeing.
34. So self-esteem matters. The internal matters and what we are doing when we enhance when we raise our levels of belief in ourselves is we are transforming our mind, we are changing the form, so that we see we interact, we see the world differently, we perceive different things, we experience things in a different way. Whether it’s successes that we then celebrate, or failures that we then learn from and turn into opportunities.
4.2.5 How beliefs create reality
4.2.5.1 Notes
What comes, what mediate between beliefs, expectations and actual performance in the real world?
? Motivation:
35. The first one is very straight forward, relatively simple, it’s motivation.
36. So, if I believe that I can do well, and think about your own past experiences, when you believe that you could do well in something, you are much more likely to be motivated than if you think that you are hopeless and have no chance, you are much more likely to resign and not do anything. You are much more likely to be motivated before the event whatever the event may be, in training, in practice, as well as during the event, while it’s taking place. Because they were motivated, they worked hard. So motivation makes a difference.
? Consistency:
37. There is another thing though, in addition to motivation, and that is the notion of consistency or congruence.
38. We all have a mental schema of the world, a mental schema of the way the world should be, or to be or is. This is inside, the schema.
39. And then, there is the outside world. In the outside world, actual things take place. This is, has nothing to do with my schema. It’s outside. It happens regardless of my schema.
40. So there is what’s inside and what is outside, and here is the key point. The mind likes when there is consistency, congruence between the two, and if there is no congruence, if there is no consistency, then we experience a sense of dissidence, then we experience disease.
41. Doesn’t feel good, doesn’t feel right and we do, very often, everything that we can to get the two on par again. Either by changing the external reality or by changing our mind to match the external reality. We don’t like when there is inconsistency.
42. There are a few ways in which we can create this consistency again.
43. This is the first thing we can do - update schema.
44. The second thing that we do, which happens much more often than the first one, is ignore or discard in external information. We ignore and discard external information that doesn’t match our schema.
45. The third thing we do, we actively seek confirmation. We actively seek confirmatory data.
46. The fourth thing is much more directly, creating a new reality.
? Interpretation:
47. The thing though is, that after we perform with high motivation, low motivation might looking for consistency. All that is left us to do is interpret our performance. Was it successful or not successful, and good or bad?
48. And there are two forms of interpretation. One is the objective interpretation, this is the reality. It’s objective. But then, there is also the subjective interpretation based on my beliefs.
49. It wasn’t just sitting his room and saying, "I believe therefore I will achieve." It was I believe and I will work even harder now, with more motivation and so on.
? Beliefs Expectations:
50. The most successful people in history are also very often, the people who had failed the most times.
51. Learn to fail, or fail to learn, there is no other way to succeed.
52. There is no other way to learn, in terms of how to work, and there is no other way to learn in terms of learning how to succeed as scientist, or as a politician, or as an artist.
53. No short cuts. It’s not enough to just sit down and think, and conceive and believe. We need to do much more than that.
4.2.5.2 Thinking
信念为什么可以改变现实？当我们怀抱希望的时候，我们会更加有动力有激情去做事情。每个人的头脑中都会对某件事情的既定印象，当我们实际行动所产生的结果和我们所想像的不一样的时候，人的潜意识会让想法和实际变得一致，可能是改变原先的想法，也可能是去改变现实。对同一件事情，不同的人在不同的时候有不同的解读，信念、行动和努力，会影响事情的最终结果。
很多人的成功，除了有信念以外，还付出了锲而不舍的努力，从失败中学习和总结，使理想变成事实。
不要害怕失败和尝试，怀抱希望去努力，虽然最终也可能是失败，但是，如果一开始就否定，又怎么可能会有好的结果？
4.3 Optimizing optimism
4.3.1 NOTES
4.3.1.1 Be optimism
54. The optimist starts with high levels of beliefs, high levels of expectations, motivation, incredibly high. The mind looking for consistency, performance, not so good, not as good as the expectations were. In other words, unrealistic. However, the interpretation, because of high levels of beliefs, the subjective interpretation is, OK, so, what if I learn from it? This is an opportunity; I’ve actually got better this time. What if I learn? And they still have high levels of beliefs and high levels of expectations. Motivation is high ,the mind looks for consistency, they perform, still not good, not as good as they expected, unrealistic. But the interpretation, still, what if I learn from it? I’ve gone even better this time. I’ve shown what doesn’t work. And they continue.
55. But they believed that they can do it, and they continue to persist and to work hard again and again. 5 times,10 times, sometimes 5000 even 10000 times, until they bring the ―unrealistic reality‖ and make it realistic to match their beliefs over time. So even though in the short term, the reality may not match, I may run the mile for the next 10 years in 4 minutes and 12 seconds or 4 minutes and 2 seconds. But I’ll get there eventually and make my unrealistic ―expectations‖ and goals realistic. Through a lot of failure, through a lot of hard work, through a lot of persistence.
56. How do I interpret my failure? As end of the story, catastrophe, give it up? Or as an opportunity for success? So he distinguishes, and we'll talk about it more next time, he distinguishes between interpreting an event as permanent or temporary. What can I learn from it and how can I do better next time.
57. Learning to interpret events subjectively as optimists leads to much higher success.
58. Also it associated with social and physical mental health. For example, our immune system ,psychological and physical immune system is actually stronger as a result of being optimists.
59. Resilience levels, a lot of research by Karen Reivich shows that if you teach people to interpret things positively, optimistically, they are much more likely to succeed.
60. People who were taught optimistic interpretation style become happier, those who learn it are eight times less likely to experience depression.
61. People who learn to interpret things more positively actually live longer.
62. Optimism can be learned.
4.3.1.2 Realistic optimism
63. Now the thing is that you may be wrong at times. And sometimes you may really believe in something, and believe it that you have realistic expectations and not succeed. And as we’ll talk about in a few minutes, it doesn’t matter that much. Because even if we don't success we just bounce back up. And continue working hard. The key though is as much as possible, to attain this balance.
64. The Graceful Integration between high level of beliefs and connection to reality.
65. Positive thinking is not THE secret. Yes, it’s part of the secret. Yes, it’s part of the success formula. Yes, it’s part of the happiness formula. But it’s not all. False optimism sooner or later means disillusionment, anger and hopelessness.
4.3.1.3 The secret of success
66. The secret of success is optimism, passion and hard work. It’ll be very hard for you to find successful men and women through out history who did not have all three.
67. Optimism, belief, faith that they can do well, that they can succeed.
68. Passion, love for what they were doing.
69. And hard work. There is no substitute for hard work.
4.3.2 Thinking
对同一件事情，乐观的人和悲观的人有着完全不同的解读，当所设定的目标和预期不一致而经历失败的时候，乐观的人会将失败看成是临时的所遇到的困难，会去思考可以从失败中学到什么，从而使得事情往好的方向发展。
乐观的人更容易成功，面对困难更容易克服，也会更加健康。
但是，这也并意味着什么都持乐观的态度，也就是说要避免盲目乐观。因为人也有错误的时候，即使我们很乐观地相信某件事情，但是当这件事情历经证明不可能的时候，要懂得去分辨，懂得去平衡。
The secret of success is optimism, passion and hard work.
4.4 Raising our beliefs
4.4.1 How to increase the base level of well-being - Coping
4.4.1.1 Notes
70. The ups and downs around a base level of well-being. Now there is good news here and there is bad news here. The good news is I can take more risks. It’s not the end of world if she says no. It’s not the end of the world if I fail here or if I don’t get my dream job. It’s okay. I’ll recover. We all do. So that’s the good news. The bad news is…so I’m stuck? So I was born with this base level according to my genes and I can’t really improve? How do I raise this base level of happiness? And it’s possible. And we’ll talk about… the whole course is about raising the base level of happiness.
71. How can we raise that base level? One of the things is coping, putting ourselves on the line.
72. On one thing you can do right now when you get out of class to raise self-esteem and that is to cope as opposed to avoid. To cope meaning to put yourself on the line. To take risks not when you’re in your panic zone but when you’re in your stretch zone. To risk failure. To handle things, to deal things, to confront things that are important to you. To try out for that play. To speak out in session if you haven’t. To go out to a place where you really want to go but never really try. To try. Because people who cope overtime have the same or sometimes more ups and downs. But their ups and downs look like this. Still ups and downs. Permission to be human. But the base level increases.
73. By seeing myself behaving a certain way, I reach a conclusion about my self-esteem or benevolence or generosity or whatever it is. Self perception theory. And if I cope, if I try things out then I see that this is a person with courage. This is a person who tries. And my conclusion about myself would be I must have high self-esteem. And my self-esteem as well as happiness level overtime will actually increase. Meaning by looking at behavior.
74. When we fail after coping we realize that the actual pain that comes with failure is far less than the pain we imagine and that we associate with failure. I just got over it. Okay, so I didn’t do well in here or she said no. but I got over it. Whereas I imagine it in my mind I think it’ll last forever. Just like those tenured or not tenured professors thought that their pay will last forever whereas it goes away. So when I realize the pain of actual failure is far less than the pain associated with failure, I become more confident. I can handle it. I’m actually much more resilient than I thought I was. And my self-esteem increases. My happiness as a result increases too.
75. And finally there is more success because there is no other way to succeed. There is no other way in terms of learning how to walk. There is no other way in terms of succeeding in art or in science or in business or in politics. Learn to fail or fail to learn.
4.4.1.2 Thinking
人生有起有伏，不会一直处于高峰，也不会一直处于低谷。人的幸福感也是如此。我们不能因为害怕失败、害怕跌倒而不去尝试，而是应该去面对。努力突破自己，可能会受伤，但没有想像中那么可怕，这也是唯一的想要突破，想要提升的方法。
4.4.2 How do we become more of an optimism
So how do we become more of an optimism? I want to talk about three techniques. First is to take action, to just do it, to put ourselves on the line. Visualization, many of you are familiar with that, especially athletes as, as a technique. And finally, cognitive therapy, which at least according to research, is the most successful, most effective therapeutic intervention out there today
4.4.2.1 Take Action
NOTES
76. Rather than talk, we need action. We need to put hard work into whatever it is, we want to be more confident about, and we need to cope. We need to put ourselves on the line. Very simple!
77. Why? Because hard work and coping inevitably leads to success, more success at least than we had before, that success contributes to our self-efficacy, to our self confidence. And then, that self confidence in turns, in turn motivates us to work harder. We started to believe ourselves more.
78. One of the things that I wish for you is that you fail more. And, coupled with that, I hope that when you fail, you will also learn to interpret it in a different way than most of us usually interpret failure.
79. When we see ourselves cope, when we see ourselves work hard, we derive conclusions about ourselves, our self confidence goes up, our motivation goes up, our belief goes up and so on and so on in an upward spiral of growth.
Thinking
让自己更乐观、更自信的方法是行动起来去做自己想要做的事情，并且付出努力认真去做，遇到问题勇敢地去面对。因为努力会让成功变得更加可能，而成就感会增强自己的自信心和认同感，会让自己感觉更加愉悦，这也会成为继续努力的动力。
只有想没有做是没有用的。回想以往在学习和工作的过程中，其实，也是因为努力付出了，这种努力带来了某种程度上的成就感，从而又让自己感觉更加自信。
4.4.2.2 Imagining Success
NOTES
In other words, my brain does not know the difference between the real thing and the imaginary thing. Our imagination, least for the brain is no different than the real thing.
Now, when I imagine success, what happens in a sense is that this is the real thing between the real thing and the imaginary thing. Now if I imagine success over and over again in my mind, remember what the mind does not like is inconsistency. In other words, if I create success in my imagination and I persist with it, not just visualize it once or twice, but over and over again. And therefore, it will bring up the external reality to match this internal schema.
The key is to focused not just on the destination, visualize the journey as well as the destination, to visualize both your destination of getting there, your journey of getting there, as well as the destination itself.
Thinking
当我们渴望某件事情成功的时候，可以去想像通过怎样的努力成功了，成功之后的情景是怎样的。很关键的一点是，不能只是想像成功的瞬间，还需要想像成功的过程，因为这样会促进自己去行功去付出，从而使得成功变成现实。
其实，这是很有道理的，因为从小到现在，自己一直会幻想某件事情实现之后是怎样，自己在某种情境下怎样处理问题、怎样努力，现在再回头看看，一路走过来，当自己怀抱希望去想像和努力的时候，事情更能往自己所希望的方向发展，而当自己只是埋头苦干或光想不做的时候，往往就很挫败。
4.4.2.3 Cognitive Therapy
NOTES
80. Its basic premise is that thoughts drive emotion.
81. So for example: there is an external event. I perceive that event, and what I do then after I perceive that event, there is evaluation of that event, in other words, a thought about that event. And then, as a result of that thought, that evokes an emotion.
82. Event ,evaluation, thought, emotion, and then that leads to action.
83. What cognitive therapy says is that if we want to change emotions where we need to intervene is here, is that the level of evaluation and the level of thought. And if we can change that, we also change our emotion.
84. Specifically, what cognitive therapy saying is that we need to restore sense of rationality, a very important try out coming up and I get nervous. Cognitive therapy is not saying stop feeling nervous, but what it is saying is that sometimes our thoughts are irrational.
85. That event led to an irrational thought, irrational evaluation of the situation. It was just once, it was temporary, and that led to difficult emotions such as resignation: nobody will ever want me again. And what cognitive therapy does is just restore but, you know they are, what? 3200 other men at Harvard.
86. Where do I distort the reality? Where do I have distortion in terms of evaluation? That lead to certain negative emotions that are unnecessary, because if I restore rationality I will not feel the same emotion to the same degree.
87. 3Ms (Magnifying, Minimizing, Making up)
A. Magnifying (exaggerating)
- Permanent and Pervasive (over-generalizing)
- All-or-nothing thinking
B. Minimizing (underplaying)
- Tunnel vision
- Dismissal of positive or negative
C. Making up (fabricating)
- Personalization or blame
- Emotional reasoning
Thinking
当遇到挫败的时候，不要一直沉埋在这种压抑中，我们应该知道，每个人都会经历起伏，失败、痛苦是不可避免的，但也不是一直都会伴随的，它是临时性的、是部分的，而不是长久的、全局的。
我们可以换一种角度，用另一种心态理性地、客观地去看待，不夸大、不缩小、不捏造。