Personal Transformation through Positive Psychology

Personal transformation is the process of shifting yourself into the person you want to be, with the life you wish to have. There are many positive changes that can be a part of your transformation. Perhaps, you want to feel more at peace and more confident. Positive psychology is an extremely useful tool for accessing this best version of yourself.

Positive psychology represents a psychological perspective that is shifted away from the focus on pathology and dysfunction and towards positive strengths and behaviors that contribute to human flourishing. By applying positive psychology to personal transformation, you can emphasize and enhance the good attributes of yourself instead of stressing over what you need to “fix” to become your best self. There are many ways to incorporate positive psychology into your life and mind in order to create all kinds of positive transformations.

In this video, Dr. Dan Guerra gives an overview of the personal growth that can be experienced from a journey into positive psychology.

Positive Psychology and Overcoming Adversity

To be your best self, you have to cut off as much negative influence from your past as possible for your transformation. Traumatic experiences do not happen for a reason but shifting your mindset to a growth mindset following adversity has worthwhile outcomes backed by positive psychology.

While there is no “bright side” of trauma, shifting away from a problem-based focus allows us to see that many people experience growth and positive changes out of hardship (Chiba & Harada, 2016). Many words have been thrown around to identify growth following trauma: including posttraumatic growth, stress-related growth, thriving, perceived benefits, positive adjustment, positive adaptation and adversarial growth (Liney & Joseph, 2005). No matter what you want to call it, it is clear positive psychology has led us to positive transformation discovering some form of growth that may be experienced following trauma.

According to Linley, Felus, Gillett, & Joseph (2011), emotional expression is effective in turning subjective experiences of fear, helplessness, and horror into adversarial growth. Emotional expression can take many forms, such as through music, art, or writing.

Another application of positive transformation psychology to life’s greatest difficulties is called benefit finding. In benefit finding, someone dealing with adversity defines the benefits that arose through the situation (Chiba & Harada, 2016). For example, in one Japan based study, people dealing with mental illness were able to name numerous benefits from their experience including growth in relationships, personal growth, discovering values, better self-management, interest in mental health, and finding new roles in society (Chiba & Harada, 2016).

Participants with chronic mental illness in a study who practiced benefit finding expressed the feeling that the intervention was leading to their psychological transformation (Chiba & Harada, 2016). In another example, patients with breast cancer increased emotional well-being and sense of meaning from their benefit finding intervention (Chiba & Harada, 2016). Benefit finding can transform your life through the realization that while the situation you’ve overcome may be dragging you down, there may also be new strengths to propel you into an even brighter future.

Positive Psychology and Physical Health

Most people conceptualize transformation in terms of the physical and set goals for losing weight and becoming fit. Losing weight may increase the well-being of certain populations, but physical health expands much farther than what meets the eye. Luckily, positive transformation psychology can help us transform our health from the outside in.

If you’re trying to have transformation like lose weight, evidence suggests maintaining a positive mood is best for maintaining the lower numbers. Many people lose weight, but a smaller portion of people stay there. Robertson, Davies, & Winefield (2017) analyzed the psychological differences between people who could maintain their weight loss and those who couldn’t. Those who maintained weight loss had higher frequencies of positive mood and hope that their actions would be successful (Robertson et al., 2017). Therefore, positive psychology’s application to weight loss is emphasizing your positive moods over your negative moods and reaffirming your belief in your ability to lose weight. Eating enjoyable healthy food, making time for yourself, and meeting up with loved ones are all ways to maintain a positive mood.

Positive moods have far greater effects than just weight loss. Richman et al. (2005) studied multiple positive moods and their correlation with certain diseases. Higher levels of hope were associated with decreased likelihood of experiencing hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and respiratory tract infections. Curiosity was associated with decreased chance of hypertension and diabetes mellitus (Richman et al., 2005). These results were consistent after controlling for health behaviors. Since these positive emotions affect health in various parts of the body, their transformation is quite broad. Ensuring your experience of positive emotions can help protect you against the development of disease (Richman et al., 2005).

If you want to use positive psychology to guard your health, focus on hope and curiosity. Hope is cultivated by setting goals, envisioning your success, and seeking out inspiring stories. Curiosity is the desire to learn and have new experiences. Browsing for classes or places to travel can build curiosity.

The mechanism for positive mood protecting health may be found in the immune system. Positive and negative affect is associated with the release of S-IgA, an antibody which protects against the common cold (Salovey, Rothman, Detweiler, & Steward, 2000) Positive affect enhances the immune system, while negative moods suppress (Salovey et al., 2000). S-IgA is increased just by watching a funny video and is decreased when a sad video is watched (Salovey et al., 2000). This theory of positive moods leading to an enhanced immune system was tested by exposing people to a respiratory virus.

Participants who were in a negative mood during the study experienced more severe illness from the virus than those in positive moods (Salovey et al., 2000). Generally, people who are sad report more physical symptoms, experience greater discomfort from their symptoms, and engage in less health promoting behaviors (Salovey et al., 2000).

Another way positive psychology relates to positive transformation in physical health is through its explanation on what makes people lead a healthy lifestyle. One important aspect to predict whether or not someone will stick to a lifestyle plan is the kind of emotion they feel engaging in their health behaviors. If you experience positive affect during the behaviors, it increases incentive for them, and then you are more likely to be subconsciously guided to those actions throughout your daily life (Van Cappellen et al., 2018). The application here is to find physical activity and healthy food that can bring you joy. If you dread running, enjoying tennis with your friend may benefit you more in the long run, no matter which activity burns more calories.

People are also more likely to stick to a health plan if they plan it. You may be motivated, but if you are not self-regulated via planning, you are less likely to initiate the behavior (Zhoe, Wang, Knoll, & Schwarzer, 2016). Make sure you focus on more than wanting to act a certain way, but actually writing your ideas down on paper.

The World Health Organization predicts that chronic diseases will account for almost three-quarters of all deaths worldwide in 2020 (Van Cappellen, Rice, Catalino, & Fredrickson, 2018). These positive psychology applications for transformation may be useful in transforming the health of the population and bringing these numbers down.

Positive Psychology and Stress

Another fantastic change positive psychology can bring to your life is the shift from a rigid, overworked, stressed out individual to someone who is calm, balanced, and can relax without guilt.

A common stressor for many people is work. However, according to Howard (2008), there are stress buffers even against work overload, emotional and physical demands, and work/home interferences. These circumstances do not result in high levels of burnout in employees as long as they had autonomy, received feedback, and had social support (Howard, 2008).

While some of those factors may be out of your control, there are some things you can do to decrease stress at work. The flow state is a peak experience characterized by absorption, work enjoyment, and intrinsic work motivation (Howard, 2008).

You don’t have to necessarily be passionate about your job to enjoy this state. Flow often occurs when people experience challenges that match their skill level (Howard, 2008). Talk to your supervisor about taking on tasks that create more challenge to transformation, but that are still achievable.

Mindfulness meditation can also decrease stress. Vipassana courses are typically 10-day residential meditation programs designed to increase awareness of the present state in an accepting, non-reactive way. During mindfulness people are not overly attached to the sensations of the present, they are non-judgmental observers.

During a Vipassana course students first learn breath-focused meditation, then practiced scanning the body and observing nonjudgmentally from head to toe, and finally send loving thoughts towards themselves and others (Szekeres & Wertheim, 2015).

These practices can reduce stress because you become repeatedly aware of internal sensations that may cause discomfort, and this repeated exposure habituates you so that the feeling is less noticeable (Szekeres & Wertheim, 2015). Mindfulness also encourages acceptance, so we are able to confront stressful events instead of suppressing them (Szekeres & Wertheim, 2015).

Vipassana meditation courses can increase trait mindfulness and well-being and decrease subjective stress (Szekeres & Wertheim, 2015). While Vipassana courses are a somewhat inconvenient time investment, getting into the habit of taking a few minutes to just focus on your breath daily is likely to elicit similar effects for your transformation.

Positive Psychology and Relationships

When thinking of transforming into their best selves, many would point out the desire to flourish in their relationships, cultivate successful connections, and overall be a better friend and partner. Though it involves more than just the self, relationships can be an important part of personal success. Research suggests that intimate relationships are an important source of life satisfaction, happiness, and resistance to disease, stress, and psychological illness, so they are important to maintain (Coulter & Malouff, 2013).

One way to improve your relationships is to seek out excitement. In a 4-week online intervention, couples were provided with ideas for exciting activities and then asked to make a list of 10 exciting things they can do with their partners for 90 min a week (Coulter & Malouff, 2013). The activities were categorized as adventurous, passionate, sexual, exciting, interesting, playful, romantic, and spontaneous (Coulter & Malouff, 2013). The couples then reported high levels of romantic excitement, positive affect, and relationship satisfaction, effects that were stable 4 months later (Coulter & Malouff, 2013). To transform your romantic life, focus on exciting activities you can do with your partner.

Mindfulness is another trait you can cultivate to enhance your relationships. Simply sitting down a few minutes daily and focusing on your breath can cultivate this. Mindfulness affects relationships because it tends to cause people to speak honestly and listen better (Niemiec, Rashid, & Spinella, 2012). Mindful people can also more easily pick up on verbal and nonverbal cues (Niemic et al., 2012). Those with mindfulness qualities experience higher relationship satisfaction and are able to better resolve conflict (Niemic et al., 2012).

Empathy, or the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person, also improves relationships. Boys high in empathy attract more female friendships (Ciarrochi et al., 2017). Empathy is also linked to supportive friendships in both genders (Ciarrochi et al., 2017). Many are raised empathetic, but positive psychology through positive transformation has revealed that we grow this strength ourselves even in adulthood. Traveling, examining your biases, and meditation can all lead to increased empathy.

Positive Psychology and Leadership

Most of us are leaders, whether that be in work, with our family, inside our friend groups, or somewhere in our community. We often feel more successful having confidence in this role. Therefore, increasing leadership skills is a great way to spark positive personal transformation.

Positive leadership involves the 3 C’s of commitment, control, and challenge (Lloyd & Atella, 2000). Commitment involves confronting difficult situations with a solution-based mindset and engaging intensely with problems instead of shying away (Lloyd & Atella, 2000). Leaders in control have faith in their influence over situations, feel empowered, and turn negatives into positives (Lloyd & Atella, 2000). Finally, challenged leaders perceive stressful events as growth opportunities instead of as threats and consistently remain positive (Lloyd & Atella, 2000).

Luthans, Luthans, Hodgetts, & Luthans (2001) offer a different perspective on a positive approach to leadership. Their ideal leader is not stuck in past failures, appreciates the present moment, and searches for future opportunities (Luthans et al., 2001). Positive leaders also actively challenge their negative beliefs and replace them with optimistic ones. Optimist sales agents sold 37% more insurance in their first two years.

Effective leaders also have emotional intelligence. With emotional intelligence, comes regulating abilities, self-motivation, love of learning, passion for challenge, and energy (Luthans et al., 2001). Luckily, there is evidence that emotional intelligence can be taught and enhanced through programs (Luthans et al., 2001).

Positive Psychology and Mindfulness

Another powerful transformation is becoming more aware of your life and present moment. You cannot have appreciation for your current experience if you are constantly dreaming of the past or planning for the future. Mindfulness describes the experience of becoming fully aware in the present. This can be cultivated through mindfulness meditation, simply by focusing solely on your breath without distraction.

Mindfulness meditation offers plenty of benefits beyond awareness. Mindfulness can predict your sense of connection to other people (Aspy & Prove, 2017). Participants in mindfulness meditation interventions have pointed out improvements in self-evaluation, an enhanced sense of your physical self, and a sense of profoundness (Perridge, Hefferon, Lomas, & Ivtzan, 2017). Mindfulness is also related to prosocial behavior, or “doing good” (Donald et al., 2019). A Vipassana meditation course, as described earlier, led to reduced subjective stress and increased well-being, self-kindness, and overall mindfulness (Szekers & Wertheim, 2015).

This 10-minute guided mindfulness meditation is a fantastic introduction to help you start practicing this extremely beneficial habit.

Positive Psychology and Positive Thinking

In transforming ourselves, we often seek to transform our thoughts. Constantly having to deal with negative thoughts can be exhausting. Thinking positively is much more mentally soothing, can allow us to act more effectively in our lives, and have many other beneficial effects.

Optimism is a form of positive thinking where you expect the best outcome of a situation and do not internalize any failure. Optimistic people tend to have more control over their lives, better moods, more motivation, and better physical and mental health (Patnaik, 2013). While optimism tends to be thought of as a personality feature, is not a fixed trait. Evidence shows that this style of thinking can be learned.

An online positive psychology intervention designed to promote self-efficacy, or the belief that one can succeed in a task, and an optimistic outlook led to participants pursuing more happiness through engagement in their life (Miller & Duncan, 2015). The participants also reported less dysfunctional attitudes, and the more pessimistic participants showed drastic decreases in depressive symptoms (Miller & Duncan, 2015).

Positive thinking is a habit that you can cultivate simply through your awareness of your thought (cue mindfulness meditation). If you want to improve your mindset there is tons of free information online about becoming more optimistic like this article from NBC.

Positive Psychology and Gratitude

Gratitude is the condition of thankfulness. Transforming yourself into a grateful person will cause you to become more appreciative of your life, and therefore be more focused on what your life has to offer and less focused on what you don’t have.

Gratitude is linked to prosocial behavior, which refers to doing good for others and society as a whole (Nelson, 2009). When a group of people documented five things they were grateful for every week for ten weeks, they rated both their current and prospective life more favorably than people who were not asked to complete the assignment (Nelson, 2009). They also had fewer symptoms of physical illness and spent more time exercising (Nelson, 2009). Committing to gratitude on a longer scale, for months instead of weeks, ultimately contributes to an increase in positive affect (Nelson, 2009). Gratitude also reduces psychology distress (Miller & Duncan, 2015).

Writing down five things you are grateful for every week is a great habit, but it is not the only way to experience gratitude. Another popular exercise is the gratitude visit. In a gratitude visit, you write a letter thanking someone you are grateful to and then, if possible, hand deliver the letter. No matter what method you use to practice gratitude, it is really the principle, appreciating positive things around you, that truly counts.

Positive Psychology and Purpose

When you transform yourself into a purposeful individual, you are leading your life more intentionally. You can find more meaning in being alive and reflect on what skills you can give to the world. Through this process you will likely help other people, but you will also help yourself. Feeling purposeful has numerous benefits.

Purposeful people are often more successful because they have passion for long-term goals and persevere until they meet their standards (Hill, Burrow, & Bronk, 2016). With purpose comes commitment to specific life goals, and the drive behind them fosters consistency. Committing to a purpose in life helps people have more grit and develop the right characteristics to achieve their goals (Hill et al., 2016). Those who are purposeful also tend to be more satisfied with themselves and their lives (Diener, Fujita, Tay, & Biswas-Diener, 2012).

To have success in defining purpose and meaning in your life there are multiple aspects you may want to consider. First, you may think about what lights up. Where do you truly feel passionate and like you are losing track of time? Many of us also have specific problems surrounding us that capture our attention the most. What issues are you invested in? What would you change about the world? You may also think about who you want to help: elders, children, animals?

Finally, what are your greatest strengths? How could you put them to use and develop them further? These questions will hopefully guide you to more clarity on what a fulfilling life could look like to you towards your transformation. Remember to stay patient. It is certainly frustrating when we do not know what directions to take our lives, however, if we continue to live day by day and experience new things, different paths are constantly opening to us. One day, you’ll take one!

Positive Psychology and Productivity/Goal Attainment

Many of us want to transform ourselves away from procrastinators and towards people who can consistently achieve and focus on their goals. Luckily, positive psychology has loads of advice for those struggling with productivity.

A huge indicator of someone who progresses in their goals is that they use their strengths. Those who understand their strengths and directly apply them to challenges not only achieve more of their goals, but also experience better well-being and satisfy more of their psychological needs (Linley, Nielsen, Gillett, & Biswas-Diener, 2010).

A lot of the goals achieved by people with a strength-based mindset are self-concordant goals. Self-concordant goals are associated with personal value, growth, connectedness, and autonomy (Linley et al., 2010). Completing these kinds of goals leads to more positive transformation affect, less negative affect, and greater life satisfaction (Linley et al., 2010).

To apply this to your life, fill out a strength inventory, or even a couple personality quizzes, as they tend to provide character strengths, and do some personal reflection about what is accurate to you. Once you have a good idea of your strengths, you can start to consider how they could be relevant to the progression of your goals.

Of course, you can’t achieve your goals if you don’t recognize them. Writing them down is more likely to make them stick. You may also want to break down your goal into smaller chunks that you can work with on a daily basis. This way, you will be less overwhelmed and more focused on small, consistent achievements that will build up greatly in the long run.

It’s also certainly difficult to complete goals you struggle to start. That’s where procrastination comes in. Procrastination is delaying a course of action, even if the delay makes you worse off.

One reason we procrastinate is that we are unconnected to our future self. If we have self-continuity, or a stable sense of identity far into the future, we can help regulate our experiences and make the best decisions. Looking into the future increases workplace proactivity (Blouin & Pychyl, 2017). Without this connection, it’s hard to organize new information, plan your days, avoid procrastination, and have positive well-being (Blouin & Pychyl, 2017).

A common issue that leads to procrastination is a perspective of time that ignores the consequences that the future self will face, instead focusing on what feels good now (Blouin & Pychyl, 2017). Therefore, an empathetic approach and connection to our future selves may be what we need to stop procrastinating.

Students asked to vividly imagine their future self-improved in future self-continuity and empathetic perspective taking and ultimately procrastinated less (Blouin & Pychyl, 2017). Clearly, taking some time to imagine your future self as vividly as possible, establishing a connection with them, and considering the effects of your procrastination on them is beneficial in curbing this bad habit.

The principles of acceptance and commitment therapy may also be useful in combating procrastination. The majority of students in an acceptance and commitment therapy-based program reported less procrastination (Scent & Boes, 2014). The theory of acceptance and commitment therapy is that psychological problems stem from avoiding experiences and taking thoughts too literally. Therefore, treatment involves helping patients nonjudgmentally accept their present moment (Scent & Boes, 2014).

In the student workshop, acceptance and commitment therapy ideas and concepts were explained. The students also learned mindfulness and how to see thoughts as simply thoughts and not necessarily truths (Scent & Boes, 2014). Participants then recognized that procrastination is simply a means of avoiding unwanted thoughts and feelings and not the task itself. Finally, the students were motivated to stop procrastinating by identifying their values and goals (Scent & Boes, 2014).

To apply these principles for the transformation your life, start by understanding that wanting to avoid uncomfortable thoughts and feelings is normal. Sustaining contempt for yourself over procrastination tendencies is counterproductive. Procrastination is experienced by everyone and is not a personal flaw.

Still, procrastination is counterproductive. While you may wish to avoid discomfort, know that the completion of tasks is typically rewarding and brings a sense of joy and relief. Practicing mindfulness for 5-10 minutes a day by focusing on your breath may also relieve some of the discomfort. A final tip is to set realistic goals to avoid being overwhelmed.

Positive Psychology and Confidence

Many of us wish to be more sure of ourselves and break free from insecurities. This is what confidence represents. Confidence is the state of self-assurance in your beliefs and can be applied to positive mindsets on your career, image, personality and more.

One example of how confidence can be grown comes from a study on patients with chronic conditions. Many of them had depression as a comorbidity and were at risk for suicide (Ludman et al., 2013). In the study, patients were given a program that gave them the knowledge they needed to be confident in their self-care and home activities they need to maintain their health (Ludman et al., 2013).

They had self-management support from professionals, whom they worked with to set goals. The program successfully helped patients improve their confidence in their ability to follow their at-home medical regimens and other care steps needed to protect their health, even when they are in poor mental health (Ludman et al., 2013). These results show that confidence often comes from professional or knowledgeable support that can lead you to your goals, to your transformation, as well as being as informed as possible.

Similar results were found on the other side of this coin: confidence training in health professionals. Health and human service professionals need educational suicide prevention programs, as they play a large role in assessing the risk of suicide as well as preventing it (Ferguson et al., 2019).

One education program was designed to improve participant knowledge, attitudes and skills in responding to suicidal ideation and behavior, and it ended up improving the confidence of the professionals (Ferguson et al., 2019). The health workers felt more equipped to interact with people vulnerable to suicide, use their time in their role effectively, identify risks, and deal with patient needs (Ferguson et al., 2019). It seems that, despite this being a specific example, having as much education and training as possible in your career field or other areas of life may be useful for enhancing confidence and transformation.

5 Positive Psychology Books for Personal Transfiguration

Books are a great way to go deeper into this topic and hear from different voices in the field a