In last week's column, I concluded by asking you to notice how you explain the setbacks and obstacles that you encounter. Hopefully, you wrote those down! Take a look at your list and look for any themes and commonalities.

Martin Seligman, who heads up the Positive Psychology at University of Pennsylvania (and who is the father of the positive psychology movement), wrote a book called Learned Optimism. It is a fabulous book that everyone should read. Optimism has a positive link to resilience and the ability to overcome obstacles. In this book he talks about three qualities of our explanatory style: personal, permanence and pervasive.

So, let's say you do poorly on a test. How do you explain that to yourself? My style would be to say, "Wow, clearly I didn't study hard enough for that test. Next time, I will put more time and effort into it and I will probably get an A." This is a very optimistic view. It is personal (within my control to change), the poor test performance is not permanent (I can change it in the future), and it is not pervasive (it doesn't mean I'm stupid).

Contrast that with a person who explains it this way: "Wow, I really bombed that one. I've never been good at math." This style isn’t horribly negative but do you notice how there is a since of permanence ("I've never been good at math") to it? This frames the issue in our mind in such a way where we don't think we can overcome it, which makes it harder to change.

Another way of explaining the same event could look like this: "I'm so stupid. I'm such a failure. I never do well on tests." You probably notice that this is permanent, personal and pervasive. It's pervasive because now it's not just the test we are talking about, we are talking about our overall intellect and self-worth! Clearly, we are getting more and more negative. We are, in a sense, making our problem bigger and bigger!

Finally, we have this take on the same situation: "That teacher doesn't like me. She's always been out to get me." This one isn't necessarily pervasive or permanent, but it completely lacks the personal ownership. There may be times when this is accurate. However, this person would be totally giving up any control – and therefore any hope – of being able to correct the situation.

Explanatory styles dealing with negative events that are high in personal (I own it), low in pervasiveness (it's just this test, it's not my intelligence) and low in permanence (it's just this one test – I can do better in the future) are typically most effective when it comes to being resilient and overcoming obstacles. The good news is that you can train yourself to use this more optimistic style.

If you are high in pervasiveness, challenge yourself: are you really stupid or did you simply do poorly on this one test? Look at the real data, not just one source.

If you are high in permanence, challenge yourself: is this really something that you have never and can never do well at or did you have one poor showing? Again, look at multiple sources of data about yourself.

If you are low in personal, challenge yourself: can everything really be someone else’s fault? I know, I know . . . who am I kidding? If you are low in personal attribution, you've already stopped reading and now it's my fault!!!

Where do you stand on your explanatory style? How can you help yourself to become resilient?

To Your Success,

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