SPEAKER Clay Cook: This is lesson four-- choosing

to pay attention to the positive, and practicing gratitude.

This lesson is all about what is attention,
and how do we actually direct our attention to things
that lead us to feeling and behaving better?
Because our attention really can go in one of three ways.
It can go to the negative.
It could go to the neutral, which means it has no emotional weight to it,
or can go to the positive.
And there's one direction that actually helps us reap resilient benefits,
and we're going to jump into that.
But before we really can have a thoughtful discussion about choosing
to pay attention to the positive, we first
need to define, what is attention?
And attention has been defined as that which takes possession of our mind.
Another way to think about it is attention
is the focal point of our consciousness-- the things
that we notice and come to the forefront of our consciousness.
It's like a spotlight that illuminates things in your mind.
And we can think about all the different things that
are happening around you right now, but you're
paying attention to something specific.
And hopefully it's me delivering this lesson,
and not something else that's irrelevant.
But our attention can go many different ways,
but it's that which is actually captured and spotlighted.
Researchers have followed people and figured out how many things are they
consciously aware of-- or do they pay attention to-- on the average day.
And they've estimated, roughly, there's 20,000 things--
the average noticeable thoughts or conscious images
that people attend to each day.
The trouble is, when we look at the ratio of what we attend to
in terms of positive to negative, and what
we find is the ratio is way in favor of paying more
attention to the negative then the positive.
Here's another example of how our natural tendency actually works
against us, and can cause more distress than good.
We are actually hardwired to pay more attention
to the negative than the positive, and we
can look back to our ancestors to really understand why.
If we attend to the negative, such as stressful, harmful, dangerous
situations, we can understand how this can enhance survival,
and those who actually paid more attention to the negative
were more likely to pass on their genes.
Whereas the counterpart, paying more attention to the positive,
didn't reap as much survival benefits.
So over time we are now more prone, if you will-- doesn't mean everybody,
but most people are more prone to paying attention
to the negative aspects of what's happening in their lives.
And research by Roy Baumeister has demonstrated
that in interactions with others, we pay more negative attention
to what we don't like-- what the person did wrong, or how they're screwing up--
versus paying attention to what the person did well, what we actually
like about them, what we think is admirable characteristic.
Also, in our own experiences, when we perform,
we're more likely to look at the negative aspects
of our performance versus finding the silver linings.
This tendency for negative attention actually
has implications for how we feel, the meaningfulness we get out of life,
and ultimately, how we behave in life.
So we're going to talk about how we actually gain control of our attention
and focus on paying more attention to the positive aspects of our lives.
There's a concept that's been researched with regard to attention,
and it's called selective attention.
And many people know this as the cocktail party effect.
And the cocktail party effect refers to selectively concentrating on one thing
while ignoring all other things.
So we can imagine ourselves going to a cocktail party
where there's numerous people, and we know the volume of different chatter
that's going on in the room.
But we have the ability to get into a more intimate conversation,
and pay attention selectively to only what's
happening between you and the other person.
And this is what selective attention is.
We can also be involved in what seems like a conversation,
but be selectively attending to someone else's conversation
because we heard a certain word that has captured our attention.
So selective attention really means honing
in on one thing at the exclusion of everything else going on.
So what's the implications of this for resilience?
Well, we have a specific type of selective attention,
and that's called a negative confirmation bias.
And a lot of research has shown that people
are prone to have a negative confirmation bias.
And that means only seeing others or situations through a negative lens,
and failing to pay attention to the positive things.
It creates kind of a tunnel vision.
You exclude everything else, and all you pick up on
are those things that are negative, annoying,
or problematic about situations and others--
which ultimately impacts how we feel towards others or situations,
and ultimately how we behave.
And we can easily imagine how we behave can actually
make matters worse for ourselves-- create more stress,
and engage in behaviors that are disconnected from our values.
I'm hoping you can say this out loud after I say it.
But we are not victims of our attention.
Go ahead and say it.
That's because we have the ability to effortfully control
what we do with our attention.
We may not be able to control what captivates our attention,
but through awareness, we can notice that we're paying attention
to something negative, and divert our attention
to something that's more positive and uplifting-- that causes
us to feel better, and ultimately behave better.
So we can purposely choose to attend to something that's more positive when
we notice we're focusing on the negative.
So what does the research say about people
who strive to pay more attention to the positive in life,
rather than fixate on the negative?
I'm sure you know someone in your life who's a really positive person.
They always have that positive spin.
They always pick up on things that are positive in each and every situation,
versus dwell on the negative.
And you can imagine how nice it is to be around those people.
I actually play basketball with a guy who's overly positive,
and we're disappointed when he's not around,
because he increases the atmosphere.
Everybody has a better time as a result of his presence.
But there's real benefits-- you don't have to be born with the ability
to pay attention to the positive.
You can actually cultivate and practice it.
And the benefits that have been shown through research
include people reporting having a more satisfying life.
What better definition of success is someone who sits back and says,
my life is super satisfying, enjoyable, and fulfilling?
People are more likely to build relationships with others
rather than burn them.
They're able to cope better with stressful life circumstances,
and bounce back from adverse situations, such as the death of a loved
one, financial difficulties, relationship problems.
People have better immune systems that resist illnesses.
Physically, your body's in a better place to handle illnesses.
People recover quicker from setbacks.
They've even done studies where they've given people cuts,
and help them pay attention to more positive things.
And people who received that support to pay more attention
healed significantly more quicker than people
that didn't receive that support.
So we have a range of psychological and physical benefits
that lead to resilience when we actually, purposely
choose to pay attention to the positive.
So the point of everything I just said is that first, we
have a tendency to selectively pay attention
to more negative aspects of our life, which ultimately impacts how we feel
and behave-- which isn't necessarily a good thing.
And we understand that we're hardwired, and we have that tendency.
So we have to rectify those situations.
The next point is that we actually learn that we have the ability
to intentionally choose to pay more attention to positive things.
The last thing is that we can actually engage
in a process called attention training, which is the process of purposefully
practicing paying attention to the positive aspects of ourselves,
others, and our surrounding environments,
to rewire certain pathways in our brain.
When we actually spend more time focusing and paying
attention to the positive things that are happening in our lives,
we rewire the circuitry of our brain, and we're
more likely to have that more positive lens in the future.
I'm going to cover three things you can do to actually practice
choosing to pay attention to the positive.
Another way of saying that is to engage in that attention training, where
we can help rewire the circuitry of our brain.
And the first thing I want to discuss is searching for the silver lining.
And this is more of a metaphor that we're going to borrow from.
And the idea is that every cloud, whether it's
a storm cloud, a dark cloud, has a silver lining to it.
That means in some of the worst circumstances we can face in life,
there's still positive things going on.
Yet we have a tendency to selectively think, and stay fixated,
about all the negative.
So people in some of the most troublesome circumstances
still have the ability to find the small things.
And that is the silver lining.
And the small things might be a simple interaction with someone else.
A small thing might be something about the beauty
of the environment you're in.
You caught a sunrise.
You notice some type of wildlife that you never noticed before.
You're amazed at the complexity of what it's like to live in an urban setting,
and how, within all the chaos, there's organization.
Things like that is about paying attention
to the silver lining that's happening each day.
But you have to practice it, just like you would go shoot free throws,
just like you go and practice running, or you
would practice cooking-- anything, you get better with the rehearsal.
So you have to spend time actually purposely
directing your attention to find the silver lining.
That's one way we can practice this choosing
to pay attention to the positive.
The next is choosing to see the positive in others.
This really requires you noticing your natural tendency
to perhaps pay more attention to the negative.
So you have to search and find something that you actually like, approve of,
admire-- something about someone else that may inspire you.
So you have to actually pay attention to another person
in a different kind of way.
And what you'll find is you'll be more open,
and you'll feel more connected to that person versus engage in behaviors
that can actually harm a relationship, or do
something that actually causes a person to act towards you in a way
that it induces more stress in the future.
So one way we can actually purposely practice this
is choosing to see the positive in others,
and staying away from that negative tendency.
Developing positive go-to staples.
Go-to staples are essentially fixtures in your life.
It's easy for a parent to think about a positive go-to staple,
because they have their child.
And that's what we mean by a positive go-to staple.
Any time you're in a stressful situation, it's a go-to.
It's something you can turn to to think about, and refocus
your attention on that to feel better.
So I might be in the most stressful situation--
I have a really strict deadline.
I don't feel like I can meet that deadline.
I have a lot of people communicating me and putting pressure on me,
and so I see my stress go up.
And so I'm thinking all about that.
My attention is focused on this kind of negative.
I can give myself a break by diverting my attention to something
that's a positive go-to staple.
And that's a positive fixture in your life.
It could be a person.
It may be a vacation that's on the horizon that's
going to be a really enjoyable experience.
So you just alter and direct your attention
to that more positive fixture, so you can have a better feeling,
and ultimately engage in better behaviors moving forward.
So these are three ways in which we can specifically
choose to pay attention to the more positive aspects of our lives,
rather than getting stuck in a rut of thinking only about the negative.