6 Skills That You C.C.C.A.A.N Strive Towards.

Here are some of my essential skills to supercharge your self-development. Last time we looked at Courage, Connection and Compassion. This time we are focusing on Authenticity, Altruism and Neuroplasticity. Let's see how many you can tick off your list and how many could be a new focus for you.

Authenticity, Altruism and Neuroplasticity Authenticity

Authenticity is a must for supercharging our self-development. It forces us to grow, mature and is a vital human skill for managing life and all our relationships. Being genuine and real are desired and desirable qualities that can elevate our self-development and understanding of who we truly are. Steven Joseph PhD defines authentic people as;

  • Having realistic perceptions of reality.

  • Are accepting of themselves and of other people.

  • Thoughtful.

  • Having a non-hostile sense of humour.

  • Able to express their emotions freely and clearly.

  • Open to learning from their mistakes.

  • Understanding their motivations.

Equally inauthentic people show the following characteristics.

  • Are self-deceptive and unrealistic in their perceptions of reality.

  • Look to others for approval and to feel valued.

  • Are judgemental of other people.

  • Do not think things through clearly.

  • Have a hostile sense of humour.

  • Are unable to express their emotions freely and clearly.

  • Are not open to learning from their mistakes.

  • Do not understand their motivations.

Authenticity is a real way to supercharge your self-development and a challenging process to discover who you are and be able to face the world and act with value and integrity.

Altruism

Supercharging your self-development means you need to demonstrate (rather than give lip service to) your ability to act in ways to increase the quality of life for other human beings and be concerned for the happiness of others. These acts can be materialistic, emotional and spiritual but are focused on the benefit of others to improve their circumstance.

Dale Miller in his research The Norm of Self Interest believed all human behaviour was and should be, driven by selfish motivations. Miller proposed that a 'norm exists in Western cultures that specifies self-interest both is and ought to be a powerful determinant of behaviour. This norm influences people's actions and opinions as well as the accounts they give for their actions and opinions. It leads people to act and speak as though they care more about their material self-interest than they do.' However although in western cultures we may act and speak as if our self-interests are the only thing that matters to us, the reality is quite different.

The 2016 World Giving index registered billions of people all over the world giving time, money and offering help to strangers, even when they themselves were struggling. They did these acts of kindness and altruism with the expectation they would receive nothing in return. Consumerism and economic drive make us think in ways that push us away from compassion, generosity and altruistic acts when it is human nature to want and demonstrate kindness. In fact, caring and giving for each other is integral to who we are. The real norm is altruistic interest which research has shown improves our wellbeing in many ways. In fact, altruism improves our lives by the following ways;

  • Helper's High

    Researchers have consistently found that people report a significant happiness boost after doing kind deeds for others. Giving to charity activates brain regions associated with pleasure, social connection, trust and may trigger the release of endorphins in the brain, giving us a "helper's high."

  • Mental and Physical Benefits

    Acts of altruism such as spending money on others and volunteering may lower our blood pressure, reduce aches and pains, give us better overall physical health, and less depression. Older people who volunteer or regularly help friends or relatives have a significantly lower chance of dying. Researcher Stephen Post reports that altruism even improves the health of people with chronic illnesses such as HIV and multiple sclerosis.

  • Makes Financial Value

    Research indicates that altruists may receive financial rewards for their kindness as others will feel compelled to reward their kindness. In donating money to charity businesses, are seen as more valuable in the eyes of their customers and the society as a whole.

  • Improve your love life

    David Buss surveyed more than 10,000 people across 37 cultures and found out kindness was the most important quality in choosing your partner. This was across all cultures and a universal similarity. Research has also found altruists have more sex.

  • Cure for addiction?

    People with serious addictions who choose to help others, even in small ways, improve their chances of staying sober and avoiding

  • Belonging

    Altruism builds social connections. Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky believes, that 'being kind and generous leads you to perceive others more positively and more charitably [and this] fosters a heightened sense of interdependence and cooperation in your social community.'

  • Be smarter

    Using altruistic learning in class with a solid curriculum incorporating real-world community service improves academic performance and connectivity to the school community. Cooperative learning promotes positive relationships, better psychological health, and those students are less likely to bully.

In other words, promoting self-interests over altruistic interests isn't necessarily how we really behave, what we really believe and isn't mentally, physically or financially better for us. Supercharging your self-development means avoiding this cultural inclination or false belief and focus on being open and upfront about how you care for others and what you do for others.

Neuroplasticity

We've all heard about the brain that changes, how we can create new pathways and structures in that grey matter. This new research contradicted old ways of how we thought about ourselves and our brains. We are not stuck with how our brains work. We now know that with the right tools and determination we can alter some parts of our thinking and brain behaviour.

The term Neuroplasticity (or brain plasticity or neural plasticity) is by definition the ability of the brain to change throughout our lives. We have found out that our brain activity, in some but not all areas, can be transferred to a different location, our actual grey matter can change, and synapses can be strengthened or weakened. Things that can affect the changes are

behaviour, environment, or neural processes. We can follow how the brain engages in synaptic pruning. This means our brains can actively delete some neural connections that are no longer necessary or useful. In the same way, we can strengthen the connections we need.

This is important when we are talking about the effects of negative thinking because it demonstrates how what we think can change our brain. Knowing how to strengthen, grow and flex our ability to change our thoughts means we can be 'better salespeople and better athletes, and learn to love the taste of broccoli, treat eating disorders, lower our risk of dementia by 60% and help us discover our true essence of joy and peace.'

Training the brain to think differently alters our mood, beliefs and quality of life.

We can literally grow happiness.

So, we have been talking about the CCCAAN of supercharging your self-development. Why not pick one of the six ways to improve who you are and focus on building that strength, your human skill. Once you have conquered that superpower, begin on your next skill.

Remember that brain of yours is ready and designed for change, and now is as good a time as any to find out how much you can change and grow.

References:

EFA Employee Family resources

https://www.compassion.com/about/what-is-compassion.htm

US Berkley College greater good magazine

Dale Miller (1996) The Norm of Self Interest

Steven Jospe PhD

Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky

You C.C.C.A.A.N. be amazing.

In my line of work, one of the common requests I get is about how to enhance who we are and how to get to the next level of self-awareness and development. In the next two blogs, I'm going to help you and give you the six superchargers that will speed up your self-development.

C.C.C.A.A.N stands for Courage, Connection, Compassion, Authenticity, Altruism and Neuroplasticity. Let's break it down and do three supercharged self-development skills today and three more next month. Our focus is on Courage, Connection, Compassion as supercharges to lift your awareness and ability to enhance your wellbeing. Of course, the amazing thing is it also benefits those around you, so everyone wins, the more we practice our human skills.

Are you ready? then hang on, because this type of supercharging doesn't come easy and will require a few changes to how you live your life and the way you interact with others.

Here are the first three essential skills to supercharge your self-development. Let's see how many you can tick off your list and how many could be a new focus for you.

Courage

We need courage to add to our supercharging self-development. We all understand physical courage. That amazing ability to be brave and strong in the face of threats, hardship, in disasters, emergencies or pain. This kind of courage is a very human and often an instinctual skill. We show physical courage when we work to recover from injury or when we push our bodies to be fitter, healthier or stronger.

Across the world, we have so many examples that demonstrate physical courage. Just think about all those courageous people pushing their limits in sports, dance or disability. How about the physical courage those who sign up to protect us, show on a daily basis, in the face of enormous danger, (shout out and gratitude to all the police, fire brigade, ambulance, army, navy, air force etc.).

Physical courage is pushing our bodies and mental aptitude father than we thought possible, often to better ourselves. Often to help and protect others. Yet do we value moral courage as much?

It is curious how physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare." - Mark Twain

Moral courage is equally as brave and challenging and is often seen as a 'higher and a rarer virtue than physical courage'. When we stand up for the rights of others or act in an opposing way in the face of disagreement, we are demonstrating moral courage. In this way, we are brave, as others deny or condemn our values and worth. Moral courage is where we protect and stand up for those under attack, verbally or otherwise. It can be seen as we speak out against unfairness, corruption and deceit. Moral courage stands proud and strong even if it may cause shame or personal loss or rallies against those around you who would prefer compliance and silence.

A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live." - Anonymous

Connection

Our connections and how we develop and cherish them, are another power that can supercharge our self-development. Being connected links us with others and creates a sense of belonging.

Research has continued to show that being with others, family and friends increases your happiness. The EFA article on connectivity reports that 'for over 50 years the impact on social behaviour and longevity conclude that humans are social creatures who require connections with other humans in order to thrive, [and] a lack of social connection is a greater overall health risk than smoking. Being lonely impacts your immune system as well as your susceptibility to anxiety, depression and antisocial behaviours. A review of 148 studies found that people with strong social relationships have a 50% lower risk of mortality.

Being connected, having a sense of belonging is an important part of our human existence. It improves our physical and emotional well-being and positively affects those around us. How we like, love and link with each other is a vital part of supercharging our self-development. It makes us altruistic, capable of supporting and loving others, being selfless and it brings great personal and psychological benefits back to us. Benefits such as acceptance, value, self-esteem, gratitude and a social meaning and role in our lives that can give us purpose, in times when we struggle or feel lost.

Whether your connections are deep and sustaining, by distance or social media, casual connections at work or with your local businesses that you see regularly, being part of the social world, groups and having relationships with other people improves your wellbeing, enhances those around you and develops our resilience learning how to interact and interrelate with each other.

Compassion

The third C in C.C.C.A.A.N is compassion. Compassion is a strong motivator that drives us to help people, offer and seek to assist those around us suffering from emotional, physical, spiritual or financial pain. When we develop compassion, we learn how to be sympathetic towards those less fortunate. It triggers pity for suffering and kindness for the misfortunes of others.

We should not confuse compassion with empathy as the definition of compassion means "to suffer with," meaning we lean into their distress or need rather than acknowledge it. When we sleep out with the homeless to raise awareness, that is a compassionate act. An easier way to recognise your own level of compassion is in your acts of kindness. You can hold open a door, offer assistance, help someone trying to get a stroller down the steps, donate your unwanted items instead of selling them. Compassion is when we offer sympathy to those who have lost and ask how we can help. Business is becoming increasingly aware of how the relationship economy contains compassion as an integral part of brand loyalty and respect.

Let's not forget self-compassion either. This is where we show ourselves kindness for our own circumstances, misfortunes, losses and pitfalls. Where we offer compassion, we must also allow ourselves to receive it with grace and gratitude. Our self-development needs compassion as it keeps us humble and supercharges our humanity.

So, there are the first three human skills of how you C.C.C.A.A.N supercharge your self-development. Next time the focus is going to be on Authenticity, Altruism and Neuroplasticity. If you don't want to miss out on it subscribe and you'll get a reminder when I'm about to post it.

For now, enjoy putting your awareness to the test and work on your courage, connectivity and compassion.

Seriously, how hard is it to be unhappy these days. It's like there is something wrong with you if you find life hard or challenging.

Unhappiness, just like happiness is one of the many emotional responses we have as human beings. It is no less valuable. It is equally important. The problem is we aren't talking about it in a healthy way.

We shun unhappiness as if it is the undoing of us all. Unhappiness is a teacher of life. It lets us know when we are on the wrong path. When we are doing things that are unhealthy for us, are with people, jobs, lifestyles that are devaluing, uninspiring or harmful to our experience of life. Somehow in the influx of educating ourselves to be better and more successful, we seemed to have forgotten one small but significant fact of life. We cannot be always positive, and we cannot always avoid unhappiness.

Here's the thing. Shit happens.

No matter how hard you may try to create an unhappy, trauma-free life, unexpected often distressing or devastating things happen. You know that, and after over 16 years of being a psychologist and in the wellbeing business, I can confirm it.

Trauma, unhappiness, disappointment and accidents happen to all of us because we live in a world of chaos full of individual people on their own life tracks. A world of random acts, good and bad. It is how we accept it is a possibility of life, that defines us. We must mentally prepare for these moments, create a defence system to cope with it and build the path through and out the other side. Our focus should not be on thinking we can avoid negative moments, but on how we survive these most unwanted and undesired experiences in life.

Psychologist and life coach Susan David said, "A world that values constant positivity over truth creates false positivity." This is, in essence, a discussion I have had multiple times with my clients over the last decade. It answers the 'why.' Why me? Why them? Why us? A false positivity that nothing will go wrong blinds us to the reality that it just might. Unfortunately, in a world full of unrestrained and unpredictable variables, things do go belly up, that is just the human existence. Some of this we can try to avoid (lifestyle, diet, environmental and relationship choices). Others we cannot (acts of nature, accidents, victims of crime or abuse, war). If we overvalue constant positivity preferring the misbelief that a trauma-free life can be achieved, we set people up for serious disappointment, self-blaming and helplessness. It creates cognitions like, "If the world values positivity and I don't achieve it, I must be valueless and a failure," and "what am I doing wrong that unhappiness is in my life" or "I'm not like those positive trauma-free other people." None of which is productive, true or helpful in managing life.

Robert L. Leahy in his book Emotional Schema Therapy discusses 'the tragic vision'. His theory of tragedy means 'suffering is inevitable; that the mighty can fall; that forces beyond one's control or even imagination can destroy; that injustice is often inevitable; and that the suffering of others matters to oneself because it exemplifies what can happen to anyone.' He is all for building our trauma fortress that will fortify us against these negative moments.

The theory of trauma, the truth of chaos, the tragic vision, the false positivity, or the shit happens approach, whatever you want to call it. Life isn't about avoiding the real stuff. To encourage individuals to believe that constant happiness is first attainable, and second healthy, over the truth that during your lifetime things will go wrong, causing unhappiness, creates a false belief. A false idea that the impossible is possible. This cultural mantra that we can create and sustain constant positivity, means we are encouraging people to ignore the truth. That truth is how we feel, how things impact upon us and how we recover from tragedy. The truth is things do go wrong and we have to cope with failure, disappointment and heartache.

When we create falsehoods, we create an inauthentic world that does not have room for a real life.

False beliefs lead to false expectations, which leads inevitably to great disappointment. We need to be aware of overvaluing perceptions of positivity that can be unfounded or untrue. That we are preferring to believe in a lie than a reality, so, when reality hits, we are unprepared and underskilled to cope. Negative emotional experiences can linger, they can resurface, and they need time and space to emote, processes, learn from and recover. There is a social inference that to be unhappy is to be unhealthy, even when it is real and raw. Unhappiness is not a mental illness.

Life is not about emotional avoidance by creating a false positivity, it is about distress tolerance that allows us to experience and cope with the reality of our lives.

Health psychologist Kelly McGonical articulates the importance of accepting and including stress (a physical and emotional outcome of negative experiences), in our lives as the key to living a longer life. McGonical encourages us to see stress as the body preparing itself for action, to master a challenge, rather than a signal to avoid the stressful event. She believes we should 'chase meaning rather than avoid discomfort.' In other words, we must embrace the knowledge and experience that unhappiness has a purpose. It can bring us to action, connects us to each other, creates opportunities to learn compassion and give support, builds resilience and connects us socially, and is healthier for us, physically, socially and emotionally.

This contradicts the culture we have become attached to that encourages us to believe in and place a clear emphasis on a stress-free, trauma-free, unhappy free existence. An existence that is fantasy, unachievable and, if we follow McGonical's interpretation of research into stress, highly unhealthy for us, as individuals and as a community.

It all depends on how we manage our unhappiness and how we build a worldview that unhappiness will exist and through it, we will learn, step up to the challenge, seek support and support others. In this way, we grow and help those around us grow.

The upshot of this is, the next time you feel less than positive, see it as a moment to show courage, to connect with others and to hear your mind's need to be challenged.

Creating a world of false positivity devalues the very things that make us human and help us be stronger and more capable in a world that offers both the good with the bad.

Overvaluing positivity leads to despair, helplessness and isolation.

The best defence to a real, authentic life is to build your Truth of Positivity team. A team of skills and people and supports that create the 'cone of tragedy' around you, protecting you by upskilling you and keeping life real and your expectations authentic. This team needs:

  • People who have your back and can be there for you.

  • People who you can be there for and have their back.

  • Mental strength and thinking styles that can turn pessimistic thoughts to optimistic thoughts.

  • Social groups and networks that will support you in hard times.

  • Acceptance that sometime during your life, things will go wrong, and you will survive these moments.

  • See the challenge of unhappiness, stress and negativity as an opportunity for growth, health and development.

If your life has recurring or frequent negative experiences, then seek help to evaluate why. There is learning in these moments that you are not taking onboard. View life as a real, unpredictable but totally enjoyable experience. The good and the bad moments are there to challenge and teach you how to be a better human being, for you and for others.