By Carol Grannick on December 28, 2009
In the spirit of end-of-year reminiscence and thoughtful self-assessment, I realized yesterday that my closet held beautiful, exotic clothing that I’ve collected over several decades. Clothing that is lovely to look at, but clothing I don’t wear, or am uncomfortable in when I do.
The clothes don’t belong in my closet. Not because I don’t [...]
Posted in Emotional Life Of Writers, Learned Optimism, Positivity for Writers, The Writing Life | Tagged Learned Optimism, Martin Seligman, positive attitude, writer's block
By Carol Grannick on December 25, 2009
One of the helpful aspects of The Irrepressible Writer workshops is the ability to see and hear other writers in the group learn to dispute their ‘pessimistic explanatory style‘. This post will bring part of that experience to you.
WARNING: It’s a long post (under 1000 words), but if I split it up into multiple posts, [...]
Posted in Emotional Life Of Writers, Learned Optimism, rejection | Tagged disputing thoughts, Learned Optimism, Martin Seligman
By Carol Grannick on November 27, 2009
When I entered social work school, I was a creative writing and literature major entering an unknown world. On my first day, the late Dean of my social work school, Dr. William Rosenthal, read to us from Keats.
He spoke about what Keats called “Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, [...]
Posted in Gratitude, The Writing Life, Uncategorized | Tagged Gratitude, Martin Seligman
By Carol Grannick on November 13, 2009
You know those folks who seem to have an inborn ability to see the positive in whatever happens? I mean, they don’t even have to try to be optimistic?
Hmm. Well, I don’t. Not too many, anyway. For most of us, trying to find and maintain a positive attitude can be difficult, especially in the face of [...]
Posted in Emotional Life Of Writers, Learned Optimism, Resilient Writers | Tagged Martin Seligman, optimistic explanatory style, pessimistic explanatory style
By Carol Grannick on November 9, 2009
Martin Seligman, Director of the Department of Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and researcher into learned optimism and happiness, uses a process of “disputation” evolving from cognitive therapy. This ABCDE process outlines the necessary steps to challenge Pessimistic Explanatory Style and change it to Optimistic Explanatory Style.
Why is this so important to writers? Because writers lose time, [...]
Posted in Emotional Life Of Writers, The Writing Life | Tagged Martin Seligman, optimistic explanatory style, pessimistic explanatory style
