Personal four week experiment with postitive psychology - Essay Example

Psychology was known to be a field that focused on dysfunctions in people and hence this branch of psychology acted to focus on making ordinary peoples’ lives more fulfilling and worth living (Peterson). It has been concerned with the factors that make hope for life never to diminish. Having talked of what positive psychology is all about, the rest of the paper will be reviewing how positive psychology has influenced my life for the four weeks I have carried out observation on myself with regard to positive energy.

All the weeks had different tasks to perform and evaluate the positive effects caused by each of these activities. The observations were stored in a journal. The first week involved identifying three events in a day that have made me happy. The following week I was to highlight events and thoughts that had negativity in my life and a diversion activity I used to keep my mind of the thought or event. The third week involved performing random acts of kindness and observing the feeling I had for doing this act.

The fourth week involved writing a letter or note of gratitude to a person each day. In the four weeks, the third week influenced my happiness the most. It involved doing random acts of kindness. As a social being, people are known to coexist together with others. Doing a random act of kindness and watching myself make another person smile was a very good feeling. The fact that I had made another person happy also made me happy. The week with the least influence was week one where I was to identify events and thoughts that made me happy.

This week had the least influence in my happiness because these acts were not out of the norm and they were mostly events I was used to (Peterson). My happiness score has had an increase after these four weeks. Positive psychology basic premise is that people are more drawn by what the future holds rather than they are driven by the past (Peterson). The reason my happiness score improved was that these events of happiness made me look at life more positively and thus gained hope for a good future.

In this study, I have realized that I am responsible for my own happiness and that I can be in control of my own happiness. It has made me realize that I can be kind to others, this was realized during the week I performed random acts of kindness, and that I can manage negative feelings quite well. Work Cited Peterson, Christopher. Positive psychology studies what makes life most worth living. Psychology today, 16th May 2008. Web. 17th October