To raise your level of Positive Genius practice 5 skills as shown by Shawn Achor in Before Happiness.
Skill 4 – Canceling the Noise:
Boosting your ‘positive signal’ by eliminating ‘negative noise’.
Signal is information that guides you to possibilities that help you reach your higher potential. Noise is any information that is negative, false or unnecessary deterring you from achieving your goals.
“Noise is much more than a distraction. It blocks out signals that can point you towards positive growth,” says Shawn Achor. He refers to it as a reality distorter.
The sheer clamor of negativity drowns out the steady positive signal that is showing you the way to growth and advancement.
We are over stimulated by an onslaught of information on a daily basis. This is external noise. Then there is the distinct chatter in our heads of negative self-talk. This is internal noise.
Strategy 1: Recognize the signal
Differentiate the signal from the noise to be happier, healthier and successful.
Signal: Information that is true, relevant, timely, and reliable. Such as a positive review, constructive feedback, a top grade, news alerts grounded in reality. Even if a negative event is about to happen, the signal drives you to action resulting in a positive outcome.
Noise: Information that is false, unusable or irrelevant, untimely, hypothetical and distracting. Such as self-doubt, pessimism, gossip, criticism, constant stream of negative news, social media chatter, panic trading on the stock market.
Positive Genius allows the brain to separate the grain from the chaff. It attends to the signal, factual information needed to overcome problems, and sift out the flawed information that misleads and misinforms. Positive Psychology research teaches us that by consciously reducing incoming negative information by 5% we can increase the chances of hearing the positive signal.
Our senses can receive 11 million bits of information per second, but our conscious brain can only process 40 bits of information. The rest is discarded. The more negative information we absorb, the less positive signal we are able to let in. There is a bottle-neck effect. Good news is that the reverse is also true. Though we have an evolutionary negativity bias, we can learn to amplify our positivity offset. “Boost our signal: noise ratio”.
Strategy 2: Stop the addiction to noise
We evolved with a negativity bias to keep us safe. We no longer need that. Now, it only holds us back. So we want to keep it out.
Passive noise canceling is simply blocking out unwanted sound, like ear plugs do. How do you hear the signal then? Active noise canceling is producing an opposite sound wave that counters ambient noise, like noise canceling headphones do. The new sound we emit is the positive signal that we amplify to filter out the noise.
Strategy 3: Cancel the internal noise
Negative thoughts of fear, pessimism and self-doubt can be replaced with positive affirmations. Activate positive energy waves to counter negative energy.
- Noise check your life
- Decrease 5% of noise intake for 2 weeks.
- Create active noise canceling. List 3 waves of positive energy.
- Do a fact check. Step back to gain perspective.
- Writing exercise (5 minutes). Positive feelings, thoughts, values and passions.
- Physical exercise. It reduces worry by 20% as you mute centers in the limbic brain related to anxiety and decrease cortisol (stress hormone). It releases endorphins (feel-good hormones).
Remember the Positivity to Negativity Ratio of 3:1 helps you flourish in life!