Flood your mind with positive emotions

TIME FOR A CHANGE Once you're clear about your values, there's a good chance that you'll start to notice how your life needs to change. When this happens you might come up against some resistance. For example, you might hear yourself say something like everything's just fine the way it is or I could never do that because . I want to point out that change is something we've been taught to avoid. You've probably heard phrases like don't ever change, and when you did, you also probably heard the gritting of teeth behind the words sending a message to you that change is bad. Change is scary because you know what you're giving up, but you don't know, in a visceral sense, what you'll be getting in return. Fear of the unknown is rampant because we all have fabulous imaginations prompted by negativity. Depictions of evolution in popular culture often describe Mother Nature as calling the shots, but the process of natural selection just happens; Variability and competition are simply facts of life, and so organisms evolve through a gradual refinement of previous adaptations. A fairly random mixture of characteristics of environments and organisms determines which attributes are adaptive and which are maladaptive. For example, bipedalism (standing up on two legs) gave early humans significant benefits, such as freeing up their hands for using tools, but it has downsides, including slipped disks, fallen arches, and shin splints. Like much else in life, evolution is a series of trade-offs, and even attributes that were beneficial enough to be passed down over generations can also come with certain costs. Keeping this in mind, we'll want to avoid making the naturalistic fallacy, whereby we assume (quite incorrectly) that the way things are is necessarily how they ought to be (Ismail et al. Naturalistic fallacy A bias toward believing that biological adaptations are inherently good or desirable. SECTION REVIEW Evolution: How Living Things Change over Time Evolution is the idea that species change over time and are descended from common ancestors. Let go of some toxic people in your life, Take better care of yourself,

Rest, and so on. There are plenty of reasons for you to lack motivation, and we'll discuss many of them in this article. The bottom line is: where you are now is exactly where you're supposed to be right now. So, stop trying to be somewhere else. Instead, accept your situation and take a fresh start from where you are right now. More importantly, take it easy! Give yourself permission to let go of your worries for a while. There's absolutely no need to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. Is it possible for you to imagine a positive outcome of change? Even small change? Take Action! Warm Up to Change To help prepare you for making the changes that will center your life around your values, let's try a little warm-up exercise. Over the next week, decide to make one simple change every day. For example, you might: Reverse the order of what you do in the morning. Eat lunch at a new place. Try a new food. Evolution occurs through the process of natural selection, which is a consequence of variability and competition. Adaptations improve the organism's prospects for survival and reproduction in its current environment.

Fit does not always mean tough. What is adaptive depends on the interaction between the environment and the attributes of the organism. Adaptations are trade-offs. Evolution is not guided by any purpose or goal. Do not infer that an attribute is more natural or better just because it evolved. General Adaptations of the Cultural Animal Learning Outcomes Outline different ways that sociability contributes to human evolution. This doesn't help you or anyone else. Just relax. State the facts Are you beating yourself up, judging yourself or overdramatizing things? If so, it is likely that, instead of looking at the facts objectively, you are paying too much attention to your negative thoughts. When you're in a negative state, this becomes normal. In other words, negative thoughts that once passed by unnoticed have become your center of attention. And, as you identify with these negative thoughts, you create even more negative emotions. Experiencing negative emotions is inevitable at times, but please remember, most mental suffering is optional. This kind of mental suffering only happens when you over-identify with those negative emotions and give them more power than they really have. Drive home a different way. Ask for paper instead of plastic at the grocery store (or vice versa).

Wear a different combination of clothes from your closet. Now it's your turn. What will you do? The idea is to get comfortable with change. Remember that change is usually not as painful as you project it to be. Instead of seeing it as losing something you want or need, decide to see change as getting something great. For example, there is current research that suggests that changing your routine will improve brain function and may even slow down the aging process! When the resistance or fear comes up, lean on your partner or group members for support. Describe how symbolic intelligence is essential for understanding both the self and the wider world. Give examples of the hierarchy of goals. Explain how emotions are involved with regulating and communicating our motivations. With an overview of evolutionary theory in place, we can look at what adaptations characterize human beings. Some psychologists focus on what are known as domain-specific adaptations, attributes that evolved to meet a particular challenge but that are not particularly useful when dealing with other types of challenges (Barkow et al. For example, photosensitive cells in our eyes evolved because they helped us to see color, but they are useless when it comes to, say, digesting proteins. As we'll see throughout this text, focusing on domain-specific adaptations can help us understand some behaviors, such as dating preferences (Neuberg et al. Domain-specific adaptations Attributes that evolved to meet a particular challenge but that are not particularly useful when dealing with other types of challenges. In contrast, domain-general adaptations are attributes that are useful for dealing with various challenges across different areas of life. Now, take a step back and look at the situation you are in right now. Ask yourself:

Twenty years from now, will this even matter? Is this the first time I've felt this way? Is this really that big a deal? Is the event relevant on a world scale? What can I do about it right now? For instance, I was unable to work on this article for several days and suffered from a lack of motivation. Now, let's state the facts and separate them from the fiction--the story that was going on in my mind. I didn't work on my article for a few days. Now that you're on the road to becoming more comfortable with change, let's take the next step. Let's look at some of the changes you may need to make in order to center your life around your values. DOES YOUR LIFE REFLECT YOUR VALUES? When you look over your four essential values do you feel satisfied in knowing that they are fully expressed in your life? How might your life need to change? When I did this exercise with Greta, a woman who attended one of my workshops, her ten values looked like this: Be joyful 7. Have fun 10. When she narrowed it down, her four essential values were: Be joyful 3. For example, the human capacity for learning can help you build a shelter, find food, and avoid a saber-toothed tiger. According to the archaeologist Stephen Mithen (1996, 1998), the flexibility of these domain-general adaptations is what most clearly distinguishes humans from other primate species.