Fixed vs Growth Mindset:

• Fixed Mindset: intelligence is static

  • Leads to a desire to look smart

• Growth Mindset: intelligence can be developed

  • Leads to a desire to learn

• Tyranny of Now: cheat on a test, run from difficulty, find someone who has it worse

• Discover the Power of Yet

  • Process the error by learning deeply from it

• Reward the use of effort, strategy and process instead of results alone

• Every time students are pushed out of their comfort zones, neurons form stronger connections that can make one smarter, wiser.

• Basic human abilities can be cultivated and nurtured.

Mindfulness, Flow, and Spirituality: In Search of Optimal Experiences

• Life Pursuits

  • Intentional, moment-to-moment searches for optimal experiences give us joy and fulfillment.

  • Mindless pursuit of less than meaningful goals or unchallenging ones leaves people bored and empty.

• Many walk through life unaware of the significance of our lives and its relation to our experiences and emotional selves.

• Daniel Kahnenman

  • There are about 20,000 moments in 3 seconds in a 16-hour day, so this is what life consists of a sequence of moments.

  • Each moment is very rich in experience. There is a goal, a mental content, a physical state and even an emotional arousal.

  • Many things are happening.

  • And then you can ask, “What happens to these moments?”

• Mindfulness

  • State of active, open attention to the present. This state is described as observing one’s thoughts and feelings without judgment.

  • Awareness + Acceptance

  • Flexible state of mind

  • Here and now

  • Context and perspective

  • Active search for novelty > mindlessness involves zoning out to everyday life.

• This requires us to

  • Overcome mind wandering to reduce uncertainty in everyday life

  • Override the tendency to engage in automatic behavior

  • Engage less frequently in evaluations of self, others and situations.

• Openness to novelty and sensitivity to context and perspective.

• Cultivating awareness of everyday happenings and physiological and psychological sensations.

• Qualities

  • Non judging

  • Non striving

  • Acceptance

  • Patience

  • Trust

  • Openness

  • Letting go

  • Gentleness

  • Generosity

  • Empathy

  • Gratitude

  • Loving

  • Kindness

• Living with Mindfulness

  • Being mindful of emotions

  • Being mindful of eating

  • Mindful stretching exercises

  • Mindful breathing and sitting

• Benefits of Mindfulness

  • Successful treatment of chronic pain and anxiety

  • Stress-reduction

  • Affiliative trust towards others (mindful parenting)

  • Change in perspectives and outlook

  • Increased cultural sensitivity

• Mindful Brain and Rejection

  • Part of the human experience is being rejected

  • Mindful individuals report less distress during reaction because they don’t attempt to suppress the experience in the first place

  • Mindfully accepting, rather than suppressing goes a long way towards healing from social injuries.

Flow and Mindfulness

• Mindfulness and flow involve deep concentration, flow involves goal-directed behavior

• Mindfulness channels concentration toward the present moment, flow channels concentration toward skill and goal achievement which includes past and future and assessment of these thoughts

• Flow

  • A person can make himself happy or miserable, regardless of what is actually happening outside just by changing the content of consciousness

  • State which a person involved perceived that nothing else matters

  • Intense concentration, no attention for problems or anything else

  • Where one loses oneself in the process, time gets distorted

  • “Can do” attitude

  • Happiness is something that individuals can conjure themselves

  • Happiness was a function of our degree of engagement with whatever we choose to do

  • Start doing more of what you love

  • Optimal state of engagement

  • A person perceives challenges to action as neither underutilizing nor overwhelming his or her existing skills.

  • Has clear attainable goals and immediate feedback about progress

• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  • Intrigued by the stories about artists who “lost themselves in their work”

  • Similar activities that causes this single-mindedness state

  • State of “full-capacity” living that is believed to be directly linked to optimal development and functioning.

• Finding your Flow

  • Why do people pursue particular goals with great fervor in the absence of rewards?

  • Conditions of flow appear remarkably similar across work settings, play settings and cultures, which include:

    • Perceived challenges and opportunities for actions that stretch

    • Clear proximal goals and immediate feedback about progress.

• What happens during flow?

  • Intense and focused concentration on what one is doing at the present moment

  • Merging of action and happiness

  • Loss of reflective self-consciousness

  • A sense that one can control one’s actions.

  • Time has passed faster than normal

  • Experience that activity as intrinsically rewarding, end goal just an excuse for the process.

• Benefits of Flow

  • Mastery of skills

  • Flow in workspaces

  • Optimal experiences

  • Flow influencing the environment and the individual

  • Work becomes “serious play”

• Autotelic Personality

  • Cluster of traits exhibited by a person who enjoys life and generally does things for his/her own sake rather than in order to achieve something later.

• Concept of Flow

  • Optimal experiences and its role in development

  • Focus, attention and the self

  • Flow, complexity and development

  • Measuring Flow and Autotelic Personality

  • Consequences of Flow

  • Nature and Dynamics of Flow

  • Obstacles and Facilitators of Flow

  • Autotelic Families

  • Interventions and Programs to Foster Flow

Spirituality: In Search of the Sacred

• Thoughts, feelings and behaviors that fuel and arise from the search for the Sacred.

• Spiritual strivings, which include personal goals associated with the ultimate concerns of purpose, ethics and recognition of the transcendent.

• Although specific content of spiritual beliefs varies, all cultures have a concept of an ultimate, transcendent, sacred and divine force.

• Belief in God

• Value of Prayer

• Religion

• Aid in human functioning

  • Mental health

  • Marriage and Family Life

  • Stress and Grief