Positive psychology

Self-Transformation Mindfulness, Meditation, Motivation
Earl Nightingale - Wikipedia
Earl Nightingale (March 12, 1921 – March 25, 1989) was an American radio speaker and author, dealing mostly with the subjects of human character development, motivation, and meaningful existence. He was the voice during the early 1950s of Sky King , the hero of a radio adventure series, and was a WGN radio program host from 1950 to 1956. Nightingale was the author of The Strangest Secret , which economist Terry Savage has termed "…one of the great motivational books of all time."
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How Norman Vincent Peale Taught Donald Trump to Worship Himself
The magnate’s biographer explains the spiritual guide behind his relentless self-confidence.
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Transcendentalism - Wikipedia
Transcendentalism is, in many aspects, the first notable American intellectual movement. It has inspired succeeding generations of American intellectuals, as well as some literary movements. Transcendentalism influenced the growing movement of "Mental Sciences" of the mid-19th century, which would later become known as the New Thought movement. New Thought considers Emerson its intellectual father. Emma Curtis Hopkins ("the teacher of teachers"), Ernest Holmes (founder of Religious Science), Charles and Myrtle Fillmore (founders of Unity), and Malinda Cramer and Nona L. Brooks (founders of Divine Science) were all greatly influenced by Transcendentalism Major figures in the transcendentalist movement were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and Amos Bronson Alcott. Some other prominent transcendentalists included Louisa May Alcott, Charles Timothy Brooks, Orestes Brownson, William Ellery Channing, William Henry Channing, James Freeman Clarke, Christopher Pearse Cranch, John Sullivan Dwight, Convers Francis, William Henry Furness, Frederic Henry Hedge, Sylvester Judd, Theodore Parker, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, George Ripley, Thomas Treadwell Stone, Jones Very, Christopher McCandless and Walt Whitman.

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Pseudoscience - Wikipedia
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claims; reliance on confirmation bias rather than rigorous attempts at refutation; lack of openness to evaluation by other experts; absence of systematic practices when developing hypotheses; and continued adherence long after the pseudoscientific hypotheses have been experimentally discredited. The demarcation between science and pseudoscience has philosophical, political, and scientific implications. Differentiating science from pseudoscience has practical implications in the case of health care, expert testimony, environmental policies, and science education. Distinguishing scientific facts and theories from pseudoscientific beliefs, such as those found in climate change denial, astrology, alchemy, alternative medicine, occult beliefs, and creation science, is part of science education and literacy. Pseudoscience can have dangerous effects. For example, pseudoscientific anti-vaccine activism and promotion of homeopathic remedies as alternative disease treatments can result in people forgoing important medical treatments with demonstrable health benefits, leading to deaths and ill-health. Furthermore, people who refuse legitimate medical treatments to contagious diseases may put others at risk. Pseudoscientific theories about racial and ethnic classifications has led to racism and genocide. The term pseudoscience is often considered pejorative particularly by purveyors of it, because it suggests something is being presented as science inaccurately or even deceptively. Those practicing or advocating pseudoscience therefore frequently dispute the characterization
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Optimism - Wikipedia
Optimism is an attitude reflecting a belief or hope that the outcome of some specific endeavor, or outcomes in general, will be positive, favorable, and desirable. A common idiom used to illustrate optimism versus pessimism is a glass filled with water to the halfway point : an optimist is said to see the glass as half full, while a pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
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John Earl Shoaff - Wikipedia
John Earl Shoaff (March 21, 1916 - September 6, 1965) was an American entrepreneur and motivational speaker . Shoaff was President and Board Chairman of the Nutri-Bio Corporation, a direct sales organization which sold vitamin, mineral, and protein dietary food supplements.
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Neuro-linguistic programming - Wikipedia
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a psychological approach that involves analyzing strategies used by successful individuals and applying them to reach a personal goal. It relates thoughts, language, and patterns of behavior learned through experience to specific outcomes.
Neuro-linguistic programming is a pseudoscientific approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy created by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in California, United States, in the 1970s
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Bob Proctor (author) - Wikipedia
Bob Proctor is a Canadian self-help author, who identifies himself as a philosopher. He is best known for his New York Times best-selling book You Were Born Rich and a contributor to the film The Secret
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Mark Victor Hansen - Wikipedia
Mark Victor Hansen (born January 8, 1948) is an American inspirational and motivational speaker , trainer and author . He is best known as the founder and co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series.
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Self-help - Wikipedia
According to the APA Dictionary of Psychology, potential benefits of self-help groups that professionals may not be able to provide include friendship, emotional support, experiential knowledge, identity, meaningful roles, and a sense of belonging
Self-help or self-improvement is a self-guided improvement —economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis.
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Psychology - Wikipedia

Developing competence
Managing emotions
Developing mature interpersonal relationships
Establishing personal identity
Developing purpose
Developing integrity
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In 1877, the term "Law of Attraction" appeared in print for the first time in a book written by the Russian occultist Helena Blavatsky, in a context alluding to an attractive power existing between elements of spirit. The first articulator of the Law as general principle was Prentice Mulford. Mulford, a pivotal figure in the development of New Thought thinking, discusses the Law of Attraction at length in his essay "The Law of Success", published 1886-1887. In this, Mulford was followed by other New Thought authors, such as Henry Wood (starting with his God’s Image in Man, 1892), and Ralph Waldo Trine (starting with his first book, What All the World's A-Seeking,1896). For these authors, the Law of Attraction is concerned not only about health but every aspect of life. The 20th century saw a surge in interest in the subject with many books being written about it, amongst which are

two of the best-selling books of all time; Think and Grow Rich (1937) by Napoleon Hill,
The Power of Positive Thinking (1952) by Norman Vincent Peale, and
You Can Heal Your Life (1984) by Louise Hay. The Abraham-Hicks material is based primarily around the Law of Attraction. In 2006, the concept of the Law of Attraction gained renewed exposure with the release of the film The Secret (2006) which was then developed into a book of the same title in 2007. The movie and book gained widespread media coverage. This was followed by a sequel, The Power in 2010 that talks about the law of attraction being the law of love Proponents believe that the Law of Attraction is always in operation and that it brings to each person the conditions and experiences that they predominantly think about, or which they desire or expect. Charles Haanel wrote in The Master Key System (1912): The law of attraction will certainly and unerringly bring to you the conditions, environment, and experiences in life, corresponding with your habitual, characteristic, predominant mental attitude. Ralph Trine wrote in In Tune With The Infinite (1897): The law of attraction works universally on every plane of action, and we attract whatever we desire or expect. If we desire one thing and expect another, we become like houses divided against themselves, which are quickly brought to desolation. Determine resolutely to expect only what you desire, then you will attract only what you wish for. In her 2006 film The Secret, Rhonda Byrne emphasized thinking about what each person wants to obtain, but also to infuse the thought with the maximum possible amount of emotion. She claims the combination of thought and feeling is what attracts the desire.

Another similar book is James Redfield's The Celestine Prophecy, which says reality can be manifested by man.

The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy, says readers can achieve seemingly impossible goals by learning how to bring the mind itself under control.

The Power by Rhonda Byrne,

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle are similar.

While personal testimonies claim the secret and the law to have worked for them, a number of skeptics have criticized Byrne's film and book. The New York Times Book Review called the secret pseudoscience and an "illusion of knowledge
The New Thought movement is not part of New Age but does share certain practices. This concept has grown popular due to Rhonda Byrne's The Secret (also a 2006 film) These books and teachers express similar ideas to Napoleon Hill's book Think and Grow Rich. Byrne was inspired in particular by Wallace D. Wattles' 1910 book The Science of Getting Rich.

Affirmations are also referred to in Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), Neuro Associative Conditioning "NAC" as popularized by Anthony Robbins, and hypnosis. A related belief is that a certain critical mass of people with a highly spiritual consciousness will bring about a sudden change in the whole population. And that humans have a responsibility to take part in positive creative activity and to work to heal ourselves, each other and the Earth. In 1984 Louise Hay a Religious Science Practitioner published You Can Heal Your Life, a guide to changing thoughts and beliefs. Hay's affirmations are designed to help the user re-program their thought patterns, the intention being that harmful underlying beliefs which Hay believes psychologically support illness will be replaced with healing beliefs, and thus remove a barrier to healing Esther Hicks, author of the Law of Attraction series, advocates using affirmations when one is already in a state of happiness and peace. New-Age affirmations come in different forms: spiritual talks lectures classes affirmative images, affirmative words affirmative videos mantra chants Proponents of New-Age affirmations say that with our thoughts, desires and emotions, we create our world. According to Brendan Baker, founder of The Start of Happiness, affirmations work best when they encompass three elements: visualisation of the affirmation in one's life feeling the affirmation in one's physiology vocalizing the affirmation in a way that one is already congruent with that affirmation
According to Rhonda Britten, affirmations work best when combined with acknowledgements because the acknowledgements build up a backlog of results in one's mind to prove that one can do what one is affirming.
The goal is to focus on steps one has taken toward accomplishing one's goals rather than criticizing oneself for what one has not yet accomplished, or could theoretically have accomplished but did not.
A 2009 study found that present tense positive affirmation had a positive effect on people with high self-esteem, but a detrimental effect on those with low self esteem. Individuals with low self-esteem who made present tense (e.g. "I am") positive affirmations felt worse than individuals who made positive statements but were allowed to consider ways in which the statements were false. Individuals with low self-esteem who made future tense affirmations (e.g. "I will") saw positive effects. Some studies have found that self-affirmations, which involve writing about one's core values rather than repeating a positive self-statement, can improve performance under stress. An fMRI study in 2016 demonstrated the role of two reward and valuation brain regions (ventral striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex) as primary pathways associated with self-affirmation. Self-related processing and prospection associated regions in the brain were further associated with objectively measured positive behavioral changes following future-oriented

self-affirmations Affirmative prayer Autogenic training Cosmic ordering Creative visualization Gratitude Law of Attraction Rationality Self-esteem
Cognitive psychology is a school of thought in psychology that examines internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language.
Cognitive reframing can be useful in many ways, such as when trying to improve memory, reduce test anxiety, and helping parents and children cope with disabilities. For example, people with memory problems were told that their memory could be improved by shifting their perspective on their problem. After receiving treatment, their memory improved. Another example are parents with disabled children. Some parents harbored negative thoughts about their disabled children. Cognitive reframing helped these parents to view their children and their experiences in a more positive light. Humor and cognitive reframing One behavior that has been shown to facilitate cognitive reframing is humor, especially humor that is based on positivity, rather than mean-spirited. For example, in one study, participants were exposed to a series of unpleasant pictures. To cope with these pictures, participants were invited to create a positive joke about the picture, a negative joke about the picture, or no joke about the picture. The positive joke tended to elicit positive emotions instead of negative emotions. The authors concluded that positive humor might epitomize a variant of cognitive reframing in which individuals shift their perspective of some unfavorable event or circumstance towards a more positive outlook of the same circumstances Aaron T. Beck developed cognitive therapy in the 1960s. Through working with patients diagnosed with depression, he found that negative thoughts would persist in the minds of these patients. Beck helped his patients recognize the impact of their negative thoughts, and aided them in shifting their mindset to think more positively. This eventually led to the lessening of, or sometimes getting rid of, the patients' depression. This process was termed "cognitive restructuring", and aimed principally at rethinking perceived negative thoughts and turning them into positive thoughts.

Using cognitive restructuring as a tool in therapeutic settings led other researchers to recognize that this process happens outside the clinic, and would lead them to develop the term "cognitive reframing" as a way to describe the more generalized process.
Psychology became linked to personal development in the early 20th century starting with Alfred Adler (1870–1937) and Carl Jung (1875–1961)
Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 BCE – 322 BCE) wrote Nicomachean Ethics, in which he defined personal development as a category of phronesis or practical wisdom, where the practice of virtues (arête) leads to eudaimonia, commonly translated as "happiness" but more accurately understood as "human flourishing" or "living well".

Aristotle continues to influence the Western concept of personal development to this day, particularly in the economics of human development and in positive psychology

Work-life balance Time management Stress management Health programs Counseling Education for questions of learning and assessment Psychology for motivation and personality Sociology for identity and social networks Economics for human capital and economic value Philosophy for ethics and self-reflection Developing competence Managing emotions Achieving autonomy and interdependence Developing mature interpersonal relationships Establishing personal identity Developing purpose Developing integrity Coaching End-of-history illusion Holland Codes Human Potential Movement Know thyself Life planning Life skills Micropsychoanalysis Self-actualization Self-discovery Self-help Training and development

Personal development as an industry has several business-relationship formats of operating. The main ways are business-to-consumer and business-to-business. However, two newer ways have emerged: consumer-to-business and consumer-to-consumer. The personal development market had a global market size of 38.28 billion dollars in 2019.

Business-to-consumer market

The business-to-consumer market involves selling books, courses and techniques to individuals, such as:

Some programs deliver their content online. Many include tools sold with a program, such as motivational books for self-help, recipes for weight-loss or technical manuals for yoga and martial-arts programs.

A partial list of personal development offerings on the business-to-individual market might include:

Business-to-business market

Some consulting firms such as DDI and FranklinCovey specialize in personal development, but as of 2009 generalist firms operating in the fields of human resources, recruitment and organizational strategy—such as Hewitt, Watson Wyatt Worldwide, Hay Group, McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, and Korn/Ferry—have entered what they perceive as a growing market, not to mention smaller firms and self-employed professionals who provide consulting, training and coaching

Personal development can also include developing other people's skills and personality. This may take place through roles such as those of a teacher or mentor, either through a personal competency (such as the alleged skill of certain managers in developing the potential of employees) or through a professional service (such as providing training, assessment or coaching).

Beyond improving oneself and developing others, "personal development" labels a field of practice and research:

  • As a field of practice, personal development includes personal-development methods, learning programs, assessment systems, tools, and techniques.
  • As a field of research, personal-development topics appear in psychology journals, education research, management journals and books, and human-development economics.

Any sort of development—whether economic, political, biological, organisational or personal—requires a framework if one wishes to know whether a change has actually occurred. In the case of personal development, an individual often functions as the primary judge of improvement or of regression, but validation of objective improvement requires assessment using standard criteria.

Personal-development frameworks may include:

  • Goals or benchmarks that define the end-points
  • Strategies or plans for reaching goals
  • Measurement and assessment of progress, levels or stages that define milestones along a development path
  • A feedback system to provide information on changes

Among other things, personal development may include the following activities: