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Overcoming Setbacks with Seligman's 3P's

How do you successfully process negative events that hit you in life ?

Psychologist Martin Seligman discovered 3P's that STUNT recovery from such events:
  • Personalization - what happened is my fault; realize that bad events aren't entirely your fault. Not everything that happens to you happens because of you. When you blame yourself, you delay recovery.
  • Pervasiveness - this will affect ALL areas of my life; realize bad events don't affect every area of your life
  • Permanence - the aftershocks of this event will last forever; realize hardships won't follow you everywhere forever even though you feel that the debilitating anguish will always be there. When we are suffering, we tend to project it out indefinitely and overestimate how long negative events will affect us. One way to overcome this is to replace "never" and "always" with "sometimes" and "lately".
So next time, when the next 'bad'comes, remind yourself that it is not entirely your fault, it will not affect your whole life and it will end (one of my favorite mantras is "This too shall end"). Be an overcomer!

This is a takeaway from Option B (Sandberg and Grant)

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