Broaden and Build Exercise

About The Experience

Do you want to be able to lose weight or maybe even run a half marathon, but you don’t quite have the motivation to get it done. Researchers have found a secret you may want to know. University of North Carolina researcher Barbara Fredrickson found that individuals who experienced success in some small way, were much more likely to apply the positive emotions that were created from that success in others ways that served to “broaden and build ‘ that person to another level of personal growth and achievement.

In short, her broaden and build theory suggests that emotions are functional.  Negative emotions serve to limit our thoughts and behaviors, helping us to act more decisively during times of stress or danger.  Positive emotions, by contrast, serve to expand, or broaden and build our physical and mental capabilities.

The implications of this research to all of us as it relates to goal accomplishment is that some of our more difficult and personally challenging goals may be better achieved if we first start by creating success in an area that aligns better with our strengths and values.  We then can build on the success from these mastery experiences and move further down the line to another goal that is more in line with our ultimate “stretch” objective.

With this in mind I would like for you to try the following exercise:

The Exercise

Think of a goal that you have that is challenging, if not difficult for you to achieve.  Think of that goal as a destination defined as point D and you are currently sitting at point A.  Instead of throwing yourself all in to attempt to move from A to D, think about moving from point A to point B.  Envision what point B might look like.  You then can build on the positive emotions created from achieving your point B goal to move to point C, and from there to your ultimate goal of point D.   The key is in picking the right goal for point B so that you will create a mastery experience upon its completion.  Consider your strengths values and interests when deciding what this first step goal should be.

If you would like to learn more about finding what your personal steps to creating mastery experiences in order to broaden and build should be, go to www.liveanewnow.com