The Making Of The Planet’s #1 Practical Positive Psychologist

For too long psychology has been primarily focused on curing mental illnesses, on “fixing” people and getting people from -6 to 0. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this, the problem is that psychology is incomplete.

Yes, I understand, it’s one of those subjects along with science, mathematics and so on which is and may always be incomplete. But psychology is different, psychology is missing a large aspect as an academic discipline and applied science. Psychology has fallen into the trap of:

If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
- Abraham Maslow

In a way, psychology was predisposed to its current predicament when it became accepted as an academic discipline and applied science. Because in order for psychology to be acknowledged as a discipline within life sciences, it was necessary for it to develop as a tool that could observe and give measurements. And very briefly, when you’re dealing with people, it’s easier to observe and measure the bad. It’s easier to “fix” someone because there is a standard for normal and okay, there is a standard for ‘fixed’.

As a result of psychology only focusing on the mental illnesses, a new discipline (or undisciplined?) / area emerged (or grew quicker), it was referred to as Self-help, Self-improvement and Personal development. While personal development has the best intention at heart, it lacks science and proper measurements. Consequentially, this allows entry to get-rich-quick-schemers, snake-oils and frauds. There are very few people you can trust in this area, fortunately because of the age we live in. Good news travels fast and bad news travels faster. That’s why a most of the scammers stay low, because once they start getting big, they get flushed out quickly. That’s why we are weary of people like Tai Lopez. That’s why we can trust people like Tony Robbins, Les Brown and Eric Thomas (well, most of us).

However, things are changing and psychology is growing. Martin Seligman, former President of the American Psychological Association helped finally bring the missing piece into the puzzle. We call this piece, Positive Psychology. The name is cringe-inducing to many but at least it has a name now. According to Seligman:

Positive Psychology is the scientific study of the strengths that enable individuals and communities to thrive.

Finally! Wundt, Adler & Maslow are celebrating their moustaches off!

I truly believe positive psychology, although a small step for our time, is a tremendous leap for man. I also truly believe that the psychology community will not accept the advent of this new face of psychology more so because of their own personal fears than the issues of measurement.

To cut the story short, I’m going to become the planet’s #1 positive psychologist. Why and how is none of you business. Here is what it means to be a practicing positive psychologist (in my opinion):

A practicing positive psychologist helps cultivate human flourishing by guiding people to seek their meaning in life and develop their inner signature strengths.

**Above definition subject to change!**

Finally, we have someone that can help us get from 0 to 6!