Week 4 / Analyzing and Balancing
The most pivotal difference, though, between those with and without resilient personality styles was their positivity. It was the secret of their success. It was the mechanism behind their lesser depression and their greater psychological growth. In short, we discovered that resilience and positivity go hand-in-hand. Without positivity, there is no rebound.
Fredrickson, Barbara. Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3-to-1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life (p. 102). Harmony/Rodale/Convergent. Kindle Edition.
Mindset matters
In her TED talk on stress, Kelly McGonigal shares something surprising: stress isn’t what harms us—it’s what we believe about stress that matters. If you see stress as “bad,” your body reacts accordingly. But if you see it as something that helps you rise to the occasion, the story changes entirely. The same goes for how we face the unknown: it becomes either a challenge or an obstacle, depending on how we frame it.
Carol Dweck explores this idea in Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. You’re either approaching something with a growth mindset—“I can learn”—or a fixed one—“I either have what it takes or I don’t.” And if you’re in that fixed mindset space, thinking your past failures mean you’re just not cut out for this, we get it. There are lots of factors that can make us take failure harder than we have to. But we’re here to help you look at the same situation through a different lens—to find the challenge in what could feel like a dead end.
How do we know it’s not just about talent or luck or some gene you didn’t get? Because you’ve already proven it. Somewhere in your life—at work, in school, in a relationship—you started out unsure or unskilled and got better. You struggled, maybe even flailed, but you kept going. Why? Because something made it worth it. A small win, a kind word, a moment of pride, someone who believed in you. That little flicker of reinforcement is all it took to keep showing up.
That’s how change works. Even now. The meal in front of you, the habit you're trying to build, the unfamiliar action you're resisting—it can feel like a wall or an open door. Mindset makes the difference. And we forget how much power we have to shift it.
In our video, we talk about the Be-Do-Have model—a simple framework from personal development and NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) that flips the usual script. It suggests that if you want to have something (like better energy, confidence, or health), you don’t simply force it. You start with being—stepping into the mindset and identity that supports the change. From there, the doing becomes easier, and the having is just a matter of time.
If you can lean into a mindset that welcomes the messiness of change—not as failure, but as part of the process—you’ll be able to face what’s ahead this week not as a series of obstacles, but as challenges you welcome.