How is your portfolio doing?  If your 401K looks like mine, it has been severely reduced in the last few weeks.  I am looking at a different kind of portfolio.  This one is suggested in a brilliant new book, POSITIVITY, by Barbara Fredericks, Ph.D., who deals in research into positive psychology.  That is right down my alley, since I am totally convinced that the Strengths-Based approach is the best way to go through life.

The Economic Portfolio can be very different from an Emotional Portfolio.  What if you also kept files on your emotions?  And, especially on your positive emotions?  Fredericks shows us how to do that in her book.  So, I am today setting up an Emotional 401K, with shares that are named Joy, Gratitude, Serenity, Interest, Hope, Pride, Amusement, Inspiration, Awe, and Love.  Out of that will come more expansion in my mind and my imagination.  It will also bring forth more creativity, not to mention better feeling tones.  The charts can plot my experience on a daily, minute-by-minute flow.  Gratitude is easy to keep in the upper levels.  Amusement is a great emotional stock for everything tragic can also be quite comical.  Serenity can be purchased with meditative thinking….  You get the gist of this, I hope.

Make your own chart of emotions and remember, you can choose the positive ones.  All it takes is to change your thinking and your believing!  Yes, that’s hard to do, but in this day of worry and stress, it is worth the doing.