The Power of Positive Experiences Part 2 - what makes a positive experience positive?

In my last post, I gave a bit of an overview of the benefits of having a positive experience. It was probably a bit of a no-brainer post, but it didn't really hurt to draw an explicit line from the experience to the benefits, especially in regards to the intended audience for this blog. This second part is going to answer the question of what a positive experience in terms of qualities that make something so.

So, what is a 'positive experience'? It's not really a hard one to answer, is it? There is a short and a long answer, though. The short one is:

'Anything that makes you feel good and provides you with a boost'.

The longer one takes into account a few other factors:

'Something either quick or sustained that those taking part in it take something that provides immediate or lasting benefit from, even if on the surface, the experience might seem negative'.

I'll unpack that a bit:

Positive experiences can either be something that happens quickly, or a sustained action that requires conscious effort to carry out. It might not even be sustained in the sense that it's one event that takes a while - it could be something small that is repeated at a regular interval that builds into a reward larger than the sum of its' parts.

A positive experience provides a benefit of some kind - it gratifies you with a reward of some sort, either immediately or over time. It might even be something that has no immediate payoff but you know will in the future. Have you ever laid out the next days' outfit before you went to bed that night, and congratulated yourself when it resulted in an extra couple of minutes sleep in the next morning? That's the sort of thing I mean there.

Finally, a positive experience might not always seem entirely positive at the time - this is a crucial thing to keep in mind for the introvert, owing to the self-powered nature we have. Sometimes, things can seem pretty bad. In my university work, I often run up against concepts and workloads that seem far too much to deal with, especially given that I'm without gainful employ at the moment. What usually gets me through is the idea that it's all building up to something good - something that will be a huge boon to me in the future. It makes the things I have to deal with now - the stress, the tenuous financial situation, the exhaustion - worth it in the long run. It also expands the concept of a positive experience to mean a lot more things than those that just seem good - almost anything can be a positive if you look for the good things that you can take away from it.

These things all combine in different ways when we do things and get into certain situations - from what I've said here, you can see how a lot of different things can be construed as positive. I guess in a way I'm just breaking things down so it's easier to see exactly what makes something a good experience, so maximum benefit can be gained from having them.

We've covered benefits and the qualities of what makes something a good experience now. I think the third and final post will provide some helpful ideas for those of us who don't feel they need to attend a party full of people they don't know to get a buzz. Thanks for reading.