Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life

by Martin E.P. Seligman

Book Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - The father of positive psychology draws on more than twenty years of clinical research to show you how to overcome depression, boost your immune system, and make yourself... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671741586
• ISBN13: 9780671741587
• Release Date: February 1992
• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Length: 319 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

great buy

The book was everything its seller said and more. was VERY HAPPY with the book and the priice. i would buy from this seller again!!

Life Changing Book - Evidence That Changed Me From a Pessimist To An Optimist

I have always been very skeptical of all "self help" books, believing they were mainly fluff and a waste of time. On a whim I thought I would buy this book since it was written by a psychologist and clinical researcher, and claimed to have evidence that optimists actually do succeed more and accomplish more. As stated earlier, the author is a psychologist and clinical researcher who has spent the majority of his life studying learned helplessness and optimism. After many clinical trials, he has been hired in many "real world" situations (including Met Life Insurance and sports teams) to improve results and test optimism and success. The results are astounding. The book describes the results using these real-life projects. As evidenced by these studies, optimism helps persons succeed in business, sports, politics, health, school, and literally all walks of life. The book demonstrated over and over again how I was handicapping myself by being negative and a pessimist. I am a very logical person and it took a book like this, written factually instead of emotionally, to open my eyes to pessimism. Since reading this book, I have dedicated myself to being an optimist, and I must say I have already noticed major differences in my life. I am succeeding at things I never would have even attempted before, and I have become very resilient in non-favorable situations. I have surprised myself over and over again. Not too many "life changing" books come along, but this book was definitely one for me. If you are a pessimist, this book can transform your life. If you are average or only slightly positive, this book can improve your life greatly. Do yourself a favor and read this book!

Learned Optimism

I received this book about a year ago and I think it is the best self help book on the market. It has been fantastic and has helped me so much by giving me scientifically proven techniques to change the way I look at events or situations. I use to read a few self help books to stay positive and ended up giving them up as I found they never gave me any help and where filled with 'take care of your self, your precious' and `say these nice things to yourself and you will have a better life'. I suppose that is all well and good but at the end of the day it never really helped me or changed anything. They could never snap me out of a downward spiral however the techniques in this book can. This book gave me concrete ways to help myself in situations where I get emotional or upset and it is something that will always need to be worked on but if you do it then it gets easier and you are in more control and you are a more rational and effective person. The book is easily understood even though alot of it is scientific and best of all the principals are backed up by studies so the book has validation. All of the principals are pretty basic and leave you feeling `well of course' however they really do help and like most books it brings your attention to things you may already know, but may not apply. If you enjoy going to psychologists and raking up all the bad events of your life and leave with no way to help yourself in these emotional times when you are alone, then you may not appreciate this book. While it is great to get help, it is important to get the right help and understand why something may not be helping you. Cognitive therapy seems to put the responsibility back on the individual, while you may not have chosen the way you choose to perceive your life (usually from parents) it is your responsibility to change this and to make the long term commitment to change. I have also read 2 other books by Martin Seligman and I also found these great. It is not essential to read all of these books but I found Learned Optimism so interesting, and that I got so much out of reading it and using the techniques that I wanted to see what was included in the other two books. The other books hold similar material however go into greater detail in other ways like talking about the angry person and why they are like that etc... I would recommend any of these books to everyone as there is something there for all, it would probably be best though to start with Learned Optimism.

This Stuff Works

I am a commercial real estate broker. Some years back, when I was involved in apartment rentals, and shortly after the first edition of the book was published, I decided, in an effort to enhance my production, to try the "Adversity-Belief-Consequences-Disputation-Energization" technique the author described. I was nothing short of amazed at the results. My production shot up! I had the two best months ever in the business. Perhaps luck was involved, but I have repeated the process numerous times over the years, particularly when I am suffering from an emotional lull, and invariably, something positive happens to me, in either my business or personal life. There is something almost eerie about this, and frankly if I didn't experience this myself, I doubt I would believe someone else recounting the same experience. I can only assume that by requiring you to LOGICALLY come up with reasons for thinking positively (rather than the b.s. along the lines of "I'm getting better and better every day")this manifests itself in small, subtle but detectible changes in your behavior. I highly recommend this book as a "thinking man's" self-help book, for people who are too well-educated to respond to meaningless self-talk.