Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3 to 1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life

by Barbara L. Fredrickson

There is particular power in the questions you ask yourself. Simply asking yourself What’s going right for me right now? can unlock so much. If you’re open and sincere as you seek meaningful, positive answers to this simple question, you prepare the soil for positivity to take root. Dewitt Jones, a photographer for National Geographic, stunningly illustrates the power of asking such questions in a video called Celebrate What’s Right With the World.21 In it, Jones tells how positivity infuses the ethic of National Geographic, and discusses how it has changed his life. Through the lens of his camera, he shows us how seemingly ordinary people and places— even disappointing ones— can radiate tremendous beauty if only we persist in asking ourselves What’s right here? What can I celebrate? and are patient enough in letting our answers surface. The effect of this video has been powerful when I’ve shown it in class. One of my students told me she was always skeptical of nature photos in magazines. She assumed they were edited and wondered why she never saw pretty images when she looked at nature herself. Jones’s teachings helped her realize that she never saw beauty because she didn’t believe it was there. With her eyes newly opened by his compelling account, she paid more attention as she walked through campus. She told me later, “Sure enough, all of the beauty seemed to pop out when I [had] thought it didn’t exist. The plants showed off their healthy green color, with rain dropl...