Sep 4, 2019
Dr. Bonanno is chair of the department of counseling and clinical psychology at Columbia University’s Teachers College. He is a world leader on research around trauma, bereavement, and resilience. His interest in how people cope with difficult events and circumstances has led to studies around grief, trauma, acute medical situations, and other unpleasant events.
In this episode, you’ll learn…
- The rewards and consequences of pursuing controversial questions
- What to do when your work is published...and then ignored
- About the weak basis for many assumptions within psychology
- How to protect your curiosity from being squelched by the day-to-day
- Why it’s especially easy for those young in their careers to stay within the safe realm of the conventional
- Why Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi encouraged him to look for employment with a small school and why you might too
- How to deal with disappointments and setbacks
- How to keep the pragmatic details of work from encroaching on your mental space
Tips from the episode
On how to maintain motivation when doing something unconventional…
- You have to be internally motivated by the questions
- Begin with “What do we know and how do we know it? How solid is the evidence?”
- When you find something counterintuitive and trust your methods, it’s usually easy to stay motivated
- If you believe you’re on the right track, that’s rewarding in itself
- Follow your own interests
On dealing with setbacks and the parts of your job that you don’t enjoy
- Remember that the unusable finding of today might be usable in the future
- Hang in there. Keep pursuing the ideas that motivate you.
- Be creative with the tasks you have. Put your own spin on things. Modify things so they’re more amenable to your goals.
- Be open to failure and admit when something has failed.
Links from the episode: