Instructor Manual: Thinking Positively about the Future


Handouts 

Click the above link to view Word documents for all the handouts for this chapter. 

 

Videos

 

Student Learning Outcome

Students will apply positive thinking strategies to their future college, career, and lifelong success and examine the process of making positive changes in their lives.

Eight Traits that Lead to Success

 

Richard St. John completed over 500 interviews gathering “words of wisdom” from successful people.  He synthesized his findings into 8 traits to be great:

 

·        Passion

·        Work

·        Focus

·        Push

·        Ideas

·        Improve

·        Serve

·        Persist

 

Ask your students to brainstorm 8-10 traits that they would believe would make a person successful.   Compare it to St. John’s list.  Then view a three minute Ted Talk video clip on the subject at: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/70   This video is a good summary of many topics in the text. 

 

Richard St. John has a book titled, Stupid, Ugly, Unlucky and Rich, published by Train of Thought Arts, 2006.

 

Post Test Success Wheel

 

The Success Wheel is a graphic representation of Measure Your Success which is a post-test. Complete this wheel at the beginning and at the end of this course. It is included in the print edition, but not the online versions.
Success Wheel 9th Edition
Success Wheel 9th Edition Concise
Success Wheel for Career Success

Success Wheel for Native American and Hawaiian versions

 

My Personal Philosophy

 

A good summarizing activity is to challenge students to write a 50 word statement of their personal philosophy and share it with other students in the class. It is important to spend time thinking about what is most important since you are limited to 50 words. Describe the process of writing this statement and share your own.


Your personal philosophy is a statement about how you will live the best personal life. It is the roadmap for achieving your goals in life. In writing your personal philosophy, think about what is most important in your life and what you believe is possible. It can include your beliefs, values, attitudes, and hopes for the future. It is your plan for becoming the best you can be. It also includes staying healthy over a lifetime.

 

This statement is valuable for two reasons:

 

1. It helps you to deal with changes and challenges in life and to accomplish your goals.

2. It helps you to manage your time and keep yourself moving in the right direction. Ask yourself, "Do my actions in the present moment match my personal philosophy?"

 

Students can brainstorm the components of a personal philosophy statement. Here are some items to consider in thinking about your personal philosophy: positive thinking, growth mindset, passions, interests, personal strengths, multiple intelligences, self-confidence, life purpose, personal values, lifetime goals, family, friends, achieving happiness in life, staying healthy, honesty, doing good for others, perserving the environment, spirituality.

 

Here is an example of my personal philosophy of life in 50 words:

 

I appreciate very day the gifts I have been given, including my intelligences, good health, and family. My purpose is to leave the world and the people in it in better condition because I have existed. I enjoy seeing the world, loving my family, challenging my potential, and facing each day with a positive attitude.

 

In a face to face course, students can brainstorm the components of a personal philosophy, write the statement in class (20 minutes), and share their personal statements in small discussion groups or post them in the classroom. Use the Personal Philosophy handout as a guide for the exercise.

 

For online students, this can become a discussion question in which students are required to write their own statement and then find another students statement that they like and state what they like about it and offer encouragement to another student.

 

Another idea is to do a one minute paper at the beginning of the course. Ask students, "What do you want out of life?" Keep these responses and compare them with this personal philosophy exercise. It is a good way to see personal growth from the beginning of the semester.

 

Final Project: Personal Philosophy and Vision Board

 

An option for a final project is combining the Personal Philosophy with a Vision Board or Goal Poster. Here is a link to the directions for this final project: Final Project

 

For online courses, this can become the final discussion. Click this link for the Discussion Questions.

 

Directions for completing a Vision Board can be found at https://careertrend.com/how-5977631-create-goals-poster.html

 

Group Activity:  Positive Thinking Exercise

 

Students sometimes have difficulty recognizing negative thoughts and turning them around to more positive ideas.  Use the Positive Thinking exercise as a group activity to help students become more aware of the power of positive thinking.

 

Visualize Your Success

 

Students are more likely to be successful if they have a clear visual picture of their success.  Use this mostly blank page, Visualize Your Success, to have students create a mind map, draw, outline, or make a list of words to describe their picture of success.  Pass out packages of crayons or colored markers to encourage creativity.

 

Students can also create a Vision Board or Goal Poster as an assignment and share it with the class. See directions for creating this poster at: https://careertrend.com/how-5977631-create-goals-poster.html

 

Visualize Your Success 2

 

Have students do a 5 minute free-write on what success means to them. Share with the class. See Bill Johnson's Blog with examples what his students wrote for this exercise.

 

Happiness Is . . .

 

Use this mostly blank page, Happiness Is . . ., to have students draw a picture of what happiness means to them.  If students resist drawing a picture, have them make a list of what makes them happy.  Challenge students to finish this activity in 5 minutes.  They can share some items with the class. 

 

Three Wishes

 

Ask students to pretend that they are on the beach and find a bottle.  A genie pops out and says that they can have three wishes.  Here are the requirements for the wishes:

 

You cannot ask for more wishes.
The wishes have to be for yourself.
The wishes have to be possible to accomplish. 

 

Ask students to write down their three wishes.  Then ask for volunteers to share their wishes.  Then tell the students that you would like them to change the wishes into affirmations. 

 

Review the guidelines for writing an affirmation:

 

1.      The statement should be positive.

 

2.      The statement should be written in the present tense.

 

3.      The statement should start with “I.”

 

4.      It can be made stronger by adding an emotion (how you feel when it is accomplished).

 

As an example, mention some of your wishes and how you have changed them into affirmations.  For example, change the wish:

 

I wish for good health

 

To this affirmation:

 

I enjoy having good health.

 

Ask students to share the positive affirmations they have written.  You can take the exercise a step further by asking students to write one sentence about how they will accomplish the affirmation.

 

           For example:  I make exercise a priority each day.   

 

Happiness

 

This chapter includes some excerpts from the following excellent books on the subject of happiness:

 

The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky, The Penguin Press, 2008

Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman, Free Press, 2002 

 

Martin Seligman’s Signature Strengths Survey identifies personal strengths which can be used to achieve happiness in life. 

 

Letter to Self

 

As a finishing activity or in place of the last quiz, have students write a letter to themselves on the last day.  The letter can include the following exercises:

 

Visualize Your Success

Happiness Is . . .

Intentions for the Future 
My Wishes and Affirmations

 

Remember to take envelopes to class.  Have students address them and include their letters and exercises.  Mail this letter to students at the beginning of the next semester.

 

Letters of Advice: How to be Successful in This Class

 

As an ending activity, have students write letters of advice on how to be successful in the class.  Get students’ permission to share letters.  Choose the best letters and duplicate them. Put them in envelopes and pass them out to students on the first day of class the next semester.  Have students get in groups and share ideas from the different letters.  Share ideas with large group and write them on the board. 

 

Also you can get students who successfully completed the course to come in as a guest speaker to share experiences and how to be successful in the course. 

 

The following semester, at the end of class, pass out samples of student letters and then challenge students to improve on the letters for the next semester.

 

Letter to Future Self

Students can send an email themselves in the future at www.futureme.org  Have students describe what they have learned in the course and what goals they will accomplish in the next year.  They can also give their future selves advice and encouragement.  Set the delivery date for next year at the same time.  Caution students to list an email that they will check in one year.   

The Marshmallow Challenge

Divide students into groups of four.  Give each group the following materials:

20 sticks of uncooked spaghetti
1 yard of string
1 yard of masking tape
1 pair of scissors
1 regular-sized marshmallow

Give students about 15 minutes to build a structure from these materials.  The goal is to build the highest free standing structure with only the above materials.  The marshmallow has to be on top.  Give a prize to the group with the highest structure.   

After this activity, discuss their strategies for success.  The activity can be related to many topics in the text including motivation, personality type, learning style, time management, communication style, creative thinking, and persistence. 

Here is a Ted Talk video, "Build a Tower, Build a Team," demonstrating this exercise.

This exercise was designed by Peter Skillman. 

Five Things You Want to Do, Be and Have

 

Have students brainstorm five things they want to do, be and have.  In small groups, have students share their ideas with others.  This exercise could also be done as an introduction to the lifeline exercise which follows below.   

 

 

Lifeline Exercise

 

Give students 11X14 sheets of paper.  Have them turn it sideways and write their birth date to the far left and their birthdate plus 100 years to the far right and connect the dates with a line.  Students could expect to live to be 100 years old. It all depends on factors such as good nutrition, exercise, avoiding drugs and alcohol and even wearing their seat belts. 

 

Next have them locate today’s date on the line.  Since many students are around 20, have them put today’s date on the first fifth of the line.  This helps them to see what a long life they still have to live.  Then ask them to write in significant dates from the past such as graduating from high school or getting a driver’s license, etc.  Next, ask them to write in the date they will graduate from college and enter their ideal occupation.  Ask them to write in some activities after retirement.  Sum up the exercise by asking students to write down at least 3 things they have learned.  Usually they remark on how short their lives have been and how many opportunities are down the road of life. 

 

There is one caution with this exercise.  If any student has serious health problems, they may become upset by this exercise.  By this time in the semester you will probably know about these students.  Tell them in advance about the exercise or excuse them from it or choose not to do this exercise. 

  

A Gift for Your Students

 

A week before the end of the class, put the name of each student in the class on the top of a sheet of paper.  Pass out these papers and ask student to write the nicest thing they can say about the student listed on the sheet of paper.   Ask the students to write only positive comments or best wishes for the future.  Read the comments to make sure that no negative comments are included.  Collect these from the students.  Give each student their own list with comments from each classmate on the last day of class. 

 

Post Test

 

Complete the “Measure Your Success” as a post test and compare it with their answers in the first chapter.  This assessment is included in the printed text and integrated into the online text.  Students are pleasantly surprised to see their own progress evaluation and the improvements they have made. 

 

Course Evaluation


Don’t forget the Course Evaluation.  A form is provided at the end of the printed text.

 

Take Home Final

Click this link for a take home final exam you can use for the final course evaluation. (Contributed by Paul Delys, Cuyamaca College.)

 

 

Online Classes

 

Discussion Question

 

Here is a link to a Word document with all my online discussion questions: Online Discussion Questions

 

Over the years of my working with students, one of the lifetime goals most mentioned is "happiness."  I worry about happiness goals because I'm not sure if we know what happiness is or when we have accomplished this goal.  I just read a book on the topic, Authentic Happiness, by Martin Seligman.  He is a psychologist who actually teaches college courses on this topic.  The following are some excerpts from his text.  Please read these excerpts, think about them and add your comments.   

 

Excerpts from Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman:

 

Real happiness comes from identifying, cultivating and using your personal strengths in work, love, play and parenting. Seligman contrasts happiness with hedonism.  He says that a hedonist "wants as many good moments and as few bad moments as possible in life."  He states that hedonism is a shortcut to happiness that leaves us feeling empty.  For example, we often assume that more material possessions will make us happy.  However, the more material possessions we have, the greater the expectations and we no longer appreciate what we have.

 

Seligman suggests some ideas to increase happiness.  1.  Realize that the past does not determine your future.  The future is open to possibilities.  2.  Be grateful for the good events of the past and place less emphasis on the bad events. 3.  Build positive emotions through forgiving and forgetting.  4.  Work on increasing optimism and hope for the future. 5.  Find out what activities make you happy and engage in them.  Spread these activities out over time so that you will not get tired of them.  6.  Take the time to savor the happy times.  7.  Take time to enjoy the present moment. 8.  Build more flow into your life.  Flow is the state of gratification we feel when totally absorbed in an activity that matches our strengths. 

 

Write your comments on these ideas.  What does happiness mean to you?

 

The Final Project can be incorporated into a discussion. It includes a Vision Board and statement of personal philosophy.