Your mind is your best friend, but it is also your worst enemy. Positive Intelligence is an indication of how well your mind acts in your best interest. It can be very well measured through a “Positive Intelligence Quotient”, or PQ to get a score which is expressed as a percentage ranging from 0 to 100.
What is “Positive Intelligence Quotient”, or PQ ?
The PQ score is an indicator for percentage of time your mind is acting as your friend rather than an enemy. Ex: a PQ of 75 means that your mind is acting as your friend 75 percent of the time and is in self-sabotage mode about 25 percent of the time.
You can find out your PQ at http://positiveintelligence.com/Assessments/
Why we need to be Positive ?
Being Positive has greater benefits in the long run and we all should try to achieve the same by changing our habits and activities. A study over 2,75,000 people has revealed that higher PQ leads to higher salary and greater success in work, marriage, health, sociability, friendship, and creativity. Higher-PQ workers take fewer sick days and are less likely to become burned out or quit due to stress.
Research also shows that happy employees have, on an average, 31% higher productivity; their sales are 37% higher; their creativity is three times higher and employees are 40% more likely to receive a promotion, report significantly higher job satisfaction, & feel 10 times more engaged with high PQ.
Research by Shirzad Chamine shows that only 20% of teams and individuals achieve their true potential. Invisible “Saboteurs” and your inner “Sage” fight for supremacy in your brain. To improve your PQ you need to,
- Weak your saboteurs
- Strengthen sage
- Strengthen PQ brain
But how to be positive or have a higher Positive Intelligence Quotient? The 3 simple practices can help you improve your PQ.
Develop New Habits
Training your brain is same as exercising at the gym. Recent research reveals that as you develop new habits, you rewire the brain. Positive habits that you can exercise are,
- Jot down three things you were grateful for.
- Write a positive message to someone in your social support network.
- Meditate at your desk for two minutes.
- Exercise for 10 minutes.
- Take two minutes to describe in a journal the most meaningful experience of the past 24 hours.
Help Your Co-Workers
Engage positively with people as strong social support can yield desirable outcomes. Social support is the greatest predictor of happiness during stress periods and leads to more satisfied customers. You can practice simple steps below,
- Help others
- Organize your activity
- Invite co-workers for launch
- Greet people with a smile and eye contact
Change Relationship With Stress
Stress is not an obstacle to grow; it can also act as a fuel for success. Always take stress as an enhancing factor. To nudge your brain as a positive and productive mind set just do a simple exercise,
- Make a list of stress you are in
- Place them into 2 groups, one that you can control and one that you can’t control
- Choose one stress that you can control and come up with simple steps to reduce it
You can watch the below video by Shirzad Chamine explaining his research and concept behind Positive Intelligence.
There can be more ways to be positive in life, but the most important aspect is to find out your habits or actions that are hampering your PQ sore and eventually changing them with some of the above simple activities. The first step is to be happy and think positive in every situation. We also need to be social, help others and most importantly meditate for at least 10 minutes a day to help your mind relax and explore its full potential.
References for this article
- Harvard Business Review Jan-Feb 2012: Positive Intelligence by Shawn Achor
- PositiveIntelligence.com
- http://sourcesofinsight.com/positive-intelligence-and-pq/