1. Lesson 2 - Introduction to Positive Psychology: Learning by Doing
2. Road Map
3. The Main Goal of PSYCH 243
4. The History of PSYCH 243
5. The History of Positive Psychology
6. Do Positive Psychologists Know More than Sunday School Teachers?
7. The Three Pillars of Positive Psychology
8. Active Learning
9. The Meaning of Free Choice
10. How Do We Achieve Freedom?
11. The Importance of Realism
12. Are You Ready for Change?
13. What Will You Change?
14. Lesson Activity

How Do We Achieve Freedom?

Sometimes a sense of freedom is scary when we feel overwhelmed by the awesome responsibility for our actions and we would rather let someone else make decisions for us. But for now let's focus on the positive aspect of freedom, of having the power to choose actions that lead to desirable consequences. This feeling of freedom is a good feeling for most of us, most of the time. So how do we achieve such freedom?

To understand how one might feel more free than another, let's look at the following example.

Two students, Linsay and Hilary, are taking the same psychology course and they both want to earn an A in the course. They are equally intelligent and equally motivated. But Lindsay is not as aware as Hilary of the many options for improving her chances of doing well in the course. She does not know that the course PowerPoint presentations can be printed from the course Web site, so she has difficulty taking notes on both the PowerPoint slides and what the instructor is saying. She does not know about free tutoring services for the course. She is unaware of extra credit opportunities. Hilary knows about all of these resources plus many more, so she uses the ones she finds helpful and consequently earns a higher grade than Lindsay. Because Lindsay was unaware of these options, she was not only less successful but she also felt trapped, unfree to do anything the better her situation. Now we are in a position to define freedom in terms of awareness.

The amount of freedom we experience depends on our awareness of options that we are able to take in order to get the consequences that we want. If we are unaware of any options to help us get what we want, we feel trapped and unfree. As we become aware of more and more options, our sense of freedom increases.

So how do we increase our awareness of options for achieving what we want in life? You are doing it right now, by taking this course. As you learn in this course about new ways of achieving well-being and happiness, your freedom to live your life the way you want to will increase.