Scott Barry Kaufman - Choose Growth : A Workbook for Transcending Trauma, Fear, and Self-Doubt

One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.

Abraham Maslow

To exist is a true gift. The mere act of existence is full of possibilities for self-actualization and meaningful contribution. With life you can matter and realize your most unique potentials that only you have. There is no one else in the world who can realize those potentials but you.

Human existence is also full of challenges. This is a given of existence, as the existential psychotherapist Irvin Yalom put it. Indeed, we are living in a time of great change. A global pandemic. An unstable economy. Threats of climate change. Poverty. Inequity. Collapsing governments. War. There are so many reasons to be insecure, uncertain, and apprehensive of the future.

Its not easy being human, and yet here we are. Humans have shown during this time a remarkable capacity to not only survive and adapt, but also to thrive. What if these times of great uncertainty can lead to changes that contribute to our greatest sources of self-actualization and transcendence? Lets face it: Were ready for it. Were craving it. More people are ready to change their jobs than ever before. According to one survey of U.S. workers, 95 percent said they were considering leaving their jobs due to burnout and a lack of growth opportunities. Maybe now is that time to try new things. To reprioritize. To grow.

This book is about helping all of us transcendto integrate the many facets of ourselves, in service of realizing the good of societyeven under the most challenging of circumstances. We will help you lean in to the growth potential we all have, embrace and cocreate our new normal, and face future challenges with a renewed sense of vitality, strength, and hope for the future.

The pages of this book are entirely yours: a judgment-free zone to explore your needs and resolve inner conflict and begin to explore how to heal from external conflict as well. It is designed to help build insight and self-understanding to clarify what matters most and how you can choose to nurture those things to ultimately live a richer, more meaningful, and self-actualized life. This book is evidence-based and draws heavily from several areas of psychology, including humanistic psychology, positive psychology, developmental psychology, personality psychology, cognitive science, and neuropsychology.

Were all at different points in our self-actualization journeys, but weve all been through the prolonged uncertainty of a global pandemic that has shaken the very foundations of our lives.

Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny.

C. S. Lewis

The human capacity for resiliencebouncing back in the wake of adversityis often underrated. Resilience researcher George Bonanno found that survivors of trauma tend to exhibit one of three trajectories: chronic symptoms, gradual recovery, or resilience. In almost every analysis he conducted, the resilience trajectorybouncing backis the most common pattern found. These core ingredients, Bonanno found, are essential for ones ability to bounce back, and, we would add, spring forward, after a life-altering event.

Not only is the potential for post-pandemic growth possible, but people are growing right now. According to one large Gallup poll, at the start of the pandemic the percentage of Americans who evaluated their lives well enough to be considered thriving was as low as ratings during the Great Recession. However, by June 2021 the percentage of Americans who evaluated their lives well enough to be considered thriving had reached the highest levels in more than thirteen years.

Were also finding newfound ways to be grateful. Psychologist Philip Watkins and his colleagues surveyed 511 adult participants from March to May 2020 about their current and future emotions. Even in the thick of the pandemic, more than 56 percent of people reported being very grateful in general, which was 17 percent higher than the responses of any other positive emotion. Whats more, 69 percent of respondents expected to feel even more grateful in the future. During the pandemic, gratitude was a strong predictor of happiness and significantly predicted the likelihood to help others.

The idea that pain and trauma can be transformed into courage and strength has a long history among humans, as exemplified by everything from art and literature to philosophy and spiritual beliefs. Indeed, the heros journey is a very common narrative throughout literature: The hero explores the world, conquers their inner demons or outer struggles, and comes home changed or strengthened in some victorious way.

The formal scientific study of this fundamentally human transformation boomed in the mid-1990s when psychologists Lawrence Calhoun and Richard Tedeschi coined the term