Positive Emotions

• Library: Positive Professionals: Creating High-Performing Profitable Firms Through Engagement (ABA) (2017 Ed.)

Positive Emotions

Grab a pencil and consider the following questions carefully. Your life may depend on it. In the past week, to what extent have you experienced each of the emotions listed on this chart? Indicate your answers below using a 5-point scale in which 1 means "not at all" and 5 means "extremely":

___ Distress	___ Irritable	___ Interested	___ Alert
___ Upset	___ Ashamed	___ Excited	___ Inspired
___ Guilty	___ Nervous	___ Strong	___ Determined
___ Scared	___ Jittery	___ Enthusiastic	___ Attentive
___ Hostile	___ Afraid	___ Proud	___ Active
Total = ___	Total = ___	Total = ___	Total = ___
Total Negative = ___		Total Positive = ___

Once you've finished, add up your scores. For the negative emotions in the two left-hand columns, an average weekly score would be 17.4. For the positive emotions in the two right-hand columns, an average score would be 33.3. How do you compare? (You also can take an electronic version of this quiz on the University of Pennsylvania's Authentic Happiness website in the Questionnaire Center: https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/testcenter. Look for the PANAS Questionnaire, which was developed by Watson et al., 1988.)

Hopefully, you have plenty of positive emotions. If so, you likely tend toward positivity—which I'll call a positive emotional style (PES). If not, you may want to place a higher priority on positivity in your life. Why should you care? Because people with higher PES live longer, healthier lives and are more successful and engaged at work. You want proof? Keep reading.

Positive Emotions Charge Engagement

Positive emotions are fundamental to engagement and are part of the foundation for positive law firms. Positive emotions spark feelings of vitality that are important to work engagement and set off a cycling snowball effect. They're especially effective at charging Personal Boosters like optimism and

confidence, which fuel engagement, which, in turn, ignites more positive emotions (Ouweneel et al., 2012). They don't affect just how we consciously feel but also our thoughts, neurological processes, bodies, motivation, and behavior (Isen, 2004). They qualify as part of the foundation for positive law firms because they are an ingredient in so many other engagement strategies in the book.

Unfortunately, lawyers can find it tough to stay positive. Built-in aspects of our work can expose us to onslaughts of negativity. Clients are demanding, opposing lawyers are aggravating, judges can be disengaged and unpleasant, motions are lost, corporate deals fall apart, and on and on. The negative emotions stemming from these inevitable challenges are part of the job.

Aspiring positive law firms will strive to offset the negativity by not unnecessarily contributing to it and...