How to Make a Difference: Part 2

Shankar Vedantam and Martin Seligman explore the crucial role of agency in human resilience, contrasting it with the destructive power of learned helplessness. When people repeatedly experience an inability to change their circumstances, they eventually stop trying, succumbing to passivity and despair. But for those who believe they can enact change—even when the odds appear steep—agency becomes a powerful force that drives both individual and collective transformation.

Agency Promotes Health, Vitality, and Engagement, Not Helplessness As a Destructive Factor

Research shows that agency—the belief and experience that one can make choices and affect change—promotes health, vitality, and engagement. This is powerfully illustrated in studies with nursing home residents. In one instance, a woman previously withdrawn and passive began to blossom when moved to a floor that allowed greater independence; she spoke for the first time and helped with tasks like cooking. However, after returning to the more controlled environment, her health rapidly declined and she died within days, spurring further research.

Ellen Langer and Judy Roden investigated this phenomenon, conducting an experiment where residents on one nursing home floor were encouraged to make choices—such as selecting movie nights, choosing lunch times, and being responsible for the care of a plant. In contrast, residents on a different floor were told staff would make decisions and take care of everything for them, including the plants. The researchers measured activity by the dirt collected on residents’ wheelchair tape and tracked death rates. The residents given responsibility and choices showed increased physical activity and significantly lower death rates. Agency and responsibility directly improved their well-being and longevity.

Martin Seligman notes that, for decades, psychologists believed helplessness itself was the destructive force. However, Steve Mayer’s recent neuroscience experiments demonstrate that it is, in fact, the learning of agency that produces positive outcomes. The presence of agency, not just the absence of helplessness, makes the vital difference between thriving and decline.

Explanatory Style in Adversity Affects Persistence or Learned Helplessness

How people explain adversity—known as explanatory style—affects whether they persist or fall into helplessness. Seligman describes explanatory styles as the automatic ways we interpret the causes of negative events. A pessimist facing rejection may think, “I’m unlovable,” viewing setbacks as permanent, pervasive, and personal. This style breeds passivity and depression, generalizing feelings of helplessness across life. By contrast, someone with an optimistic explanatory style sees setbacks as temporary, specific, and external—“She’s a horrible person”—allowing them to move forward and stay motivated despite obstacles.

Seligman, by his own account, has worked to change his own pessimistic explanatory style, learning to actively counter negative thoughts over time. The way individuals think about the present and the past profoundly influences whether they will be active or passive in the f ...

Agency—the ability to influence events and outcomes in one's life—can be strengthened by disrupting patterns of catastrophic thinking, building efficacy through graded tasks, adopting a growth mindset, and reframing the ways we explain setbacks to ourselves.

Humans' Catastrophic Thinking Can Be Counteracted Through Reality-Testing Techniques

Humans are naturally inclined to catastrophize due to evolutionary pressures from the Pleistocene era, when pessimism and vigilance about possible dangers helped our ancestors survive. However, these automatic catastrophic thoughts are not always rooted in truth. Martin Seligman explains that such thoughts should be treated as hypotheses or inherited stories, not as established facts.

Counter-Technique: Identify Worst, Imagine Best, Find Realistic Scenario for Thought Accuracy

A systematic technique for challenging catastrophic thinking involves three steps: First, identify the worst possible outcome (“She read my memo, hates it, and I’ll be fired”). Next, imagine the best possible outcome (“She loved it, I’ll be promoted and get a raise”). Then, find the most realistic middle ground (“She liked the idea but will probably cut the budget”). This exercise helps put negative thinking in perspective by countering catastrophe with possibility and honing in on an accurate scenario.

Treat Catastrophic Thoughts as Hypotheses or Ancestral Stories, Not Factual Reality, and Argue Against Them Systematically

Catastrophic thoughts should not be mistaken for reality. Seligman recommends regarding them as automatic, ancestral stories—remnants from our evolutionary past—rather than factual predictions. He advises arguing with these thoughts as one would with a misinformed critic: recall prior successes and evidence that counters the anxiety-causing worry. This ongoing practice makes it possible to keep negative thinking in check, even if the inner catastrophizer never fully disappears.

Graded Tasks—Beginning Small and Building in Difficulty—Create a Cascading Effect That Builds Efficacy and Momentum

Building agency also depends on developing efficacy, or belief in one’s ability to accomplish tasks. Seligman advocates for graded task assignment, starting with very small, attainable goals and incrementally increasing difficulty—a process that establishes momentum and self-confidence.

Building Competence Through Small Actions

For example, someone feeling overwhelmed by a messy kitchen can start by cleaning a single cup and putting it away. This minor accomplishment can spark a domino effect, encouraging further tasks and greater ambition over time.

Phobia Treatment Developed For Confidence and Depression

This technique originated in phobia treatment and has been adapted for depression. In clinical studies, graded tasks—teaching patients to face increasingly challenging scenarios starting from the least intimidating (such as imagining a drawing of a cat for cat phobia)—led to improvements in both their confidence and activity levels.

Growth Mindset Turns Failure and Setbacks From Permanent Threats to Temporary Growth Opportunities

The concept of “growth mindset,” introduced by Carol Dweck, reframes how we interpret setbacks. Seligman highlights that how we explain events to ourselves—our explanatory style—matters deeply.

Growth Mindset Reflects the Idea That Abilities Develop Through Effort and Learning

A growth mindset posits that abilities are not fixed but can develop through learning and persistent effort. Failure and setbacks are not regarded as permanent or ...

Writing About Your Best Self Reveals New Future Possibilities

Martin Seligman emphasizes that imagination is a key component of agency and explains that writing about your best possible self is a practical technique to increase optimism and efficacy. This process involves envisioning and describing your most successful future and identifying the path you might take to get there. Seligman recommends a particular exercise for non-depressed individuals: writing your own obituary as if it were to be read by your grandchildren. This method prompts reflection on one’s legacy, accomplishments, and the trajectory of life, encouraging people to consider what they want to achieve and how they wish to be remembered. Seligman notes that such reflections open up new scenarios for the future that may not have previously occurred to the writer, expanding their sense of what’s possible.

Learning From Role Models Who Overcame Obstacles Demonstrates Possible Agency

Seligman also points to the power of learning from the lives of others who have faced adversity and succeeded. He shares that reading biographies of figures like Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln has been instructive for him, providing examples of how to make new departures and overcome challenges. Seligman stresses that role models who share similarities or proximity with us make their form of success feel more achievable, thereby increasing our own sense of agency. This approach helps individuals realize that overcoming obstacles is possible and that emulating others’ strategies can help expand one’s own vision of what’s attainable.

Using Signature Strengths Daily Boosts Productivity and Positive Emotion

Seligman advocates for identifying and utilizing one’s signature strengths in daily life, both to increase productivity and to boost positive emotions. He recommends the VIA Signature Strengths test, which millions have taken to discover their top personal strengths, such as social intelligence, humor, or generosity. Once strengths are identified, Seligman suggests using them more in work or daily life. He illustrates this with the story of one of his students, a waitress who disliked her job. After learning that her top strength was social intelligence, she resolved to make every customer interaction the social highlight of their evening. The result was larger tips and greater enjoyment at work, making the ...

Agency’s Double-Edged Nature: Overemphasis Can Lead To Victim-Blaming of the Oppressed

Martin Seligman emphasizes that while celebrating the virtues of agency, it’s crucial to recognize its shadow side. An excessive focus on agency can lead to inappropriately blaming victims of oppression and helplessness, ignoring the reality of structural forces and genuine barriers that limit individual options. A balanced view of agency acknowledges both its significance for individuals and the ways systemic obstacles can genuinely restrict people’s choices.

Potential Risks of Imagination and Victim-Blaming

Seligman warns that imagination, like agency, has a shadow side. When considering powerful technologies like atomic energy and AI, society must ponder not only what’s possible, but also what should be done and what the consequences might be. He stresses the responsibility to weigh both the upside and the potential downsides in development and application, recognizing that unchecked optimism can lead to harm if risks are ignored.

Ai Enhances Creativity and Agency by Partnering With Humans to Reveal Unseen Connections and Possibilities

Seligman shares a personal example, describing AI tools as invaluable collaborators in creative work. Writing his book, Seligman struggled for years to find a transition between two chapters. When he asked the AI Claude to help, the machine generated a brilliant connection he hadn’t seen, sparking insight and allowing him to write his own segue. Even though he didn’t use the AI’s text directly, it revealed links and possibilities that expanded his thinking. Seligman finds these machines to be enormous aids in creativity, assisting in hypothesis testing and complex tasks without replacing human intuition. ...