Design your situation for positive emotion, not just negative avoidance

Situation selection is not only about avoiding what is harmful — it includes actively scheduling what is emotionally nourishing.

Why it works

Gross’s model applies situation selection bidirectionally: selecting into situations that reliably produce positive emotional states is as legitimate as selecting out of situations that produce unwanted ones. This positive application is often overlooked because the avoidance framing dominates. Broaden-and-build research (Fredrickson) shows that positive emotional states produce cognitive and relational resources, creating upward spirals; situation design for positive emotion is a direct way to generate these inputs intentionally.

How to do it

1. From your emotional landscape map, identify two or three situations that reliably produce genuine positive emotion — energy, connection, joy, absorption.
2. Schedule these situations into the week with the same commitment as work obligations, not as rewards contingent on completing everything else first.
3. When a week has been high-demand, specifically increase — rather than reduce — the positive situations to counterbalance the load.

Evidence

Intentional positive activity scheduling has RCT support from positive psychology intervention research. Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory, which provides the mechanism, has observational support for the role of positive emotions in building psychological resources. (rct)

Forced or obligatory "positive" activities that feel inauthentic do not produce the emotional state that drives the broadening effect — the selection must be for genuinely valued and enjoyed situations.

Sources

• Lyubomirsky, Sheldon & Schkade (2005), Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change, Review of General Psychology

Common mistake

Treating positive situation scheduling as a luxury that waits until everything else is done, rather than as a regulatory resource that enables the performance of everything else.