What I Learned About Positive Psychology While Watching Ted Lasso
As I bid So Long, Farewell to this life-changing show, I find joy in looking back on the show and connecting it with what I'm learning elsewhere.
[Edited] This post was initially posted as a Part 1 on June 9.
Spoiler alert: I will be writing about positive psychology in relation to the past three seasons of Ted Lasso, an Emmy award-winning series on Apple TV+.
So if you’re the type of person who is doesn’t mind spoilers and feel you could benefit from a few lessons in positive psychology, then read on.
If you’re a critic, this is by no means an article to critique the show’s writing or plot lines; I am only here to celebrate what I appreciate about the show; if you’re okay with that, then by all means, please proceed.
And finally, if you are a huge Ted Lasso fan like myself, then welcome, kindred spirit! I hope you find continued joy in the series here. :) [On another note, on June 15, 5-6PM, we’re hosting The Imaginable Workplace The Richmond Way, a community conversation on what three seasons with Ted Lasso is teaching us about working better together. Get a reminder here.]
Part 1
The season 3 finale of Ted Lasso aired last week. And while some will say, “Don’t be sad because it’s over; smile because it happened,” I can’t help but feel saudade.1
And so, the past few days, I’ve been re-watching the show from season 1, this time, with my parents, in the hopes that they’ll also come to appreciate Ted’s corny puns, the unexpected life lessons, the character arcs, and the hopeful feeling one can be left with after the show — of the potential and possibility we can access when we experience and create kindness and optimism in our lives.
While watching season 3 week to week over the past couple of months, I’ve also been self-studying positive psychology — a great parallel to the show, really. And before I get into it, I wanted to lay a few definitions down about what positive psychology is (from Christopher Peterson who, along with Martin Seligman, was among the early proponents of positive psychology).
Positive Psychology vs. Toxic Positivity
“Positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life most worth living. It is a call for psychological science and practice to be as concerned with strength as with weakness; as interested in building the best things in life as in repairing the worst; and as concerned with making the lives of normal people fulfilling as with healing pathology.”2
In a world used to pathologizing many or most things, or used to seeing the negative side or the lack of things, it may be easy to shun positive psychology as naive optimism or toxic positivity. However, very clear in Peterson’s description is that it was a way to create balance and/or fill in the gaps that traditional psychology had up until that point. By no means is it about disregarding our shadows.3
Martin Seligman would also describe it as the study of human flourishing4, and other scholars may classify it under the umbrella of “wellbeing science”.5
And while its scope and definitions continue to evolve as a new science, and there is much more to be said about this topic, I hope this provides a clear enough definition for now. I’ll continue to unpack positive psychology in posts to come.
Connection with Ted Lasso
As mentioned, Ted Lasso speaks to me about the potential and possibility we can access when we experience and create (1) kindness and (2) optimism in our lives. The show, the science, and even our own experiences can give power to that previous statement.
Let me break down what some of the science of positive psychology says about kindness, how it shows up in the show Ted Lasso, and then I’ll leave you to think about other examples in your own life.
Kindness
This is the heart of the whole series, really.
Kindness is about being caring and compassionate, according to the VIA Institute on Character. And it can be underused (manifesting as behaviors that appear indifferent or selfish) and overused (intrusive; overly focused on others), and what we want to achieve is the optimal use of it. It is clustered by VIA under the virtue of humanity — interpersonal strengths that involve tending to and befriending others, which include character strengths such as love, kindness, and social intelligence.6
“Compassion is fueled by understanding and accepting that we’re all made of strength and struggle — no one is immune to pain or suffering. Compassion is not a practice of ‘better than’ or ‘I can fix you’ — it’s a practice based in the beauty and pain of shared humanity.
- Brene Brown, Atlas of the Heart
What some of the science says
Practicing kindness helps build our own reserves of psychological resilience.7 Self-compassion and emotional regulation are among the building blocks for psychological resilience. So when we extend this kindness to ourselves and others, we engage in more positive self-talk, make more generous assumptions of others, are more able to choose our responses in stressful or triggering situations.
Doing a kindness produces the single most reliable momentary increase in well-being of any exercise tested by Seligman and colleagues.8 Positive psychology is rarely just about the self, and it usually generates positive emotions in relation to other people too. When we do things that help others and help build connection, it serves us too. So in some ways, helping others is helping me too. :)
How it shows up on Ted Lasso
“Be a goldfish”.
In face of “failure”, we take what learning we can from our mistakes, forgive ourselves and live to redeem ourselves another day. This shows up in moments of defeat, such as scenes with Sam Obisanya in seasons 1 & 2 and Ted Lasso’s son Henry in the season 3 finale. The show also shows Ted treating failures as “bloopers”, like in the scene where coaches Ted, Bead and Roy rewatched a painful match at high speed with a comical tune.
“We don’t not care”.
In response to Colin coming out to the team as gay, Dani flippantly says it’s totally ok, and that “we don’t care”, to which Ted quickly chimes in with “we don’t not care,” as an expression of solidarity and not wanting another person to feel alone. The essence of this also showed up in other moments when the team also joins Sam in protest on the field by putting duct tape across their sponsor DubaiAir’s logo on their kit in season 2. And you also see this care every time the Diamond Dogs, the shows beloved support group, round up. :D
“What does this situation need?”
In Season 3, the concept of Total Football comes up, the idea where we contribute to a team by paying attention to the needs that emerge, and acting with agility to be able to fill gaps to meet that need. But the most beautiful example of this on the show happens off the field, where the team repairs Sam’s restaurant after it was rampaged by racist vandals. When Sam asks why they did it, Jamie responds by saying they just asked themselves what did the situation need. Jamie also embodied this in many other occasions in season 3, and so have the different characters at different points of the show.
“If you care about someone, and you got a little love in your heart, there ain’t nothing you can’t get through together”.
Forgiveness is one of the shows great themes as well. It has some tear-jerking scenes where some characters are able to extend kindness others in their moments of weakness. I loved the Mom City episode in season 3, where tensions are resolved between Beard and Nate, Ted and his mom, and subtly, Jamie and his dad. And who can forget season 1’s truth bomb with Rebecca and Ted below?
This is by no means a comprehensive list of all the kindnesses shown by the different characters in the show. Because the kindnesses showed up in the big emotional scenes, but also in a thousand small ones — a nod, a touch on the shoulder, a daily ritual of biscuit-giving that could easily be taken for granted over time.
As I come to the inevitable conclusion of this post (which could be longer, but I’m trying to cut it down), I won’t be dishing out advice or platitudes on being kind. I’m not the kindest, most optimistic person I know, so I’m not in the position to preach, nor is it my style. Instead, let me say that the show is inspiring me to be kinder, especially to family — a central theme of Ted Lasso, because it’s usually easiest to lash out to the people who are closest to us. And more than that emotional regulation and patience I’d like to practice more with family, I also hope for more of the courage to actually open up conversations that years of conditioning have taught us to avoid. And finally, I just hope to bring in more joy and gratitude in my daily dealings with others. I know I don’t say “thank you” or “I appreciate you” often enough.
So if you’ve actually made it all the way to the end of this post, dear reader. Thank you. I appreciate you. Knowing you read my ramblings makes me feel seen, heard and valued. :D Let me know in the comments below of via @pagbubuo on Instagram.
I’ll reflect on optimism in the show in part 2 of this post. :)
Saudade is a Portuguese word defined on Wikipedia as “an emotional state of melancholic or profoundly nostalgic longing for a beloved yet absent something or someone. It is often associated with a repressed understanding that one might never encounter the recipient of longing ever again. It is a recollection of feelings, experiences, places, or events— often illusive — that cause a sense of separation from the exciting, pleasant, or joyous sensations they once caused.”
Peterson, C. (2008). What is positive psychology, and what is it not? Psychology Today.
If I were to mention another concept that helps me make sense of this different, I might think of Positive Psychology and “Traditional” Psychology, using the analogy of Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory of Motivation, where the things that make us demotivated or in this case, “dysfunctional”, may lie on a different plane from what makes us motivated or flourish.
Seligman, M. (2011). Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. New York City, NY: Atria Books.
Housed in the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education, the Centre for Wellbeing Science (CWS) is Australia’s leading research centre in positive psychology and wellbeing science. It was formerly known as the Centre for Positive Psychology before renaming itself in March 2021 to better reflect the broadening scope of its research. Areas of focus include wellbeing measurement and methods, wellbeing literacy and language, and systems-informed positive psychology.
The definition of kindness here is according the definition of Kindness in Peterson and Seligman’s work on Character Strengths as seen on the VIA (Values In Action) Institute on Character website. And they talk about using these strengths optimally (the right amount, in the right situation). You can take the free assessment to discover your Top 5 Character Strengths here.
From Seligman’s 2011 book Flourish.
Also from Flourish.