Positive Psychology Coaching personalizes the exciting findings of positive psychology research to help you succeed with your goals and flourish in your life and career. This page introduces you to a few classic positive psychology interventions, so you can try them on for free, because that's one way for you to find out if positive psychology coaching is for you. The best way is to try a complimentary coaching session with a qualified positive psychology coach!
The Father of Positive Psychology, Martin Seligman, says this simple exercise has been shown to improve happiness for as long as six months. How does it work? At the end of your day, simply reflect for a few minutes on three good things that happened. It's a great idea to journal about them, but you can also just spend a few minutes thinking about them before you go to sleep. Benefits include less stress and perhaps more restful sleep. Click here for more ideas on how to get more out of this easy positive psychology exercise.
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Most people think they need to strengthen their weaknesses in order to get better at something, but that's backwards. Researchers have found that the fasted way to improve is to strengthen your Strengths. Everyone has natural talents and abilities, called Strengths, that help them accomplish things with more fun and ease. Positive Psychologist, Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi, has discovered that using our Strengths helps us get into Flow, a mind state that is highly enjoyable even when we seem to be working hard. The thing is, many people haven't identified their Strengths and most haven't yet mastered them. Want to get better at almost anything and have more fun? Explore this page to discover your strengths.
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Optimal wellbeing comes from integration. The SPIRE model, from the Wholebeing Institute, offers five dimensions of you that when addressed can potentiate your optimal wellbeing. SPIRE stands for Spiritual wellbeing, Physical wellbeing, Intellectual wellbeing, Relational wellbeing, and Emotional wellbeing. Learn more about how these five dimensions can promote your wellbeing and download a handy tracker to assist your integration.
We can choose more happiness by thinking about what we’re grateful for, but being kind to others is another way to feel happier quickly and, of course, it has additional benefits. Researchers from around the globe have found that kind acts and generosity to others help us feel happier than doing nice things for ourselves. And happy people tend to be even kinder and more generous, demonstrating a Kindness/Happiness Virtuous Circle. Want more kindness and happiness in your life? Explore the ideas on this page (link coming).
And optimize kindness and happiness even more with a positive psychology coach.
One of the easiest ways to be kind is to acknowledge others frequently. Acknowledgment focuses on what people do, rather than how they are. For example, researcher, Carol Dweck, has found that children who are acknowledged as hard workers do 40% better on tests than children who are complimented for being smart! Acknowledgment, and its close relative, Active Constructive Response, empower others and strengthen relationships. In fact, how we respond when loved one do well is even more important to our relationships than how we respond when there are problems. Plus, it’s easy and fun to do! Read on for strategies to put acknowledgment to work in your life and career (link coming).
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Did you know that there’s an actual ratio of positive to negative thoughts and feelings that predicts whether we’ll thrive in life and business? According to positive psychology researcher, Barbara Fredrickson, the tipping point is three positive thoughts and feelings to every negative thought or feeling, but most people fail to reach this level of positivity. When you do, dramatic improvements to your life can happen! Watch out for too much positivity though, more than ten positive to one negative thought or feeling can actually trigger problems. How do you increase positivity or decrease negativity? Many of the tools on this page can help (link coming).
Or work with a positive psychology coach who is skilled in optimizing your positivity ratio.
Neuroscientists have discovered that our brains continue to grow and change throughout life. This is wonderful news for anyone who wants to change and become happier or more successful. Neuropsychologist, Rick Hanson, offers us tools for changing our brains (this is called self-directed neuroplasticity), such as Savoring, an exercise for getting more of the good from positive experiences and feelings by "hard-wiring" them into our brains, so getting more of the good becomes easier for us. Learn to Savor the good on the following page (link coming).
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Positive psychology researcher, Sonja Lyubomirsky, says there are many paths to happiness and wellbeing and what works for you may be different from what works for someone else. Lyubomirsky tells us that, according to her research, getting what you want in life, i.e. getting that promotion, going on a fabulous vacation, or even marrying the love of your life, will only make you happier for a short time. Overall, getting what you want only accounts for about 10% of your happiness. For greater results, focus on the following 12 areas: Read on to learn more about Right Fit (link coming).
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Be careful of over-doing your happiness and wellbeing activities. Researcher, Barry Schwartz, tells us that Maximizers, those who over-research and comparison shop in order to always make the best choices, are actually less happy than Satisficers, people who are satisfied with less-than-perfect lives. In fact, Perfectionism itself, is a recipe for unhappiness. Goals and high standards are great as long as they help you genuinely improve your life, but no life is perfectly happy and people who embrace that experience less stress, self-criticism and are more accepting of others. Tal Ben-Shahar calls this, "Permission to be human." Read on for ways to embrace the good life without sabotaging yourself with perfectionism (link coming).
Work with a positive psychology coach who can help you optimize your happiness.
