Are you flourishing?

Martin Seligman realised 15 years ago that as a clinical psychologist he and his profession had spent all their time helping people move from miserable to ok.  No one had spent time helping people move from ok to happy.  He founded Positive Psychology and has just published latest book, Flourish. I heard him talk at the RSA on wednesday.
He is working with the US army and the indeed the UK government teaching his well being theory summarised as PERMA.

  • Positive Emotion - mainly heritable but can be changed lastingly using exercises such as the gratitude diary which I wrote about in the Times which is now sadly behind a paywall but can be read in a blog post below
  • Engagement - how often does time just fly by?  When it does you are in flow and are you truly engaged in what you are doing
  • Meaning - belonging to and serving something that you believe is bigger than the self
  • Relationships - very little that is positive is solitary and other people are the best antidote to the downs of life and the single most reliable up
  • Accomplishment - achieving pursued for its own sake in many cases will contribute to well being.


Coaching helps clients work on all of these areas.  Often people start out looking at their careers (one source of accomplishment) and invariably branch out into meaning, relationships and engagement.  I help clients Flourish.
Have a great weekend, and I am sure none of you will lament the reduced options for your Sunday paper reading.

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