Positive Psychology Program—5 Things You Need To Build Resilience And Wellbeing
Wellbeing and resilience are important in preventing the onset of mental health problems as well as potentially lessening the severity of existing mental health problems. Focusing to build resilience And wellbeing is important in establishing a holistic approach to health, addressing both physical and psychological states.
What is the lowest point in life that you have experienced? Have you ever been curious about what actually helps people bounce back to whenever they have reached their lowest lows?
I learned about these five things when I took a positive psychology degree. Here I knew about how the father of Positive Psychology developed a model that explains the five factors involved in building resilience and well-being.
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In this Article:
Positive emotions
Engagement,
Positive Relationships
Meaning
Accomplishment.
Martin Seligman, the father of Positive Psychology, studied resilience and wellbeing to answer this very question. In doing so, Seligman developed the PERMA model, which contains five factors to help you build resilience and wellbeing: Positive emotions, Engagement, (positive) Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment. It was widely in his influential book, “Flourish” (2011). As I learned from our positive psychology program, there is a stark difference between Positive Psychology (PP) and traditional psychology. Traditional psychology focuses on working on fixing what is ‘wrong’ (like the deliberate classification into “disorders”), while PP focused on what works, on strengths, on skills, and on enhancing the positives (like focusing on how to enhance well-being, character strengths, etc). Positive psychology has a lot to teach us about how to achieve and maintain long-term wellbeing. It teaches us how to achieve happiness (or scientifically known as subjective well-being) because when we’re happy, we’re productive, we’re good at building meaningful relationships with those around us, and we feel great! However, happiness is a truly difficult thing to outright achieve, and by focusing solely on the pursuit of it, we can end up feeling unfulfilled. Instead of just focusing on the pursuit of happiness, you can also look at the things the make up well-being to help you experience lasting happiness, thereby having a rich, meaningful life. This is what the PERMA model is rooted, these are the five essential elements that should be in place for us to experience lasting well-being. These are:
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- Positive emotions
- Engagement
- Positive Relationships
- Meaning
- Accomplishment
Positive Emotions
The presence of positive emotion is essential to experience well-being. Peace, gratitude, satisfaction, pleasure, inspiration, hope, curiosity, and love; these are the emotions that you feel when you savor every moment you are in.
These emotions are present we feel happy, and when we are happy we perform better, we perform better in our relationships, and we are inspired to hope for a better future, we do our best, to the utmost of our abilities to achieve a goal that we set our eyes in.
So the question now becomes: how can we produce positive emotions? Well, it’s simple. You have to fill your everyday life doing things that make you truly happy. Think about the people, the things, activities, the food, the places that make you happy— do you think you are having enough positive emotions lately? If not, then think about why.
Although we can’t be happy all the time, we need to make sure that we often experience positive emotions such as pleasure, happiness, contentment, peace, joy, and inspiration.
Take a moment and think about your strengths and talents, are you using them well? Have you also paid attention and felt grateful for the good things that happen to you? You might always be looking at the negative that you also put into perspective the positive things that come your way.
Also, take a moment to identify people, events, or things that give you pleasure. For example, imagine you love being outdoors, surrounded by nature, but working in an office means you rarely get to experience this source of happiness. Why not bring plants into your office or cubicle?
The aim here is to find ways to bring positive emotions and enjoyment into your daily routine and to ensure that you don’t keep on putting these things off into a future… that never quite arrives.
When I decided to pursue a positive psychology certificate, I was so inspired! It felt like the pursuit of joy and pleasure that I learned throughout the course was overflowing that I just had to share it!
Engagement
The best type of engagement is the state of flow. A state of flow is characterized by how time and everything seems to stop and you seem to lose track of your time as you are consumed and you put all your sense of sense into doing a task, a moment of intense concentration. And the catch is… the state of flow makes us feel good!
The more we experience this type of engagement, the more likely we are to experience well-being.
Can you remember a time that you were so consumed doing something like you were so completely absorbed in the task that an hour passed without you noticing it? Or that one time that you were so focused on watching a documentary you forget the clothes in your drier. Well, you have to evaluate and identify the things that induce that state of flow in you because these may be the answer to keep you motivated.
Some people find that they can be more engaged in tasks when they work while listening to music, or after a workout. On those moments that you have experienced flow, do you think that you have that same level of engagement in your career?
Do you feel engaged in your career? Or do you pursue hobbies and activities that help you slip into the state of flow we talked about earlier?
Engagement is most closely identified with the act of creation, but you can also experience deep engagement when participating in sports, spending time with friends, or working on projects that you’re fascinated with. And we go now to the next question.
How do you improve engagement? You can increase your engagement at work by first minimizing distractions to improve concentration. And as you focus on projects that pique your interest, you now then challenge your skills.
Second, you evaluate your interests. Do you make enough time for personal interests such as a favorite hobby or physical activity? Many of us let this important personal time slip away, especially when we’re stressed or overloaded with work. Try to devote plenty of time to activities that make you feel happy and engaged.
Taking on a positive psychology program every weekend has helped me improve my work engagement, not only was I able to learn things that I could apply to myself (and others), but I also have rekindled an interest that has been putting off for quite a while now.
Positive Relationship
Relationships are important to humans as “social beings,” and good relationships are core to our well-being. People with positive relationships are seen as happier than those who do not.
Humans are built to belong, we crave connection, intimacy, emotional, and physical contact with others because relationships are an integral part of our well-being. Remember how you struggled with your well-being when your relationships were destructive, draining, one-sided, or when you are isolated? Those are the effects of negative relationships
Now try to remember and look at the relationships that made you feel supported, included, understood, and cared for. Remember the joy and ease that you felt and make sure to always try to make yourself experience these more often because these kinds of relationships are your way to a lifetime of wellbeing. Be conscious of building your relationships and you will be working not just on relationships but on overall life satisfaction.
The question is: Do you have positive relationships in your life? These can be with anyone: family, friends, neighbors, or colleagues. These kind of relationships are the ones that nurture you, cares for you, helps you grow, learn, and change. These positive relationships may not always be about happiness, because sometimes negative emotions are crucial to help us develop ourselves.
You might want to start building positive relationships at your workplace since you spend the majority of your hours doing work. Next, you look into whether you enjoy the company of your family and friends, were they supportive of you? If not, then do you think you need to spend more time and effort into creating more positivity?
As a positive psychology practitioner, I learned that improving relationships is not all sunny and “all positive”. Building positive relationships may include cutting connections with some people, it also involves a lot of time and hard work. It is like putting in investment and effort to connect with people, not a one-off action or instance.
Meaning
Meaning is found by serving a cause bigger than ourselves. An improved sense of well-being can be achieved by practicing religion, volunteering, charity works, or doing activities that help us find a greater purpose for our lives.
It is true that finding happiness, is a way to improve our well-being, but solely seeking it might give us a sense of well-being that is temporary and fleeting; but doing more meaningful things and finding one for ourselves gives us a deeper and a bigger sense of well-being that is truly lasting and permanent.
Having a purpose to your life brings satisfaction, even if working towards that purpose does not directly bring positive emotion, flow, or any of the other building blocks of wellbeing.
This might be religious faith, a political agenda, community work, or perhaps charity work. Being with people with a mindset same as you who are also working towards a common goal that you believe in brings significance to your life.
Do you feel that your life and work have meaning? That is, do you feel that you’re connected in some way to a cause bigger than yourself? Most of us want to believe that we’re working and living for a greater purpose. So finding meaning is important to our overall sense of well-being.
It’s just as important to look for meaning in your personal life – certain activities, such as spending time with our family, volunteering, or performing acts of kindness can really improve our sense of meaning in life. You can do the mentioned acts if you feel your own life is lacking meaning—you’ll find them hugely satisfying.
Accomplishment
The final building block that allows humans to flourish is an accomplishment or a sense of mastery over something. Together with our attempt to seek happiness through improving ourselves, we also seek a sense of accomplishment.
We seek to master a skill, reach a valuable goal, or win in some competitive event. Gaining mastery over something is important for its own sake, even if the accomplishment is not linked to any of the other building blocks of wellbeing.
Ever wonder why you keep playing Wordscapes, even though it has no real-world application? Why you are so driven to get to the next level and improve and enhance your game character? With these simple things, it is important to know that we can do something well, that we can set a goal and reach it, and enjoy that feeling of success. We have to give credit to ourselves, celebrate even small accomplishments!
As for me, I believe that finishing the positive psychology program I enrolled in was a great achievement for me! Now I only have to practice what I have learned.
Accomplishment and achievement might be the trickiest elements of PERMA, simply because it’s very easy to take them too far.
For example, in some cultures, achievement is highly valued, and some believe that if we’re not busy, it can seem that we’re not living up to expectations and living a full life. However, this can wear us out as we pursue our next achievement. So to keep it in check you to look at two things:
- If you realize that you are not devoting enough time or energy to reach your dreams, then you have to start now. You know how the first step to achieving something is actually trying!First, you have to identify what you truly want to accomplish in life. You have to lay out a specific goal so you can look at the steps that you have to take to get there.But if you feel that you’re devoting too much time towards your achievements (and thereby affecting the balance in your life and work), then it might be time to step back and try to put your focus on other elements of the PERMA Model.
People who adopt and live by these five concepts have been shown to do better at their academic life in the university, bounce back even after major setbacks in their chosen sports, and are found to be less likely to experience depression or post-traumatic stress, and even have a lower risk of premature death.
When I took up this positive psychology program I stopped and thought about PERMA a lot. And thinking a lot about it has helped keep the presence of these building blocks in check. By consistently filling our life with positive emotions, engagement, good relationships, meaning, and accomplishment we set ourselves as able to weather the ups and downs in life more efficiently and we are able to enjoy the blessings in life more fully.
Having a sense to build resilience and wellbeing enables a person to approach other people and situations with confidence and optimism, which is especially important for young people given the enormous changes the occur with the transition into adolescence and adulthood.
Are you ready to strengthen your resilience and well-being? Download our Dream Bigger Planner for free here and begin your journey toward a more empowered and fulfilling life today!
