So, I was fortunate enough to just spend a week away in the beautiful Byron Bay at the Elements of Byron Resort (soooo fancy) participating in a Diploma of Positive Psychology and Wellbeing. We teach much of positive psychology in our programs and use it in our coaching. The premise behind this field of psychology is moving away from the deficit model (focusing on what’s wrong with people) and rather focus on what’s right with people; helping people to flourish and show up as the best version of self.
One of the activities we did this week was to complete a Strengths Profile. I have done these kinds of assessments before but this particular one focused on how energised you feel as you perform different activities. Unsurprisingly, by doing things that energise you more often than those that de-energise you, can bring much more enjoyment to your work and life. The assessment also talks to the strengths you have that you aren’t currently using – one of mine was writing, so here I am writing again!
It’s been a hectic 12 month in business. I feel very fortunate that I have been able to work with such a cool range of clients and facilitators doing our best work and truly feel like I’m making a difference. However, with that has come a couple things: firstly, deprioritising my own learning and development and also deprioritising lifestyle. I am soooooo not that person who lives to work – so these are the things that I am focussing and choosing to prioritise this year.
I feel extremely fortunate to have learnt about the world of positive psychology at a relatively young age, this knowledge has completely catapulted my life in a direction that history would tell you was probably unlikely to happen for me. From a very young age I have always been very clear on my meaning, purpose and my values. I spend a lot of time being very conscious of these things and making choices in line with them. My purpose is to “help people realize and maximise on their potential”. We do this by helping people to understand why they do what they do, being conscious of their thoughts and making choices that help them get to where they want to be.
For anyone that knows me knows I have always had three values that underpin everything I do. Learn, Balance, Appreciate. This week we had to pick five values and so I added two more into the mix. ‘Choice’ and ‘Zest’.
Choice – as in being conscious of the fact you always have a choice, and by owning your choices you own your life and have greater control over achieving your goals.
Zest – as in having the energy and enthusiasm for life, loving what you do and lighting up a room doing it. When I had to order these values in preference of importance to me; they went like this
- Choice
- Learning
- Zest
- Appreciate
- Balance
And as I stood there looking at them I realized some of these values were at conflict with each other. I have spent so much of my time lately working – teaching people about the power of choice, but at the consequence of my own zest. And it turns out I’m bloody exhausted.
Identifying your values and prioritising them can be an incredibly powerful exercise for everyone to do. Are your values currently in conflict with each other? What is most important for you right now? And are you making choices in line with those values?
From a content point of view, it was fabulous to have the content in our programs affirmed as current and best practice; concepts such as how the brain works, fixed vs growth mindset, Pygmalion theory, active constructive communication, flow, focussing on strengths and of course prioritising your own physical and mental wellbeing.
However, there were many new things that I learnt this week too; some of which include:
- Communicate your anger at a level 5
As a child I got really good at managing my emotions (some may call it supressing). As a result of this, two things are current for me.
– I am really good at forgiving others, and it’s actually quite hard for me to have situations I feel I need to forgive in… “Water off a ducks” back some would say.
– and I can move myself from a level 10 angry to a level 1 angry in a matter of seconds.
Although this has served me well in many ways, it has also gotten in the way of me communicating my emotions, hurt or disappoint etc and this has been something I have actively been working on this year. The facilitator Sue Langley said this week “it can be helpful to communicate your anger at a level 5 (rather than a level 1)… This helps you to let the other person know how you are feeling, how it’s impacted you and why you would like a change”. This is profound for me and something I am going to be conscious of going forward.
- Mindfulness
Turns out even after 10 sessions of mindfulness this week – I am still shit at it. Quieting my mind has always been a significant challenge for me. Probably has something to do with my strengths in ‘time optimisation’, ‘deciding’ and ‘action’. I’ve just got too much to do to sit still. Yoga has helped me immensely in this space, but I am still so far from an expert. There is so much research around how mindfulness can improve your performance and wellbeing and It’s something I want to continue to get better at.
- Getting excited about your goals
We did some mindset and goal setting stuff on our last day of program (our activity involved creating a song!) and one question really resonated with me was “how do you feel about your goals?”. The idea of positive goals is to write them in a way that a) you get excited about them and b) someone else would get excited by them. Why do you want to achieve it? How will you feel when you do? How does this fulfil your meaning and purpose?
So the current goal I am focussing on is to do more development work in developing countries. My time in Solomon Islands in 2016 absolutely changed my life and I really want to do more work like this. Therefore my current goal is:
“I am excited to complete the TESOL program so that I can spend 4 weeks in Peru teaching English in August 2018. I expect that this month abroad will bring me immense joy, satisfaction and gratitude as I give other people the opportunity to access the global language which may create opportunities that were not available before”.
So that’s what a week of living in a resort taught me, I encourage you to take the time to do the same. Too often we get caught up on the hamster wheel and forget about where we are going, and perhaps you’re not actually going anywhere…
Where are you going?