An Article By Vijay Batra
Developing a positive bias towards life, thereby facing the uncertainties, in a certain way.
Positive psychology started by Dr. Martin Selligman at the University of Pennsylvania, USA focuses not only in eliminating the ills of the mind, but also teaches how to think and live well.
The five building blocks of Positive psychology are as follows: P: Positive emotions E: Engagement and flow R: Relationships M: Meaning and purpose A: Achievement and accomplishment You and I need to focus on building our thinking and lives around the five building blocks to experience well-being.
P: Positive emotions will enable us to develop a positive disposition towards life. To feel positive, we need to think and focus on the positive, be it counting our blessings and living in an attitude of gratitude, thinking in ways that will promote overcoming challenges that we may face from time to time. Reading positive literature and watching positive content helps greatly in feeling positive. Mindfully engaging with the positive and dis-engaging from the negative also is essential to nurturing positive emotions.
E: Engagement and flow comes when we are striving to do `something` relentlessly and we start becoming better and better, it could be a Virat Kohli facing the best bowlers in the world, or it could be a salesperson making sales calls every day, becoming more effective with each call that he or she makes. Also, engagement and flow are experienced when we are being a good father, or a mother, son or a daughter, brother or a sister, a student overcoming learning challenges.
R: Relationships are crucial, when we relate to others in a family, or a work place, without jealousy or arrogance, our problems are halved, and our happiness is squared. In times when our fellow family members or co-workers are doing well, if we celebrate their success the happiness in the family or the team is squared, and in times when they are facing challenges, we assist them constructively, we help them in overcoming and thereby reducing the problems. This will be reciprocated to us by others as we will contribute towards developing a culture of caring and sharing.
M: Meaning and purpose sustains the momentum and binds us to our family and teams. Be it winning a cricket series, or ensuring that we add to our annual revenues and profits by developing more customers or ensuring that our children gain admissions in to meaningful educational courses and good institutions. Meaning and purpose sustains wellbeing.
A: Achievement and accomplishment is the result that binds the process of feeling positive emotions, engaging zestfully, relating positively, and living meaningfully.
I wish all the readers to live the PERMA way, permanently!