Are you flourishing or floundering?

One day I realized I was floundering. Not much about my life was working for me. I felt guilty because on the surface it looked fine. I had a good income from my private practice as a speech pathologist, I was in a loving relationship, I lived at the beach and I got to travel.

All good on paper but I found myself struggling through each day with unrelenting feelings of resentment, lethargy and even despair. I felt really depressed and wondered how I could feel so trapped and unhappy with my lot when my ‘lot’ was good in so many ways. I also couldn’t work out how I got to this place when I live by the creed that ‘you create your own reality’.

I have studied widely in the areas of positive psychology and the power of the mind since my late 20’s. None of the techniques and strategies I knew were working and to be honest I probably wasn’t using them. All my energy was invested in my work. I was exhausted all the time and had no quality time left for play, friends or exercise.

Luckily the old adage about ‘when the student is ready the teacher will come’ came to my rescue. In this instance it was Martin Seligman, a guru in positive psychology. He wrote Flourish which explores wellbeing and what makes life worth living. I couldn’t wait to devour his research findings which I will share with you here.

The 5 elements we need for well-being in a nutshell:

1. Positive emotion – How we rate happiness and life satisfaction
2. Engagement – A flow state where you are completely absorbed in something and lose time
3. Meaning – Belonging to and serving something that you believe is bigger than the self
4. Accomplishment or achievement – A dedication of life towards accomplishment for the sake of it
5. Positive relationships – Other people are deemed the best antidote of life and most reliable ‘up’ for life’s downs

As I digested what was crucial to wellbeing, it was suddenly clear that I was floundering in many of these areas. No wonder I was so unhappy.

I also realized that where I had enthusiastically promoted visioning and goal-setting in the past, I didn’t have any clear goals at present, nor was I aware of the core values that underpinned my life. In hindsight I was living life according to other people’s rules rather than my own. It was time to go back to the drawing board.

The recipe for Flourishing

I love the Mary Engelbreit saying, “Flourish where you are planted”. Martin Seligman states in wellbeing theory that the goal is to increase the amount of flourishing in our lives and on the planet. Researchers from the University of Cambridge have been able to define and measure flourishing. Apparently we must have all of these things:

• Positive emotions – Taking all things together, how happy would you say you are?
• Engagement – I love learning new things
• Interest
• Meaning – I generally feel that what I do in my life is valuable and worthwhile
• Purpose

We need 3 of these as well:

• Self-esteem – In general, I feel very positive about myself
• Optimism – I’m always optimistic about my future
• Resilience – When things go wrong in my life, it generally takes me a long time to get back to normal. (opposite answers indicate more resilience)
• Vitality
• Self-determination
• Positive relationships – there are people in my life who really care about me

Basically we have to ask ourselves what really makes us happy. Seligman introduced me to a wonderful exercise to get in touch with your strengths and core values. I think this is so much better than trying to fix up your faults and weaknesses all the time.

The exercise is called the Values in Action Signature Strengths Test which you can do for free by going to www.authentichappiness.org . The idea is that by understanding your signature strengths you will find new and more frequent uses for them.

How to DO your signature strengths.

Obviously there is no point in knowing what your strengths are unless you find ways to own them and use them. Set aside a time where you commit to use one of more of your signature strengths in a new way at home, work or leisure.

I found out that my highest signature strength is an appreciation of beauty and excellence. My new mantra is “Life as art” so each day I allocate a portion of my day to beauty such as a walk on the beach or cooking something special. In terms of excellence I read something inspirational or educational and allocate time to improve my artistic skills and writing.

I journal everyday and already I can see the positive change in the way I write about my day, myself and what I value in life.

I hope you too have been inspired to find out what your values or signature strengths are. The exercise was an ‘Aha’ moment for me and inspired me to set up this blog and pursue my artwork. If you haven’t done it already, here is the website again where you can find out what your Values in Action Signature Strengths are www.authentichappiness.org

You may also get further inspiration from The Art of Being artworks or Jo’s gallery. Many of the art of being images underpin moods or states which reflect our values. Also don’t miss out on the FREE Art of Being screensaver  featuring the original 69 artworks.

So Flourish (even more) where you are planted. Until next time.

Be the best version of yourself!