ISKL: Primer on positive psychology

Companion Pages for ISKL Wellbeing PD Day

POSITVE EMOTIONS

For us to experience well-being, we need positive emotion in our lives. Any positive emotion such as peace, gratitude, satisfaction, pleasure, inspiration, hope, curiosity, or love falls into this category – and the message is that it’s really important to enjoy yourself in the here and now, just as long as the other elements of PERMA are in place. – Source: Mindtools. For more discussion see Positive Psychology and GoStrengths.

Essential Reading

kindle: Book

Read the ground breaking study on Broaden and Build here.

Essential viewing

Tools

PositivityRatio.com – Self Test

Teaching ideas

Have your students track their positivity ratio.

Have your students create a positive emotions portfolio (one portfolio per emotion). The portfolio can be physical or electronic and should contain a variety of artefacts (pictures, poems, objects, notes etc.) that represent the emotion. Now reflect on it. Here is what she asks for Joy

When have you felt safe, relaxed, and joyful, utterly glad about what was happening in that moment?
When have things truly gone your way, perhaps even better than you expected
When have you felt a spring in your step, an unstoppable smile, or a warm glow
When have you felt playful, as if you wanted to jump in and get involved?

More ideas

See all 10 sections at this summary of the book.
Try the Your Reflected Best Self
Do a Personal SWOT Analysis
Try Loving Kindness meditation
Check out the Growth Mindset page for counselors with lots of ideas and resources.
- Do you have a Fixed or Growth Mindset? Test it. Learn more about mindset here.
Gallup offers a plethora of ideas for various stakeholders (Admin, teachers, parents, even neighbors) for building hope in schools. Check out this 39 minute video on building hope from Gallup’s excellent podcast on Strengths:

Click here for more information on Positive Emotions.

ENGAGEMENT

When we’re truly engaged in a situation, task, or project, we experience a state of flow : time seems to stop, we lose our sense of self, and we concentrate intensely on the present. This feels really good! The more we experience this type of engagement, the more likely we are to experience well-being.– Source: Mindtools. For more discussion see Positive Psychology and GoStrengths.

Essential Reading

Ebooks Books

Essential viewing

Scientific benefits of Meditation

Here is an EXCELLENT summary on many benefits of Mindfulness

Did you know… mindfulness meditation actually makes positive structural changes in your brains neurocircuitry? This physical “re-wiring” of your brain increases attention, focus, and concentration, as well as reduces stress and cortisol levels, improves sexuality and mood states, slows aging, enhances empathy, improves emotional intelligence, as well as treats addiction, anxiety, and depression.

Click here for more on Mindfulness/Meditation

Tools

Gallup has a plethora of ideas for various stakeholders (Admin, teachers, parents, even neighbors) for building engagement in schools

Free

Paid

Click here for a list of the realise 2 strengths.
Find out which strengths you overuse.

Teaching ideas

Lots of ideas at STRENGTHSQUEST (this is based on the Gallup strengthsfinder, but the ideas lend themselves to the VIA. Here is the book and the curriculum guide.

More on Strengths

Research summary on strengths. This is best one-stop shopping around.
VIA Pioneer Speaker Series–All Free videos.
Click here for more on Engagement

POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS

As humans, we are “social beings,” and good relationships are core to our well-being. Time and again, we see that people who have meaningful, positive relationships with others are happier than those who do not. Relationships really do matter! – Source: Mindtools. For more discussion see Positive Psychology and GoStrengths.

Essential Reading

ebooks Vital Friends: The People You Can’t Afford to Live Without books

Essential viewing

Tools

Lean about the five dimensions of developmental relationships.

Read more about Vital friends

Learn about link crew

Active Constructive responding

Teaching ideas

How full is your bucket? Check out the story.

There is even a song.

Click here for more on positive relationships

MEANING

Meaning comes from serving a cause bigger than ourselves. Whether this is a specific deity or religion, or a cause that helps humanity in some way, we all need meaning in our lives to have a sense of well-being. – Source: Mindtools. For more discussion see Positive Psychology and GoStrengths.

Essential Reading

Fantastic article on helping teens find purpose.
And a more prescriptive on adults helping teens find their purpose.

. . .

Especially for Counsellors

Essential viewing

Victor Frankl discusses logotherapy and reframing.

Some discussion about reframing ala Victor Frankl can be found here.

Summary of Bill Damon’s Path to Purpose

Gratitude

Tools

More on reframing via NLP

See Mindset section in the next section (accomplishments) for how to tackle this in normative situations with kids.

Creating your own Mission: What’s your sentence?

Dan Pink asks the question

Teaching ideas

Project wayfinder is a very interesting approach to helping teens find their purpose.
Got students prepping college essays? How about using the purpose challenge to help them not only getting into college, but finding their why.
Try the Best Possible Self exercise: Get clarity on your deepest goals by imagining a successful future.

Have your students do What’s My Sentence

Two questions that can change your life from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

And the follow up as his reader’s respond:

What’s Your Sentence?: The Video from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

Click here for more on Meaning.

Especially for counselors

Review the Six step process initially identified by Bandler and Grinder.

Some great ideas in Feel Happiness.

Mindtools offers a Matrix idea that can easily be adapted to counseling

“The biggest problem growing up today is not actually stress; it’s meaninglessness. Working hard for something they didn’t choose themselves, and don’t believe in, is counterproductive to long-term health and fulfillment. It is simply not sustainable. A purposeful life, by contrast, can unleash tremendous energy, creativity, and a deep satisfaction with efforts and accomplishments.”
-William Damon, a Stanford professor and psychologist

ACCOMPLISHMENT

Many of us strive to better ourselves in some way, whether we’re seeking to master a skill, achieve a valuable goal, or win in some competitive event. As such, accomplishment is another important thing that contributes to our ability to flourish. – – Source: Mindtools. For more discussion see Positive Psychology and GoStrengths.

Essential Reading
Books

Essential viewing

Tools

Do you have a Fixed or Growth Mindset? Test it. Learn more about mindset here.

Great instructional Video

Free, empirically-validated, online training for grade 9 students on mindset; and a version for college students. and parents.

On Praise

Score yourself from a perspective of PERMA

Teaching ideas

Well there is growing debate about the value of goals, so if you do not set a goal, set a focus. So the focus shifts from measurable outcomes to inputs of values and throughputs of Learning. For example: Student say I want to get an A next semester. Fine. That is measurable etc. More powerful would be:

1) What strengths (Values in action) would you need to use to make that happen?

2) What do you need to learn in order to make that happen.

Now the goal might be: “my love of learning will see me turn in my homework on time.”

Three Good Things

METHOD:

Summary

Each night before you go to sleep:
1. Think of three good things that happened today.
2. Write them down.
3. Reflect on why they happened.

Long Version

This exercise is to be done each night before going to sleep.

Step 1: Think about anything good that happened to you today. It can be anything at all that seems positive to you. It need not be anything big or important. For example, you might recall the fact that you enjoyed the oatmeal you had for breakfast. On the other hand, you might also recall that your child took its first step today. Anything from the most mundane to the most exalted works, as long as it seems to you like a good, positive, happy thing.

Step 2: Write down these three positive things.

Step 3: Reflect on why each good thing happened. Determining the “why” of the event is the most important part of the exercise. For example, you might say that your oatmeal tasted really good this morning because your partner took the time to go shopping at the local farmer’s market, where they have fresh, organic oatmeal. Or you might say that your child took its first step today because God was pouring blessings down upon your family, or because it really wanted to get to some cookies on the table. You get to decide reasons for each event that make sense to you.

Grit

Angela Duckworth explains her research at TED