Coaching

What do you think when you hear the term work life balance? What about these alternatives: work life conflict, work life collision, work life integration, work life enrichment, work life boundaries, work life facilitation, work life management? Do we really understand what people mean when they say they need better work life balance? What can the research of Positive Psychology offer to someone who is seeking help with a work life balance problem?

If you enjoyed Robert Biswas-Diener’s first book with Ben Dean on the subject of positive psychology and coaching and were craving more ready-made activities you could use with your coaching…

Research shows we are more likely to sustain positive change by changing actions and patterns than by improving external circumstances. But that assumes we do them. Stephen Schueller is the first researcher to develop a structure for recommending positive interventions based on a person’s preferences for prior interventions.

Suppose you were the superintendent of a large urban school system. Or the commanding general of the most powerful army in the world? What if you were me, with the…

This academic year, I met a student who I will call James.  He is one of several high school and college student clients that were referred to me with new…

Although sports mean different things to different people, most theorists and enthusiasts would agree that physical activity and sport participation can be intrinsically valuable. We learn the joy of movement…

Recently, I edited some work for a colleague, embellishing her document with comments and marked up changes. In response, she said that getting feedback from me was like going to…

Friends are approaching me with great interest in my preview article on the coaching conference and asking what’s so special about employing positive psychology in coaching. That triggers me to…

I don’t think emotions, positive or negative, need to be kept in the closet at work. But you need to take the heat out of the discussion, and give business people the opportunity to explore their emotions dispassionately, setting goals which will enhance their performance. Here is one of many ways to do this. Providing you show real benefits, emotions can be transformed into serious business.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, much of what he says about successful people is little more than common sense: that talent alone is not enough to ensure success, that opportunity, hard work, family, timing and luck play important roles as well. From a coach’s perspective, the point about luck, timing and opportunity has a special relevance to the pursuit of flourishing lives for Chinese people.

David Ballard opened the Psychologically Healthy Workplace Conference with the statement, “Creating a psychologically healthy workplace means more than just remediating problems. It is about promoting good health, enhancing performance, and creating a work environment where both employees and the organization can thrive.”

How do you want to feel in your life? In your work? Doug Newburg interviewed hundreds of world-class performers, including athletes, business leaders, artists, and surgeons, to find out what made them tick. A consistent pattern emerged from their stories.

For individuals going through divorce, a main concern is how to effectively deal with stress. Their transitional states of life often leave them feeling powerless, scared, and depressed. … Mindfulness is an important part of the work I do with clients. Specifically, I help train them to adopt a mindful approach to life circumstances that are largely outside of their control. Within this framework, I introduce changing one’s thoughts in order to change the resulting feeling or behavior. …

Meditation practice may still be viewed by some as a relic of 1960’s counter-culture or a sequestered religious practice to attain “enlightenment.” But scientists now seriously study mindfulness practices, and report a wide range of interesting findings. How does meditation work, and how best can coaches bring this research to our clients?

In 1845, Thoreau went to live for three months in the woods near Walden Pond. When asked why, he responded, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived… I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life…”

How do we get business leaders to think of their kittens and mittens equivalent? One answer lies in appreciating what is already going well. Another in goal setting and visioning. We can help clients focus on a view of an ideal future,