The influence of positive psychology life coaching is growing and becoming more relevant as coaches and clients seek new ways to reach goals. Life coaching is becoming more inclusive and redefining itself as it becomes more popular. New coaching models continue to push the coaching profession forward.
Positivity is Better Than Negativity
This statement seems like a no-brainer: positivity is better than negativity. However, being positive is more than just saying nice and encouraging things to a client. Positive psychology is the scientific study of the processes, conditions, and behaviors that lead to personal well-being, optimal health, happiness, and personal achievement.
Positive psychology life coaching is about achievement through a focus on the positive aspects of someone’s life, talents, and circumstances. It seeks to eliminate those negative factors that serve as obstacles to success and goal achievement.
Positive Psychology and Coaching Are a Perfect Fit
Positive Psychology and life coaching both focus on what makes clients succeed, thrive, achieve, and find contentment and happiness. Dr. Martin Seligman, a psychologist with the University of Pennsylvania, is credited with being the first person to introduce the concept of positive psychology in 1998. The concept had probably been around before that, but Dr. Seligman was the first to create a coherent theory around the concept.
What is Positive Psychology Life Coaching?
A positive psychology life coach uses various assessments to help identify goals and development strategies to reach those goals. The application of positive psychology in life coaching focuses on talents, strengths, capabilities, aptitudes, and other positive traits. Positive psychology doesn’t ignore negative issues but focuses on altering these negatives aspects of a client’s life and eliminating them, tempering them, or turning the negative into a positive.
6 Tools of Positive Psychology
Here are 6 tools that can be used in a positive psychology life coaching practice:
- Have the client start a gratitude journal. This helps the client stop ruminating on negative events and begin focusing on things from a positive perspective.
- Have the client create a gratitude diary. This is basically a more in-depth gratitude journal. Start with the journal and as the client begins to reap some benefit from it, move on to the diary.
- Help the client savor positive experiences. People tend to move right on past positive events and dwell on the negative ones. Talk about spending more time savoring the good things in life.
- reach and practice optimism. Optimism is an attitude. It doesn’t preclude being a realist, but it does seek to eliminate negative thoughts. An optimist knows that bad things can happen, but also realizes that they pass, and good things will follow.
- Best possible vision. Ask the client to write down a narrative description of their best possible future selves. Picturing success and happiness can lead to future success and happiness.
- Gratitude visit. This goes beyond the gratitude journal or diary. When expressed directly to another person, gratitude can be especially rewarding and effective. Positive psychology life coaching incorporates gratitude in various ways – there is nothing like the feeling of gratitude to elevate the power of positivity.
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Fred Philips
Business Coach
Writing Team, Coaches Training Blog Community
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