PERMA Well-Being
Reading Martin Seligman’s book Authentic Happiness in graduate school was monumental for me. The concepts within Positive Psychology, the study of what makes humans happy as opposed to ill, makes so much sense as a clinician. Ever since reading Authentic Happiness I have used the information and interventions to guide both myself and clients towards sustainable meaning and lasting happiness. That takes us to my recent exposure to Seligman’s follow-up book, Flourish: A Visionary Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being. In this more recent work Seligman course corrects the concepts set forth in Authentic Happiness, creating what he asserts is a more useful model to move towards a more comprehensive Well-Being, as opposed to just pain subjective happiness. The acronym he uses, that I am now implementing with both myself and clients alike is “PERMA”. I would challenge you to take a moment and give your self a 1-10 (1 being I am going very poorly and 10 being I could not be doing any better) in these 5 fields of happiness.
P - Positive Emotions:
This field of well-being relates to pleasure and enjoyment. How much pleasure and enjoyment are you currently experiencing in a given week?
E- Engagement:
How engaged are you in your current work and hobbies? Do you have moments of being “lost in an experience”, where you lose track of time? In a given week how engaged do you think you are in experience?
R- Relationships
Mental and physical well-being are inextricably linked to the amount of close, trusting and honest relationships one has with peers and family. How are you currently maintaining, seeking out or developing these types of relationships?
M - Meaning:
This is a tricky one because at times, having meaning in your life means you give up a level of comfort of pure pleasure. Do you have a life, job, hobby or community where you can connect to something that is larger than yourself?
A - Achievement
Setting goals is important (see my Blog post on “How SMART are your Goals”) to well-being in many ways. Asserting and goal and then exerting effort to strive towards and eventually achieve those goals creates a struggle that leads to self-confidence and demonstrated self-worth. What are your goals and how well are you doing at moving towards them?
Hopefully this exercise sparks some insight into how you might be getting in the way of your own well-being. As always, I can help.
-TM