What kind of life do you live and how? Are you inherently miserable? Do you wonder how everyone else has so much going on but not you? You need a good dose of Eudaimonia and a great coach can help you get it.
Professor Martin Seligman, a guru of Positive Psychology explores three types of life, namely:
• The pleasant life (A life of pleasure and the superficial)
• The good life (A life of flow and being connected to the things that you love doing)
• The meaningful life (A life of love, connection, and happiness)
He has put a lot of effort and research into understanding these ideas and he has reached some brilliant conclusions in helping us to understand Eudemonia….let me explain more….people who are the happiest are those with a high number of social connections, which by the way, is one of the reasons why I set up Elnor’s Corner – I want people to be part of it.
In his TED talk - The new era of positive psychology, Martin gives us some amazing insight into his life’s work and he talks about how his attempts through psychiatry and psychology of trying to ‘fix miserable people’ has led him to conclude that using these techniques has only helped him get people back to zero – an empty life – so he changed tack.
I’ll leave you to watch it for yourself – I highly recommend it if you are a coach, change leader or psychologist, or any flavour of human being who might want to make the world a better place for you and your people. Remember this Blog is about leadership coaching. That’s not to say it's about senior managers, they are of course included, but the best type of leadership is when you lead without authority where people follow you because of what you do, who you are and what you say not because of the hard power established by hierarchy and status.
Coaching has a hugely positive role to play and I have Blogged about coaching cultures and how establishing them is, in my view, the only way for future organisations and leaders to thrive and succeed in Coaching cultures - values, meaning, and all that - What about virtues?
What is particularly important about Martin's ideas is that the organisations we build are a reflection of the type of life we lead. So our use of technology, entertainment, and design are a reflection of ourselves. If we desire to have fulfilled and meaningful lives then let's design the spaces, places, processes, and systems to enable us to do that so we can get a good dose of eudaimonia. Eudaimonic processes, conversations, technology, and interactions based on a coaching type of culture would, I think, make modern organisations, much more pleasant places for all of us to be part of, and we do spend a lot of time in them, so why wouldn't we try?
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
