If you believe Well-Being is just fluffy sh*te, you haven’t been paying attention to decades of scientific evidence from psychology, neuroscience, learning processes, medicine and proven repeatable experiments on the positive impact it has on human behaviour.
Either that or, you have developed a carapace of cynicism that no amount of evidence will penetrate. I have a lot of empathy for cynics, in fact, because I believe in what a wise person once said, namely that ‘cynics are disappointed idealists ’.
And why wouldn’t you be disappointed? According to myriad resources, you may have once been open to such conventional ‘wisdom’ as Well-Being is just a matter of, for example;
· Finding your passion and you’ll never work a day in your life
· Adopting Mindfulness
· Seeking happiness
· Being optimistic
· Eating heathy, unprocessed food
· Exercising more or doing the ‘right’ kind of exercise
Only to discover that few, if any, made any discernible positive change to your life. Now, of course, there are elements of truth in all of these pieces of ‘wisdom’. Its conventional wisdom because it largely works.
Insidiously though, there is underlying ‘magic thinking’ that suggests that you just have to find the lucky key and everything will work out. It’s almost like buying a lottery ticket and dreaming about what you will do when you win. (Transparency – I indulge in that fantasy regularly, its fun!) We forget that buying the ticket only gives you an entry into the game. No amount of wishing, believing you deserve it or that it must be your turn to win, will have any influence on the result.
Well-Being, on the other hand is not dependent on a random lucky key but can be achieved by dogged hard work on several fronts, an acceptance that it takes daily effort, and repetition – a lifestyle, in other words. And, importantly, it requires a recognition that you may, realistically, achieve only snatches of Well-Being rather than being in a continuous state.
So, what is Well-Being? Martin Seligman has defined it as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, not merely the absence of a disease’. Martin Seligman adds that it as a structure built on five measurable pillars PERMA© :
P – Positive emotion
E – Engagement R – Relationships M – Meaning and Purpose
A – Accomplishment
No one element defines Well-Being, but each contributes to it and each requires attention and a level of skill built up over time through iteration and repetition.
Why bother if it requires so much effort? Those snatches of Well-Being create multiplier effects and have been shown to vastly improve the following, to mention just a few;
· Better use of your intellect for decision-making and problem-solving
· Higher productivity and energy and a resulting sense of achievement
· Engendering a greater sense of joy in life
· Better relationships management and enjoyment of them
· A sense that your life has meaning and purpose
Building Well-Being into a daily lifestyle habit may not be easy but there is plenty of scientifically- based behavioural change tips and skills available for each of the five pillars.
Check out this site for exactly that assistance ‘Well Better’ etc.
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