MC Tools—8

Positive Psychology:

Learning Skills for Wellbeing

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 We are sharing some tools to support personal growth, relationship health, organizational development, and overall effectiveness for mission/aid workers. Hopefully you will find them to be creative, useful, and at times even fun. They are some of our favourites.

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These items build upon the 12 tools for “Running Well and Resting Well” that we included as a chapter in Doing Member Care Well (2002). More tools and guidelines specifically for team building are included in our “Tools for Team Viability” article, in the member care book we edited in 1992.

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Watch the six minute interview with Dr. Martin Seligman,

describing positive psychology, authentic happiness, and wellbeing 
in terms of his PERMA model

(Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As-g_dwgJig

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 Our Reality DOSE! website includes links to several online tools. Go to the section called Giants, Foxes, Wolves, and Flies.  At the bottom you will find a listing of several free tools you can use for yourself and with others. For example, go to the Authentic Happiness site to access assessment tools from the field of positive psychology. One of the tools we use the most is the Brief Strengths Test (assessing 24 character qualities) and the Authentic Happiness Inventory (assessing core components of happiness described in his PERMA model—see video clip above). Registering on the site in order to use these tools is free, easy, and confidential.

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Note: Positive psychology, as defined on the Authentic Happiness homepage, is “a branch of psychology which focuses on the empirical study of such things as positive emotions, strengths-based character, and healthy institutions.”