Summary of session material
- Wellbeing = mental and physical health; flourishing; mental and physical reserve (or capacity)
- There are multiple models of wellbeing, such as PERMA, the Five-Ways to Wellbeing, and the Gallup Five Essential Elements.
- Resilience = See options and flexibly use skills to deal with adversity, using wellbeing resources efficiently
- We can make resilience much more complex than the above summary, for example in the science literature resilience may be described to create or result in:
- Resistance – like the oak tree
- Recovery – like the sapling
- Reconfiguration – growth through adversity
- Mark developed the Six-Element Model of Wellbeing & Resilience (6EM) which combines other models:
- The Core
- Emotion or internal climate (Fire)
- Awareness or focus (Air)
- Mastery or achievement (Water)
- Physiology or body (Earth)
- Meaning or our Why (Quintessence)
- Wellbeing and resilience are reciprocal – resilience helps us maintain a state of wellbeing, and wellbeing provides more resources to dip into in the face of adversity.
- Habits drive much of our behaviour – we are habit surfers
- A critical skill is the ability to consciously create new or modify habits, to grow the skills of habit crafting
- Habits are activated through the typical process of a repeating: Trigger-Activity-Reward
- Implementation Intentions – I will do x [specific ‘when’ details], e.g. I will meditate before my morning coffee
- Mental contrasting – visualise my current reality vs my future desire (goal), and what specific things may I encounter on my path to achieve my goal
- WOOP (wish, outcome, obstacle, plan) – mental contrasting with implementation intentions
- In a moment when I’m struggling to do what I want to do – RSVP (recognise, step-back, review my values, pursue discerning next step)
- Inner dialogue
- Talking to yourself again? – of course, so ensure your self-talk is helpful
- What’s your story? – we make sense of the world through the stories we tell ourselves, most are helpful, but some aren’t
- Link to VIA Character Strengths survey (module 1 prep for module 2)
Videos and recordings
Models include PERMA from Positive Psychology, Five-Ways to Wellbeing from nef:
Here’s a recent short interview with Martin Seligman (of PERMA fame): Is It Worth Trying to Improve Our Wellbeing?
A recent interview with Martin Seligman of PERMA fame, in Psychology Today: Is It Worth Trying to Improve Our Wellbeing?
New Economics Foundation’s Five Ways to Wellbeing:
And the final model of wellbeing mentioned, was the Gallup Five Essential Elements of Wellbeing, which you can hear about from one of the reseachers here:
Resilience
Podcast: Michelle McQuaid short interview with Prof. George Bonanno head of the Loss, Trauma and Emotions lab for Columbia University, a Resilience expert:
Habits
Implementation Intentions:
Use WOOP to set goals: http://woopmylife.org