3466: What is Flourishing - Learn How to Walk the 5-Part Path to Happiness by Kylee Lessard of Blue Sky Mind

[00:00:00] Überlass deine gesunde Ernährung und die Gains nicht nur deinem Bauchgefühl. Denn bei der Ernährung gaukelt uns unser innerer Schweinehund manchmal ganz schön was vor. Sag stattdessen Hallo zu deinem neuen Coach, Yasio. Yasio ist die meistgenutzte Ernährungs-App Europas, made in Germany. Egal ob Massephase oder ein bisschen Abnehmen, tracke Kalorien, Proteine, Carbs, Fette, Bewegung und Intervallfasten. Und mit den Tasty-Rezepten bist du ready für deine Ziele. Let's go! Lade die Yasio-App jetzt herunter.

[00:00:30] This is Optimal Living Daily. What is Flourishing? Learn how to walk the 5-Part Path to Happiness by Kylie Lessard of AblueskyMind.com. And your narrator, Justin Malik, reading you blogs every single day of the year to help you live a more meaningful life. We have a bunch of shows doing just this. Search for Optimal Living Daily in the podcast app of your choice and click follow or subscribe to listen to any or all of them for free. And today I have a more rare author for this show. She's been featured on Optimal Health Daily though.

[00:00:59] It's Kylie Lessard of AblueskyMind.com. So with that, let's get right to it as we optimize your life. What is Flourishing? Learn how to walk the 5-Part Path to Happiness by Kylie Lessard of AblueskyMind.com. Surely one of the most influential points on my positive psych journey has been the reading of Flourish, written by Dr. Martin Seligman.

[00:01:26] Seligman is an accomplished American psychologist, best known as a founder of modern positive psychology. Once the president of the American Psychological Association, during which he heavily promoted the emerging scientific field of positive psychology, he now serves as the director for the University of Pennsylvania Master of Applied Positive Psychology Program, as well as the director of the UPenn Positive Psychology Center. This book, one of over 30 he's penned, is dense with information, but approachable in form.

[00:01:56] At the risk of overload, I'll focus on just what has come to be the most salient part of the book for me, which are his five components of well-being. These concepts have become so central to my happiness, I quite literally seek to structure my daily life around them. I use these concepts to either reach or maintain a state of flourishing, rather than to pull myself out of a mental health hole. While the concepts are helpful for staying away from depressive or anxious thoughts,

[00:02:23] they are most effective when applied to a neutral or already positive state of mind. What is flourishing? The dictionary defines flourishing as, quote, developing rapidly and successfully, thriving, end quote. I personally appreciate how broad this definition of the word is, creating openness for interpretation based on what success and development mean to the individual. Seligman defines it a bit more specifically, quote,

[00:02:51] To flourish is to find fulfillment in our lives, accomplishing meaningful and worthwhile tasks, and connecting with others at a deeper level. In essence, living the good life, end quote. Oftentimes, positive psychologists seek to clarify their space of research by defining what it is not. In his book, Seligman seeks to dispel the notion that happiness is equivalent to positive psychology. This is due to the inherent limitations of an emotion like happiness,

[00:03:19] which fluctuates daily and hourly in a normally functioning human. Instead, he articulates that we should be striving for well-being in a state of flourishing in order to find lasting contentment. More on how to get there following. How can I achieve a state of flourishing? Dr. Seligman's research was characterized by diverse samples and random controls, then replicated and peer-reviewed. From this, we can confidently place the research in the camp of strong scientific studies.

[00:03:48] His work revealed that there are five consistent elements to well-being. Number one, positive emotion. Happiness, life satisfaction, pleasure, comfort, warmth. For me, things that promote positive emotions are delicious food, a warm fireplace, cuddling, the glow of a candle, comedy, and upbeat music. Number two, engagement. Time stops, flow, complete absorption in a task, loss of self-consciousness.

[00:04:18] For me, engagement often takes the form of writing, dance, deep conversation, analysis and reporting, planning a content calendar, or strategizing a new business idea. Number three, relationships. Other people are the best antidote to the downs of life and the single most reliable up. My relationship needs are met through my friends, co-workers, family, partner, and pets. Number four, meaning.

[00:04:45] Belonging to and serving something bigger than the self. I find my meaning through teaching about positive psychology, my volunteer work with Braid Mission, being there for my close relationships, spiritual texts, and gratitude practice. Number five, accomplishments. Winning, mastery, achievement for its own sake. I get my sense of accomplishment from getting better at yoga and tennis, getting more books and recipes under my belt, growing my blog,

[00:05:13] a day of eating healthy, getting a workout. Solomon coined the helpful little acronym PERMA to help you remember. I remember it by saying to myself, do this to be PERMA happy, which is dorky, but it works. I've made it a habit to regularly reflect on what I'm doing in my daily life to strengthen these five elements of well-being. This reflection typically takes place in my journal and follows the simplest template ever. Where do meditation and mindfulness come in?

[00:05:42] As I wrote this post, I asked myself the same thing. Where does something like meditation fit in? Although I credit the practice with much of my own flourishing, I really couldn't make sense of it in any of the given categories of PERMA. This makes sense as Seligman doesn't make much reference to meditation in his book. However, I found the science of meditation to be highly tangential to the science of positive psychology. Meditation gives me this incredible base from which to flourish, just like mindful movement and nourishment of my body do.

[00:06:12] It's part of the regular maintenance that, say, a car requires to run smoothly to get to the five elements of well-being. In my mind, well-being is often stagnated or curtailed by an overburdened body or mind. So much of my well-being comes from space and time, free of distraction or heaviness. Meditation, just like eating in accordance with my personal food principles and mindful movement practice, keeps my mind serene and able to focus on my flourishing.

[00:06:41] And that's it for now on this subject. You'll hear me reference these elements a lot in subsequent writing, if you haven't already. This framework, combined with the six concepts of positive psych, have served to provide important guardrails in my mindful journey. If nothing else, they offer a trusty journal prompt that allows me to self-reflect in a valuable way on days where I don't know what to write about. Personally, those are the most powerful days for me to pick up my journal because I know it means I'm in a neutral state, ready to flourish.

[00:07:13] You just listened to the post titled, What is Flourishing? Learn how to walk the five-part path to happiness by Kylie Lessard of ablueskymind.com and I'll be right back with my commentary. Thank you to Kylie. She has a little activity to try at the end of her post based on this topic. So here it is. Grab a pen and paper and write out PERMA, P-E-R-M-A, in a vertical line and fill in the activities you know

[00:07:41] will help you meet those five aspects of well-being. Positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishments. Try to incorporate one thing from each aspect in tomorrow's schedule. So thank you again to Kylie Lessard. I like simple takeaways like these to try because you never know which one is going to stick and become something you incorporate into your life like her. So definitely try it out. Have a great day, a great weekend if you're listening in real time, and I'll see you tomorrow

[00:08:09] where your optimal life awaits.