Thought of the day.....

Thought of the day....

From dailypositivequotes.com

Quote of the day...

Whether you think you can or think you can't - you're right - Henry Ford

Coaching Psychology

The area of coaching psychology is of personal interest, but I have always struggled with understanding how a qualified coaching psychologist differs from a "life coach".

The following link from the Australian Psychological Society (APS) helps to clarify this....

Coaching Psychology: How did we get here?

Book of the week....

My book of the week is Wellbeing by Tom Rath and Jim Harter and published by Gallup Press (first published 2010).

 

 

Gallup scientists have been studying the life well-lived for over fifty years, across more than 150 countries and have asked questions relating to  health, wealth, relationships, jobs and communities providing a snapshot  of more than 98% of the world's population.

 

Upon completion of their research, five distinct statistical factors emerged making up the universal pillars of wellbeing. Rath and Harter believe that "these elements are the currency of the life that matters" and are essential to most people (1).

 

The first element is Career Wellbeing, or how you occupy your time or like what you do every day.

 

The second element is Social Wellbeing, or having strong relationships and love in your life.

 

The third element is Financial Wellbeing, or how effectively you manage your economic life.

 

The fourth element is Physical Wellbeing, or your level of good health and enough energy to get things done on a daily basis.

 

The fifth and final element is Community Wellbeing, or the sense of engagement you have with the area you live in.

 

Gallup ascertained that only 7% of their sample were thriving  in all five, with 66% doing well in at least one of these areas. Rath and Harter suggest that we're not getting the most out of life unless we are living effectively in all of the five above areas.They also continue with suggestions on how to improve your wellbeing within the five areas, recommendations that are based on real-life actions taken by the highest scorers of wellbeing within their sample. For example, to increase career wellbeing, focus on using your strengths daily, buy experiences rather than 'things' to increase financial wellbeing and opt in to community groups or events to boost your community wellbeing.

 

This book makes an interesting read for anyone who is curious about boosting their wellbeing. It also includes a technical report section for the psychology buffs who want to view their research methods and metric components.

 

Personally, I loved this book and I will be blogging about specific areas of this wellbeing theory soon. But for today I wanted to leave you with a question. What particular area of wellbeing are you thriving in?

 

Have a great day!

Nina

 

References:

(1) Rath, T and Harter, J. (2010). Wellbeing. The Five Essential Elements. Gallup Press, New York.

A thought on thinking.....

Habits of thinking need not be forever. One of the most significant findings in psychology in the last twenty years is that individuals can choose the way they think.

~ Martin Seligman Quotes from Learned Optimism

Post #2. What is Positive Psychology?

Here is a great little clip that helps to explain Positive Psychology in a nutshell.

Post #1. Happy 2013!

"If you are reluctant to do something, force yourself to do it. It will be less difficult next time....."

Welcome to my new blog! This is a place where I will write about my passion - human behaviour. It is not blog where I give advice, but more of a place to hone my writing skills and write about areas of psychology that I personally find fascinating. I would love to hear your thoughts too so please join in the discussion in the comments section below...

2013 is officially underway and at this time of year there is much said about resolutions. My personal resolution, or I like to refer to them more as goals, is to develop this blog. So tick to that. My next goal is to actually write and post daily, mmmmm not sure how I'll go with that but here goes....

One thing that did spring to mind when I thought about goals is self-efficacy, a well-researched and prominent part of psychology, particularly within the school of personality psychology.

According to the Oxford Dictionary of Psychology (2009) self-efficacy is defined as "the ability to achieve desired results" and is a concept that became popular during the 1980's and 90's thanks to Bandura's cognitive social-learning theory.

Bandura defined self-efficacy as the 'belief that one can perform adequately in a particular situation" and demonstrated that  "your sense of self-efficacy influences your perceptions, motivation and performance in many ways" (1).

Essentially, high perceived self-efficacy means you take chances and you expect to be effective at what you do - and if the going gets tough, self-efficacy is the belief you have what it takes and makes you persist until the task is complete. So all-in-all, it appears high levels of perceived self-efficacy will more than likely contribute to keeping new year's resolutions on the straight and narrow.

So how does self-efficacy come about and how do you maintain it?

Bandura suggests that beyond actual accomplishments, there are three ways individuals make self-efficacy judgements:
- vicariously ie by watching other people perform
- by persuasion ie other people may convince you of your ability or you may convince yourself
- by tuning into your emotional responses ie anxiety may suggest low levels of self-efficacy  and excitement may suggest an expectation of success. (2)

Self-efficacy judgements based on these three areas influence how much effort you put into something and your resilience when faced with overcoming obstacles standing between you and your goals. In addition, Bandura also acknowledged that environment impacts on judgements - if you perceive your environment as supportive your expectation of success will be greater as will your perseverance.

So, what do the experts say?

Rresearch suggests that Bandura was 'on the money' so to speak, with self-efficacy being shown to increase both motivation and performance. Evidently increasing efficacy expectations is a useful approach (3).

And how do you do it?

Bandura himself had a simple method to increasing efficacy - a method that was later adopted by an advertising firm. "Just do it". If you are reluctant to do something (ie you are struggling with low self-efficacy), force yourself to do it. It will be less daunting and hard next time! (4).

So here's to a long, well-written, and successful blog. Maybe!!

Nina.

References:

 (1) and (2): Gerrig, Zimbardo, Campbell, Cumming and Wilkes (2009). Psychology and Life. Pearson Education Australia.

(3) and (4): Funder, D.C. The Personality Puzzle, 5th Ed (2010). W.W. Norton and Company.