I'm greatly interested in the science of Positive Psychology because it provides evidence-based lessons for increasing our well-being, which is one of the things I'm most passionate about. While there are so many different tools and techniques, two of the most effective and simplest ones to adopt are positive affirmations and a practice of gratitude. By focusing mindfully on what's good, and being grateful for all the good things in our life (even the most mundane ones) we can actually increase our happiness and sense of well-being.

Positive Affirmations

No, not exactly like the ones the Saturday Night Character 'Stuart Smalley' practiced, although watching him might cheer you up. I think the child in the below YouTube video has it right. She makes me giggle every time! Go Jessica!

Five Gratitudes in Five Minutes Exercise

I like this simple exercise, suggested by Dr. Martin Seligman in his book Authentic Happiness. Anyone can increase their happiness and success by practicing this very easy technique - including kids. Here's what you do:

1. Place a pad of paper and a pen or pencil next to your bed.
2. Before going to sleep each night, for the next two weeks, think back over the previous 24 hours and write down up to five 'gratitudes', or things for which you feel grateful. These don't need to be profound and symbolic (though those are fine too). They can be as simple as "great dinner", "being alive", or "the sunshine through the kitchen window this morning."
3. Repeat nightly for 14 nights.
4. At the end of two weeks, evaluate how you feel about this exercise and generally about your life. I bet you will feel happier, more positive, and more focused on what's good. You might even find that you want to incorporate this practice into your nightly routine.

What you'll probably find when you do this exercise is that by thinking about your gratitudes each night, it will shift your daytime focus to seek out things to be grateful for. By mentally preparing for the nightly exercise (subconsciously or consciously), you will become more cognizant of things you are grateful for and more grateful for things that happen to you that might not have been cast in the light of gratitude prior to this exercise. It makes you look for what's good in your life, and thus happier about the life you have and what makes you happy. Try it and let me know what you thought!

I was recently interviewed by ASTD on the value of belonging to a community of peers through chapter involvement and the value of belonging both to the national association and the local chapter. I've written and spoken about this subject previously here, here, and here.

Take a look at my comments in the two short clips below (30 and 50 seconds each) and let me know your thoughts in the comments section.

Last week, I co-facilitated a high level Commission's Retreat that I designed along with my co-facilitator, Jon Desenberg, of the Performance Institute. We threw out the bulk of our planned design. It was brilliant.

Never mind that we spent hours upon hours in design, revision, and re-revision based on the client's ever-shifting requirements. Never mind that we worked nights and weekends to ensure that every moment of the 3.5 days of the retreat was well-planned and optimally accounted for in the highly interactive agenda.

We re-designed the whole thing at least three times during the three day retreat, on the fly.

Why?

Because it was the right thing to do. We listened to the clients attentively DURING the retreat. We were finely attuned to the situation, non-verbal nuances, reactions and interactions. We focused on their agenda, desired outcomes and energy dynamics, and adjusted accordingly.

How did it work?

Extremely well. Many of the participants, seasoned professionals with huge resumes and egos to match, thanked us heartily at the end. One said he came in highly skeptical and is leaving a converted man. Amen! The client indicated they want to engage us further in the coming year. They loved it.

So what does this mean about our pre-retreat work: was it a waste of time? I mean, after all, we threw just about all of those activities out the window.

No. As Dwight D. Eistenhower once said: "Plans are worthless, but planning is everything." Here's why:

1. Planning forces you to ponder possibilities and entertain potential obstacles before they happen. By thinking in advance about the goals for the retreat (or class, meeting, presentation, etc.) and the current state of things you make smart decisions about what works and what doesn't, but also consider some Plan B, C, and Z approaches to have in your 'bag of tools' should you need them.

2. Planning provides you with a framework within which to flex and shift. Without this framework, we would have flailed about when the situation changed because we would not have had the structure to ground us. Knowing time frames, limitations, possibilities, and desired outcomes COLD helped us select IN certain options and select OUT others in the moment.

3. Planning gives you the confidence needed to embrace change and the uncertainty it can bring. The more time you spend planning for an event, the less unexpected changes can shake your confidence because you are more familiar with the content and context. Knowing that the changes emanated from the external context -- not from some deficiencies in us or our plans -- gave us the confidence to throw out the plans and create new, better ones. We did not encounter any insecurities and were able to stay responsive and client-focused. Our clients sensed this confidence and trusted our skills, which fed back our loop of self-assurance and calm confidence in the face of change and flux.

What have been your experiences with planning vs. plans? 

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mringlein/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

I just got an email from a dear old friend (well, he's not 'old', but you know what I mean...) that re-surfaced an email I shared with some friends a little over a year ago. It struck me that this great treasure I shared with those friends was something I coulda-shoulda shared with readers of this blog - why didn't I think of it? Well, better late than never, since it's a timeless concept. So here's my email from last year:

"Over the last few years I have really been interested in research on what makes people happy and fulfilled. One of the key researchers in the 'Positive Psychology' field is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced 'cheek-sent-me-high-ee'), director of the Quality of Life Research Center at Claremont Graduate University, who has written about the concept of "Flow". He coined this term to describe the mental state of operation in which you are fully immersed in what you are doing and feeling energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.
 
I imagine we all want more of that feeling, and helping others get more of it would be a great bonus! :)
So today, when I came across a wonderful, 20-minutes-short talk (at TED) by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi overviewing his research on Flow and creativity, I immediately wanted to share it with you in the hope that it provides you with some food for thought, or maybe if you are already familiar with it, a tool to pass along to others who could benefit.
 
Please enjoy!!"
 

As the holiday season is upon us, and as we set our gaze on the shiny New Year, I wish you lots of 'Flow' moments in your life. May you have many opportunities to 'grow your talent'. Cheers! ~Halelly

As readers of this blog may know, I have two professional roles: One, as a business-owner and entrepreneur with my company, TalentGrow; the other, as a volunteer on the Board of Directors of my professional association, the Metro DC chapter of ASTD (the American Society for Training and Development).

As 2009 President, I am very proud of the work we've done and the tremendous efforts of the talented volunteers all around me who made it all possible. Just last week, we held our annual Volunteer Recognition dinner celebration during which we thanked all those who have volunteered in some capacity to help our chapter operate - we do it on 100% volunteer fuel!

I think 2009 has been a very successful year for Metro DC ASTD. In a tight market and a contracting economy we've managed to keep our membership steady (actually, it grew) and continued to provide quality programs to our constituents to achieve our mission of enriching their knowledge and skills and increasing their impact in their workplace. We added a lot of new virtual ways to do that via social media, webinars, and podcasts, which garnered us an award from the National ASTD. And we've continued to keep over 6,000 workplace learning and performance professionals informed about events in our area that can help them grow professionally - help their talent grow!

The Volunteer Recognition event featured a panel of experts who discussed the value of volunteering to enhancing one's career, a subject I've previously discussed here and here. One of the attendees, Andrew Welch, who volunteers with the US Coast Guard Auxiliary, summarized some of their key points nicely on his blog. 

How have your volunteer experiences enriched your career this year? What new opportunities are you going to seize to grow your own talent in 2010? I would love to hear about it in the comments!

Bottom Photo credit: Ali Green