Happiness

I'm delighted to welcome Professor Alexandra King, author of this month's blog!

As an expert on happiness and wellbeing, I’ve spent lots of time working with people on the things that stress them out, make them feel burned out and frustrated, and generally have a negative impact on their quality of life.

I also know first hand how clutter can creep up on you when things get busy, and how that makes you feel. I wasn’t a very tidy child, and I spent a long time living with a man who was extremely messy, but it never felt quite like me. At points when life has spiralled out of control I’ve been known to cry over a lost set of keys.

It’s taken some big lifestyle shifts to get to a point where I will happily tidy up, and I can see first hand how much happier I am in a tidy space, even if I do still struggle with it from time to time! Being surrounded by clutter is definitely an example of things being out of control, and a sign that some kind of intervention is needed.

Positive psychology is the underpinning of my professional work. Positive psychologists focus on the good things: identifying someone’s strengths, and looking at how to use those to overcome challenges; celebrating the good in life, and sharing it with others; understanding how we grow through developing and practising positivity in our lives. The real fundamental in this is about gaining or regaining control over the way we deal with our circumstances.

There’s a famous quote from Victor Frankl’s important book Man’s Search for Meaning that sums it all up perfectly:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

He was writing about the extreme conditions of the concentration camps in World War 2, but his words have resonance today in dealing with the trials and tribulations of modern living.

Being in control of our own feelings and responses makes such a huge difference to how we feel, and also how we cope. And in positive psychology coaching, we help our clients regain control over their lives in all kinds of ways. Whether it’s setting a clear plan for the month ahead, rebalancing your priority list, or taking a deeper look at what’s going on in your life, there are always different paths that can be taken that might be more fruitful, more rewarding, and ultimately lead to greater wellbeing. We look at your life in context and help work out where your strengths can be used to help deal with challenge.