Flourishing: Positive Psychology, Well-Being Theory and NLP

What do we want? What do you want?

Happiness? Success? Love? Peace? A sense of purpose and meaning?

Intention is an important part of NLP. From “old school” techniques like the 6-Step Reframe (or N-Step Reframe), Grinder’s OIC Pattern, Dilts’ Neurological Levels, to the Virtual Question/ Primary Question process, Values and Logical Levels, getting beyond the surface to the core intention is powerful.

In his latest book, Martin Seligman, moves beyond focusing on just ‘happiness’ to “well-being” as the topic of positive psychology, and proposes five measurable elements (“PERMA”):

1. Positive emotion (including happiness and life satisfaction)
   How? What Went Well and Why.
2. Engagement (also known as flow – when you use your strengths to face the challenges coming your way)
   When people use their highest strengths to face the challenges that come their way they are more likely to experience flow.
   How? Identify your greatest strengths and identify specific ways that you can use them more.
3. Positive Relationships
   How? Using Active Constructive questioning.
4. Meaning (purpose and involvement in something greater than oneself)
   How? Write your vision of a positive future; Write your own obituary.
5. Achievement
   How? Grit – ‘never give up’/ self discipline – predicts the top performers.

In Flourish, Seligman outlines an array of ‘tested’ methods for enhancing these elements, many of which overlap with what we’ve been doing in NLP for years… it is great to see the evidence building!

You can watch Seligman’s 25-minute speech that he presented to RSA in July 2011 on this topic here. Note that this is more recent than his comments on the state of psychology he presented at TED.