January e-news

Dr Suzy Green & Associates

Happy New Year and Welcome to my first e-news! The purpose of “Creating Flourishing Lives” e-news is to do exactly that!

My mission is to bring you the latest research every month from the exciting field of Positive Psychology and provide you with practical ways to enhance your psychological well-being. If you want to know more about Positive Psychology and the work that I do you can refer to my website - www.drsuzy.com.au - which is being regularly updated to provide you with the most up-to-date resources to help you develop a flourishing life.

Month 1 — Know Thyself!

In my work as a personal coach (I am both a registered Clinical & Coaching Psychologist) I have many clients who are keen to rush towards goals that they’ve had trouble achieving in the past. Alternatively they are dissatisfied with the life goals they have achieved and are questioning their current life paths. In many cases, lack of progress or dissatisfaction with progress are associated with inauthentic goal pursuit.

Research shows that when we select goals in alignment with our core values not only do we have greater goal attainment but we have greater levels of well-being associated with the attainment – a double whammy! And as noted above the opposite of this also holds true, that is, goals that aren’t set in alignment with our core values are associated with low goal attainment and low levels of well-being.

The ability to select authentic goals goals depends on how well we know our core values and ultimately ourselves! You will find that there are a small number of people that can, on request, identify their core values. Often our values are implicit – whereby we kind of know what’s important yet we never make these values explicit. In other cases people have never really questioned their core values and may be living other people’s values such as their parents or their partners.

This Month’s Action Plan — Crystallise & Prioritise Your Top 5 Core Life Values

This month spend some time identifying your top 5 core life values. There are many values lists available via google or alternatively you can email me for one. Take some time out from your daily routine to reflect on the list. Which values stand out to you as being the most important and make your life meaningful? You may find that you initially identify a large number of values however it is also important to prioritise your values – as these then become your “guiding lights” or “the best decision making tools” (as one of my clients referred to them as) – for this “season” of your life. Research has shown that whilst the priority for our values may change over our life time, our core values tend to stay the same.

Once you are clear and content on these values, place the list in a highly visible place so you can be reminded on a regular basis of what’s important to you. I have one client who wrote them on a yellow sticky and placed it on his computer at work. He commented that it wasn’t hard to make the decision to leave work before 6pm each day when his top value of “family” was in his face! His family also benefited by having him live his values.

Living inauthentic lives can lead to disorders such as depression and anxiety. With statistics like 1 out 5 people suffering a depressive episode at some point in their lives, it highlights the importance of developing authenticity. You may like to give a rating out of 5 as to how well you are living each value currently. You could then set some goals for 2007 to improve your ratings.

Coming soon...

I look forward to providing you with more applied positive psychology throughout the year! NOW is also the time to set some goals for the year ahead – although check in to see if they authentic! They typically “feel right” in our bodies.

Please feel free to email me if you have any queries at all and I look forward to answering some of the common ones each month in e-news. If you believe you would benefit from one-on-one coaching please don’t hesitate to contact me to discuss your needs. I will also be running a number of workshops this year for different professional bodies and developing workshops for the implementation of positive psychology in organisations and will keep you posted in future e-news.

Don’t forget to accentuate the positive!

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