What is ‘flow’? How can you achieve more of it? How can it help you develop your skills and confidence? In this article we explore how to acheive greater well-being through flow, and some top tips for getting more flow in your life.

In the UK business community there is a growing interest in the topic of employee engagement, sparked by a government-commissioned report in 2009, Engaging for Success: Enhancing Performance through Employee Engagement. In November 2012 the report’s authors, David MacLeod and Nita Clarke, established a group called Engage for Success  (EfS) which describes itself as a “movement [...]

Even though Ken Keir focused on Honda’s R&D philosophy, explaining that in recessionary times, the company goes against the tide and invests more in R&D rather than less, by the time we reached slide 5 of the presentation on the Honda strategy, vision, values, and behavior, it was pretty clear to me that here was a company founded on positive psychology principles. How did I know?

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Aaron Jarden has written a 130-page e-book, Positive Psychologists on Positive Psychology that explores topics that all positive psychologists, experienced or novice, researcher or practitioner, will find interesting. Not only does the book provide answers to basic questions, such as “What is positive psychology?”, it also addresses more challenging ones, such as When, where and [...]

Yesterday I wrote about secrets of goal setting. Today I’m following up with a few factors that affect maintaining goal commitment. Did you make any New Year’s Resolutions on 31 Dec 2011 and if so, are you still sticking with them or have you already given up? A survey conducted a few years ago by [...]

It’s the end of January already! “Where has the time gone?” my elderly neighbour Stella asked this morning as we chatted about the weather, our families, and which birds we had  spotted in our gardens (the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is doing a nationwide Bird Watch this weekend). Stella is a real [...]

“The aim of life is appreciation.” ~ G. K. Chesterton The holiday season and the New Year period can be a pretty stressful time. We’re inclined to think that everything must be perfect, and that includes the gifts we give, the food we prepare, the warmth of our welcome to guests, what we wear to [...]

Do Positive Interventions Ever Backfire? A few weeks ago someone started an interesting discussion on the ‘Friends of Positive Psychology’ Listserv by asking if using a gratitude activity had ever backfired. The question may have been prompted by a recently published study by Susan Sergeant and Myriam Mongrain in which a gratitude exercise not only [...]

My latest article for Positive Psychology News Daily is a review of a new Positive Psychology-based book by ed psych and consultant Sue Roffey, called Changing Behaviour in Schools: Promoting Positive Relationships and Well-being. One of the great strengths of this book is its breadth, not just in terms of aims but also its evidence [...]

Unusually for me, my posting for Positive Psychology News this month is a book review, Kate Hefferon and Ilona Boniwell’s Positive Psychology: Theory, Research and Applications. Don’t be put off by the fact that it’s a textbook, in short it’s a highly enjoyable, educational, and engaging read, well worth the £18-£20 it’s currently selling for [...]

One of the very first pieces I wrote for Positive Psychology News Daily back in 2007 focused on the application of strengths – whether strengths as defined in positive psychology are always positive and how we know which strength to apply in any given situation. This was inspired by a great article by Barry Schwartz [...]