June 1, 2011
This Week's Focus:
"Floundering? Or Flourishing? What's Your Choice?"
"Like any other living thing, you may either languish, barely holding on to life, or flourish, becoming ripe with possibility and remarkably resilient to hard times. People who flourish function at extraordinarily high levels - both psychologically and socially. They're not simply people who feel good. Flourishing goes beyond happiness, or satisfaction with life. True, people who flourish are happy. But that's not the half of it.
"Beyond feeling good, they're also doing good - adding value to the world. People who flourish are highly engaged with their families, work, and communities. They're driven by a sense of purpose: they know why they get up in the morning. . . Although flourishing is noble, it need not imply grand or grandiose actions. It simply requires transcending self-interest enough to share and celebrate goodness in others and in the natural world."
– Barbara Fredrikson
Beginning of June, and although it is much milder and the weather more benign here on Vancouver Island than it is in many places in the world, people still complain about our long, chilly spring.
I tend to ignore these complaints and focus instead on all those who, whatever the weather, are out doing the things they love, and enjoying the people they do them with.
I'm more attracted and inspired by those who flourish in the face of adversity than I am by those who flounder and languish, wishing the world would accommodate them and their plans. In fact, I structure my personal life coaching approach to help clients flourish, rather than flounder, or lauguish.
How about you?
Flourishing In A Creating Stance? Or Floundering In Problem-Solving?
If you see life or work as an endless list of problems to solve, obstacles to overcome, or clutter to clear, it will become an energy-sapping struggle. It will lack meaning.
Dedicating precious life energy to meaningless tasks becomes boring, pointless and, eventually, depressing.
You'll find yourself floundering, unable to clarify or create what truly matters to you.
To "flounder" is, "to struggle awkwardly to move, as in deep mud or snow; plunge about in a stumbling manner."
But if you see life and work as a series of opportunities to create what matters, your life can be an exciting, meaningful adventure.
You can embrace and transcend problems and create what matters.
You can flourish in the face of adversity and give your great gifts to the world.
To "flourish" is, "to grow vigorously; succeed; thrive; prosper; to be at the peak of development, activity, influence, production, etc.; be in one's prime."
Which state would you prefer?
Floundering in problem solving? Or flourishing in creating?
I'm going to assume you picked the latter.
Shifting Focus
In my personal coaching, one of the first things I do is help clients shift focus from solving problems to creating results that matter.
To start creating, shift your focus from getting rid of (or relief from) what you don't like and don't want to clarifying and creating what you truly do want.
Don't ignore problems or adversity. Acknowledge them. Embrace their messiness as part of current reality.
But make your desired result primary.
Put it first. Make solving problems secondary. See them as supporting actions that acknowledge reality-as-it-is and support your desired results.
When you can do this, problems will no longer drive your actions, or your life.
As you shift to creating as your primary stance, most problems dissolve. They fade away as you focus your energy on results that matter.
My "Weight Problem" Faded Away!
I once had a hefty weight problem. I'd diet, lose the "problem weight," celebrate and then slowly slip back into my weight-gaining ways. My weight problem returned.
Again, I'd diet, lose weight and repeating the process over and over in what nutritionists call "the yo-yo syndrome."
Then, I discovered the Honolulu Marathon Clinic, and running as a joyful passion. I signed up for the marathon, started training and doing short races. I loved it!
Although injury sidelined me before race day, I've kept up an aerobic exercise habit ever since, switching to walking and cycling, as I got older.
My weight "problem" faded as I focused on creating a strong, fit, healthy body, and doing what it took to create it.
Later, after fully grasping the difference between problem-solving and creating, I began to shift to a creating stance in all areas of my life.
Embrace Reality; Create What Matters Most!
"All the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insoluble," said Carl Jung. "They can never be solved, but only outgrown."
Describing his clinical experience, Jung said, "Some higher or wider interest appeared on the patient's horizon, and through this broadening of his or her outlook the insoluble problem lost its urgency."
His patients' problems were not solved logically, in their own terms, "but faded when confronted with a new and stronger life urge."
Although I still have lots to learn about creating, most of the messy "problems" I encounter either fade away, or are dealt with as action steps in my creating process.
Love and Joy Motivate More Than Do Problems or Fear!
Only one out of ten post-cardiac surgery patients maintain healthy lifestyle changes beyond a year or so. But the ten percent who do sustain healthy changes are motivated, not by fear, but by a hopeful vision of an engaged, joyful life.
They envision taking long walks with breath to spare, scampering up stairs with ease, making love without discomfort and being around long enough to enjoy their grandchildren.
Love and joy are powerful motivators!
A collective example of a joy-driven approach to change is The Transition Town Movement.
In The Transition Town Handbook , Rob Hopkins describes the daunting environmental, economic, and social reality we face from dwindling oil supplies and a positive vision of what a successful world-without-oil could look like - with practical steps for creating such a world, one town at a time.
The Transition approach is creating-based. Transitonistas simultaneously hold in mind a motivating vision of a preferred future and an objective assessment of current reality. The creative tension that arises out of the gap between vision and reality generates energy for action. It empowers them to create results with less stress, and more fun.
In his Foreword to The Transition Handbook, Richard Hienberg describes Transition's approach as "more like a party than a protest march."
The Urge to Create
Einstein said we couldn't resolve problems at the same level of consciousness that created them. To succeed, he said, we'd have to shift to a higher order stance, or perspective.
Creating is a higher order stance than problem-solving. It is driven by a stronger life urge. By shifting our individual and collective consciousness to creating, we can transcend problems and create results that are currently beyond our capacity.
In creating, we acknowledge circumstances, but, because deeply desired results drive our actions, the power is in our hands, not in the circumstances.
Action-killing feelings are replaced by positive feelings that open us to creative and integrative thinking - and to more possibility!
A Tipping Point Into A "Flourishing" Life!
Positive psychologist Barbara Fredrickson says "when we experience positive emotions in at least a 3-to-1 ratio with negative emotions, we cross a psychological tipping point on the other side of which we function at our very best."
On the other side of that tipping point, you'll be happier, more creative and resilient.
"Once your ratio enters this bouyant, flourishing territory," says Fredrickson, "you'll be prepared to make the positive contributions that this world sorely needs."
What Kind Of Future Do You Want To Create?
The lasting results that comprise great cultures - art, literature, music, science, technology, architecture, business - were created, not by frightened problem solvers, but by vision-driven creators acting on a deep creative urge.
And the future we leave for our children will be created not merely by problem-solvers reacting to circumstance, but by creators, acting out of love and joy and a desire to create what matters most.
"Those who do not create the future they want," said Draper L. Kaufman, Jr., "must endure the future they get."
What kind of future do you want to create?
Which do you want to do: Flounder? Or flourish?
Are any changes needed for you to act how you'd like to act, and to create what you most want to creat?
If not now, when?
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VIDEO: Barbara Fredrikson On "Positivity and Flourishing"
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In this illuminating and inspiring video, Barbara Fredrikson talks about the timelessness of her book "Positivity", including such topics as the importance of the ratio between positive and negative emotions, the tipping point and how to flourish in the face of fear and adversity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds_9Df6dK7c
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
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QUOTABLE QUOTES
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"Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life."
– Rachel Carson
“Individuals and organizations thrive when people see the best in themselves, share their dreams and concerns in a positive way, and when they join their voices in the same direction in order to create, not only new worlds, but better worlds.”
– David Cooperider
"Just as the tumultuous chaos of a thunderstorm brings a nurturing rain that allows life to flourish, so too in human affairs times of advancement are preceded by times of disorder. Success comes to those who can weather the storm."
– I CHING, no. 3
“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The dedicated life is the life worth living. You must give with your whole heart."
– Annie Dillard
No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.
– Alan Watts
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Have a rich, free and flourishing couple of weeks!
Cheers!
Bruce
PS: Personal Coaching Info Package and F.ree Coaching Chat
I have space for 2 new life coaching clients in June/July and am interviewing now. If you'd like more info, send me an e-mail with "Personal Coaching Results Package" in the subject.
{'ll send you my fr.ee 7-page info life coaching info package. No obligation! If not now, when?!
By the way, my personal life coaching program is robust enough to apply to creating the kind or quality of business you'd love to create. Why not give it a look?
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Copyright (c) 2011 by Bruce Elkin. All rights worldwide reserved.
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