Positive Interventions

With its focus on nurturing talent and empowering individuals to lead more fulfilled, joyful lives, the relatively new field of positive psychology offers a framework well-suited to use by professional coaches in their practices. Its value isn’t limited to personal coaching, either: Positive psychology interventions are equally powerful when used by coaches who serve clients in a business or organizational setting.

A Brief History
After World War II, the study and treatment of mental disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (then termed “shell shock”) shifted from the wheelhouse of physicians to that of psychologists, giving rise to explosive growth in the discipline of clinical psychology, and a new focus in psychological research that persisted through the latter half of the 20th century.

As the 1990s drew to a close, members of the psychology community issued the call for a return to one of the discipline’s earliest missions: strengthening human potential. Leading the charge was Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association. In a 1998 address to the APA, Seligman called on researchers and practitioners alike to “build on human strength” instead of only treating disease.

Within two years of Seligman’s speech, researchers had developed and agreed upon a definition of and list of goals for the discipline of positive psychology. Rooted in “the scientific study of optimal human functioning,” the ultimate, stated goal of positive psychology would be to help individuals achieve “the good life.”

Positive Psychology + Coaching
Coaches have access to a variety of positive psychology interventions that have been intentionally and systematically developed and validated by researchers in the field of psychology. Coaches can also tap into the ongoing and ever-evolving research underway in the field of positive psychology, as well as the growing body of research into positive psychology’s applications to coaching.

Interventions in Action
+ Three Good Things
For homework, ask the client to set aside time every evening to write down a list of three things that went well that day. Most people find it easier to think negative thoughts than positive ones; this exercise helps retrain clients so they’re attuned to “the good” each day. For each item, the client should write a few sentences reflecting on why it went well, which will enable her to relive the experience and associated positive emotions.

+ The Gratitude Visit
Assist your client in planning and carrying out a gratitude visit. The client should choose an important person from her past who has made a significant, positive difference in her life but to whom she’s never expressed her thanks. Have the client compose a thoughtful testimonial (one page in length will suffice) and make arrangements to read it to the recipient—preferably face to face. In the immediate future, individuals who complete the gratitude visit tend to report the persistence of positive emotions related to the event for up to one month. In the long term, positive psychology research indicates that individuals who habitually feel and express gratitude experience greater well-being overall.

+ Using Strengths in a New Way
Use an assessment tool, such as the VIA Classification of Character Strengths, to help the client identify her chief personal strengths. Then, encourage her to identify new ways that she can use these strengths both in the workplace and in her personal life or relationships. Curiosity, for example, can be tapped into at work by exploring new topics in a conversation with colleagues. Outside of the office, a new use of curiosity might be to locate and try preparing a new recipe.

Using their strengths energizes individuals as well as groups. Learning to use them in different contexts helps amplify the positive effect.

+ Implementation Intentions
Setting an implementation intention helps empower your client to achieve her goals without using negative motivations, such as fear or the threat of shame. To set an implementation intention, the client decides in advance when, where and how she will respond to a given situation. The structure of an implementation intention is as follows: “When X happens, I will do Y.”

Setting the intention in advance of “X” makes the client more likely to follow through with “Y.” For example, imagine that you’re partnering with a client who wants to visit the gym regularly, but has found that when she gets home, inertia prevents her from changing into workout clothes and heading to the gym. Instead, she can keep her gym bag in the trunk of her car and set the following intention: “When I leave the office on Tuesday evening, I’ll go directly to the gym.” By simply stating a clear “when-then” plan and giving herself the tools she needs to succeed (in this case, easily accessible workout gear that she needn’t go home to get), your client increases the likelihood that she’ll follow through with her goal. Furthermore, defining in advance in which context the new behavior will be adopted triggers a kind of automatic processing that enables the decision to be made quickly, efficiently and with minimal effort. This frees up mental energy to make more important and time-consuming decisions.

Implementation intentions are also useful in business coaching. For example, a director who wants to promote interdepartmental collaboration within his organization might say, “As soon as I’ve identified a project well-suited to collaboration, then I’ll reach out to key stakeholders immediately and initiate group formation.” This action plan benefits everyone: By planning for the new behavior, the director increases the likelihood that he’ll achieve his immediate goal, as well as experiencing longer-term changes in his management style.

Add Them Up
Research shows that combining two or more positive-psychology interventions can multiply positive outcomes and increase the likelihood of experiencing not just immediate benefits, but also longer-term improvements leading to greater well-being.