What is hope?

What is hope?

It’s a core tenet of not letting oneself fall into that pit of despair. It’s what we hold on to when we feel all things around us are falling apart. It’s what helps us to believe that something better is available to us.

I like believing in hope. It keeps me free. It helps me to see what could be. The possibilities. The promise. The love. The life. The dream.

Have you watched Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his ‘I have a dream speech’? It’s truly inspiring and full of hope amongst it’s core message of freedom and a better tomorrow. Hit play and watch, I’ll wait.

Welcome back. That’s the first and best TED video that could have existed.

Hope is important for the human condition. It helps us to maintain a sense of balance or flow or life depending on your persuasion. I’m going to go with balance, cos that’s my gig. We need hope more than we realise. It’s hardwired into our being.

You have your first day at work tomorrow, how do you know it won’t go horribly awry? You have a birthday party to organise, how do you know you haven’t forgotten something important? You have an interview and are really keen on the job, how do you know you’ll have performed well?

It’s hard to pin it down. Just what is it? How do you just believe that things will be better? Or that the outcome is what you’re after? Or that the promise is greater than the reality? That there is a God? Is it really enough to just pin it on some self-determined belief?

Hope helps us to dream. We feel something in our bodies that tells us that what we’re experiencing right now isn’t as it should be. You might call this your intuition, your gut feeling, anxiety, or the butterflies. Whatever you call it, it’s your being informing you that there is something more available to you.

I guess that’s important, isn’t it. We wouldn’t think that we could hope for something if we couldn’t achieve it. I can achieve. I may have the talent, I may have the belief, and it comes from a place of hope. A place of dreams. A place of tomorrow.

We have to base a lot of these thoughts in reality. What are the things we’re living with now. Am I comfortable with these things? Do I know what it might mean to hope for a better tomorrow? Do I appreciate what this hope could mean for others and not just me? Do I have a way to keep going if I don’t achieve my dreams?

It’s seductive. And that’s dangerous. We can get suckered into thinking that our hope is enough to make our dreams come true. That all we need is to hope. It’s a fools place if we live there. We need to be grounded in the here and now with a firm grasp on what could happen tomorrow. That helps us to understand if our hope is misplaced or if it’s achievable.

Ah yes, that belief, and it being achievable – within our means. Or with the support of others. I could do that. You could do that. With the right people with us on our journey we can achieve anything – because of the hope that lives in our hearts. It’s a powerful force.

Finding your third place

Probably the toughest thing about helping others to be their best self is finding the right set of things that a person needs to do in order to build a range of activities which help them be their best self.

It’s a tough world, with tough decisions to be made all the time. We have to balance family life, work life, our health – both physical and mental, financial health, and if it’s in our power – community and societal health. All of these and more add to such regular activity that it can be easy to lose sight of what you need to be your best self. Indeed some of the above may well be part of the mix which helps a person be their best.

I’m in the throes of looking after the kids for a few days while the wife is on a break from the family. There’s a few things about this which highlight to me the importance of finding your third place.

First, parenthood is hard. No, this is nothing new, but by God it’s tough. There’s not a moment – even when sleeping – that you switch off when you don’t have your partner as back up. I’m in a fortunate position in that we live with my parents, so there’s some support from my mother. Even with that support though, it’s still up to me to make sure my kids are ok and things are happening in a timely fashion, that I’m passing out attention across the three of them with some degree of fairness, and that I’m ignoring them in equal measure. Oh yes, with three of them doing things, at some point one or the other gets ignored. Tempers get frayed, and voices get raised; giggles happen and fits of laughter too – it’s all par for the course. I love having this time with the kids because it helps build my confidence in doing things with them, and gives me a big sense of achievement.

My wife has proper deserved this time off she’s taking. The kids default to wanting to be around her and have her involved in their activities because when she’s not at work, she’s with them. For the past six years, she’s not had a chance to look at how and where she wants to move forward, so when this opportunity came up she grabbed it by the horns. More power to her.

Both of those occurrences make me think about how hard it is to fit in finding your third place.

What is this third place? It’s a place outside of your home/family life, and your work life (first and second lives) where you can be your best self free of judgement and pressure.

This third place concept is important in positive psychology. It’s about recognising that as individuals we need to be mindful of taking care of ourselves. I think of this as nourishing the soul. We can get so caught up in the day to day and thinking that we’re being our best self, that we forget that a core part of your self, is your self. Life is increasingly complex and we have too much to tell us how to live a good life. Eat well, sleep deeply, have friends, laugh with people, take exercise, etc. I’m actually in accord with all of that. It’s good advice, and we should all be more mindful of how we’re taking care of ourselves. But what about doing things which actually allow us to just be? To just do something where you know you can be your best and it takes no effort?

Am I talking about a hobby? No.

Am I talking about going to the gym class? No.

Am I talking about watching a film? No.

Am I talking about reading? No.

I’m talking about an activity you can do where you are actively engaged in it, it takes little effort to enjoy the activity, and you can lose yourself with ease.

It’s hard isn’t it? Can you think of it? Maybe you’re already doing it. Maybe you’ve always been doing it. Maybe it’s never occurred to you. Maybe you need to give it some considered thought. Maybe you haven’t had the time or even got the time to make it happen.

You have permission to do this. I’m not giving you that permission, it’s always been yours to exercise. It’s why my wife will benefit so much from this break, and I will benefit from being immersed with my kids. This third place will be unique to you, it will be something only you can know of yourself. Very few others can identify what this is for you – and at best it may only be those closest to you who may have an inkling of this.

What is my third place? These days I’m not so sure to be honest. At one point it was skiing. Later it was technology and social media. These days though, I’m not so sure. I’m lucky in that I’ve always enjoyed the work I do, and that my family are well and healthy. Finding my third place could be seen as indulgent, and to some extent it probably is.

But don’t forget we’re talking about moving from a position of ’0′ (normal) to ‘+5′ (vibrancy) for everyday people.

And I guess that’s something which we probably don’t realise we’re allowed to have in our lives. Why should things have to be a slog? Why can’t things be vibrant? Life is tough, and at the same time beautiful.

I hope by now that you know me enough to recognise I don’t promote half arsed activities based on an intuition. I base what I write about on research and evidence, and this is part of the mix of things which can help someone live a good life – and that’s what we’re all trying to achieve.

When bloggers are the secret to success

I enjoy helping others. It’s been evident through a lot of activities in my life. I was involved with a voluntary group for many years, I chose to go through an education in psychology as I have an interest in how people work, what motivates them, and what I can do to be involved in that. It was during this process I realised in particular I liked working with groups of people above all else. As long as I had a clear idea, a plan, and specific outcome, I could get the group there. I look back on this reflection and see that I was practicing this strength all along. It’s not a sudden realisation, it’s one I’ve always known about.

In recent years I’ve been fortunate enough to work with a group of people who have the ability to see where there is something good and positive and are willing to encourage it. There’s something in that. There’s something in the power of a community that I want to give props to.

Last year I decided to hold a workshop on Positive Psychology. It’s a topic I knew enough about to push some of my own personal boundaries, and practice my strength all at the same time. One of the things which was key in this endeavour was raising awareness. I was starkly aware that even though I have a fair following on Twitter and LinkedIn, I would only be able to attract a certain number. I needed to reach more people.

So I got in touch with people I could rely on who write a regular blog. The response I had was generous and most kind. I was truly touched that people who had no reason to help spread the word about my personal project, were willing to help me make it happen.

David Goddin decided to host a guest series on his blog asking people about positive practices in coaching. David, thank you.

Doug Shaw opened his blog for a first come first serve approach when he wrote a post on Positively Psyched. Doug, thank you.

Rob Jones offered the same on his blog asking people to give him a funny reason why he should attend in his post on The One With the Mumbo Jumbo. Rob, thank you.

Vera Woodhead was also very kind and she wrote a post about Connectedness: relationships for a better future. Vera, thank you.

And Donald Taylor joined in by helping to answer the question Are you happy? Happiness, work and good business. Donald, thank you.

It would be remiss of me to not mention Martin Couzins and Mervyn Dinnen. They both attended the session in an official capacity as bloggers. Martin collated a round up of posts in his Round-up of coverage from Positive Psychology in Application. Merv wrote a piece on the Jobsite blog called Introduction to Positive Psychology. Martin and Mervyn, I thank you both.

There were subsequent posts written and shared about the event, and I’m grateful that people took to doing this of their own volition.

If it wasn’t evident, this post is simply to say thank you to these bloggers, and what they helped me to achieve.

Are you interested in applying your creativity in an interesting way? I’m asking people to get involved in Learning Stories to see if they can produce a story about learning which inspires someone to act. The deadline for submission is March 21st 2013. Fancy a challenge?

And I say unto thee… live.

Learning and development. It’s boring.

Presentations. They’re boring too.

HR. Yup, them too.

Finance. Incredibly so.

Business itself. Also boring.

Nothing about anything we do on a day to day basis is interesting in corporate life. Not really.

Doctors, the police, firefighters, teachers. They’re interesting. They provide a service very few of us can.

Not us lot though.

We’re boring.

Except.

Except for those of us who bring things to life.

We take the mundane and the uninteresting and we shake it up a little until it becomes interesting.

We see purpose behind things.

Those figures? They tell a story.

Those policies? Help others live.

Those models? Create new ways of thinking.

That new business model? Helps people live a fulfilled life.

Now.

What are you going to make interesting?

Reflections on #ppia

So it’s been 4 weeks since #ppia. I’ve been reluctant to write about the day because I’ve not known what to write. There has been some good follow up action happening in the online world, and this has been heartening to see. David Goddin wrote about how he thought it was a social learning masterclass. That’s very generous, and it gives me a lot of food for thought about what learning events should and could be like. Martin Couzins has curated various posts and content created in this round up post and I’m genuinely amazed such content was created at all. The Storify’s give such a great sense of the conversation being had on the day. That also gives me food for thought about learning events and why this action isn’t more prevalent.

Then I look at online interactions and how people seem to be connected through attending #ppia and are being highly engaged in each others postings. Martha Wright started a discussion on her #project365 blog about #3goodthings and the forum is truly inspiring stuff. Emma Vernon has been very disciplined and trying to post things daily on Twitter. Sarah Mason seems to have caught the bug, and she wasn’t even at the event.

What did #ppia mean for me? I’m still not sure. I brought together a group of very interested individuals who wanted to learn how to lead more positive lives for themselves, and in someway take that knowledge and apply it back to the workplace or their work practices. It’s pretty great to think I helped that to happen.

Kate Griffiths-Lambeth was so impressed by the notion of a Gratitude Visit, she wants to collect people’s stories who have done such a thing and collate them into a book she can publish. I think that’s brilliant and what a joyous read it would be.

I feel a sense of success at having made the day happen. I put a lot of work into creating something different, and I definitely did that. I threw out the rule book for what a learning event should look like and created a discussion. The environment was more than safe for exploring many threads of thought and challenging preconceptions. In and amongst that, I provided the content and delivered some key messages. A great piece of feedback from Mervyn Dinnen was that I didn’t come across as the expert. I just shared stuff and let people decide what they needed to do with it. If that’s not what L&Ders should be doing as par for the course then I don’t know what we think we’re doing.

Questions have been raised about doing another one. The jury is still out on that one. It took a lot of effort to make happen individually. Stars need to align, the universe needs to speak to me, and a bolt of lightning from God to give me some of that same motivation I had in wanting to make this happen.

I’ve spoken before about being a positive deviant. I certainly deviated from the norm of traditional L&D events. I deviated from the norm of traditional marketing methods. I deviated from the norm of ticketing the event at a high price. I deviated from the norm of giving away all the content to anyone who has an interest.

I still also don’t know what to call it. I’m stuck in calling it an event. It wasn’t a workshop but it was. It wasn’t a course but it was. It wasn’t a conference but it was. It wasn’t an unconference but it was. An event is the best thing I can think to coin it. I don’t mind it being called any of the above, but I don’t think any of them actually capture what the day was.

To my mind, #ppia is one of those events where I won’t really know what I achieved that day until some time down the line, and I’m ok with that. I’m enjoying seeing online activities and interactions amongst those who attended. I’m enjoying knowing that I delivered something which pushed the confines L&D seems to be stuck in. It was a good day. That’s enough for now.

Slides from #ppia

I have been ruminating all week about what I could say about #ppia. But I’m just not there yet. I want to say all these wonderful things that happened on Friday, but I haven’t taken it all in yet myself. There’s been a lot happening with the family, and we’re off on our holibobs from this weekend.

So in place of profound deep personal insight, I share with you the slide deck from the day instead. Hope you find it useful. I’ll catch y’all in mid-September.

Positive psychology in application from sukhpabial