We've talked a lot about positive psychology coaching on our blog over the last couple of years. It gives coaches and their clients a precision tool for building happiness, success and ease. But the recent discoveries that show how and why positive psychology works are really fascinating!
You probably already know what positive psychology coaching is: it's evidence-based coaching that puts into practice what positive psychology researchers have discovered about the power of positivity and how it promotes happiness, health and success.
Positive psychology coaching: promotes happiness, health and success?
There are a number of scientific theories, such as systems theory and quantum theory, that can help explain how positive psychology coaching works, but these explanations remain speculative at this stage. No one has yet mapped out these theories, step by step, to document exactly how they influence human behaviour and outcomes. It just makes sense that they do.
The field of neuroscience, on the other hand, closely follows what happens in awareness, action, learning and rehearsal, and explains in detail what happens and why.
Neuroscience explores how the brain works using brain scanners and other high-tech tools. They literally look at what is going on in the brain at the cellular and even molecular level, and the results are quite startling!
In fact, some coaching leaders, including David Rock, go so far as to say that neuroscience is the most closely related field of science in coaching, partly because it emerged in the decades when coaching was born, and so coaching has been largely inspired by it.
In my opinion, however, positive psychology is an even better fit for coaching, because not only did it develop at exactly the same time as coaching, but positive psychologists and coaches are asking exactly the same fundamental question:
What makes people happy, healthy and successful?
Contrary to popular belief, the absence of mental illness does not automatically lead to happiness, health and success. The latter state, often called well-being, is a separate thing. It can exist, counter-intuitively, alongside mental illness, or be completely absent in someone who does not suffer from it.
It follows that if we want to be happy (and everyone from the Dalai Lama to Tony Robbins says that this is what every human being really wants), we need to understand the tools that produce happiness.
And here's a new criticism for coaches: getting what we want doesn't make us happy, at least not for more than a day or two. Happiness is literally an inside job. Anyone can have it, regardless of circumstances or mental health.
So far, only a few lucky people have come across the tools to achieve lasting happiness. Yes, philosophers and spiritual masters have theorised and taught how to live the good life for millennia, but they have not always been right. Today, perhaps, we can achieve it, for everyone.
So this is the work of positive psychology researchers and professionals who apply positive psychology in their coaching. And here's how and why, according to neuroscience, it works so well:
The brain and the mind are intimately connected. Scientists disagree about who creates what, but all the evidence suggests that they create each other and that the mind influences the brain.
The brain develops and evolves throughout life, making learning possible and desirable well into old age. In fact, dementia can be seen as the cessation of learning.
Brain growth is triggered by new knowledge and learning, creating new neural maps. This is called neuroplasticity.
Neural maps develop when existing neurons fire and then connect to each other. Sometimes new neurons are also produced.
Neural maps determine our assumptions and habits, which saves time and energy when we repeat experiences and actions, but these assumptions and habits may not be as clever, or flexible, as needed when clients move on to new and more important things, and so they need to be replaced by new neural maps.
Greater repetition creates stronger links in the neural maps that are frequently used. Think of recording a song on tape, rather than downloading it to your phone. Stronger links take longer to develop.
Our internal chatter also creates neural maps and it can be even more influential than our actual experiences!
We can intentionally direct our thoughts and emotions to create more positive and resourceful neural maps. This is called 'self-directed' neuroplasticity.
Because neural maps develop in response to what we think and feel, positive thoughts and feelings not only make us happy today, they also make us more likely to be happy in the future, regardless of circumstances.
People who regularly experience positivity are more likely to thrive and be successful.
Coaches who help their clients develop clever neural maps practice coach-assisted neuroplasticity.
So solving your clients' problems, or even helping them get what they want, falls short of the real power of positive psychology coaching, which is to transform your clients' lives from striving to flourishing.