Senia.com Positive Psychology Coaching

If I told you I could teach you two sets of skills - one anticipating and the other defensive - which would you choose first? Which would you be more excited about learning?

I’ll give you concrete examples. I was teaching some great MBA students this past week, and my colleague and I were teaching them both types of skills.

Anticipating:
* How to have a good-communications relationship so that misunderstandings are less likely to happen, and good interactions are more likely to occur?
* How to increase the strength of your immune system by being more aware of the good things going on around you?
* How to use your strengths more to bring you more productivity and enjoyment?

Defensive:
* When something bad happens - like your boss calls you into his office with no warning, and says, “I have a concern,” how do you react and how do you handle yourself?
* When someone seems to lose trust in you, what do you do?
* When everything seems to go wrong, how do you pick yourself back up and put yourself together and keep going?

Which of these sets of questions attract you more? I’d be very interested!

Thanks, Senia

Csikszentmihalyi: “When a person’s psychic energy coalesces into a life theme, consciousness achieves harmony.”

What is your psychic energy?

How does your psychic energy coalesce into a life theme?
Could you be detailed about how it is coalescing?

I was at a talk a few days ago, and the speaker in his last exercise, asked us to speak to a partner about a goal we want to accomplish in the next 30 days.

September is the time we used to return to school as kids. September is when people return from vacations and buckle down again to work. September is a time for new things, including new projects and new habits.

What is your September goal?

I’ve been facilitating a wonderful workshop on Resilience for teachers - so that the teachers can teach their 10-14 year old students. It has been two weeks of intensity, great ideas, strong commitment from the teachers, and a fabulous interaction between the facilitators. Today is the last day.

How do I like to say goodbye? Quickly. With expectation of soon-again-next-time. Smiling. With gratitude. Like a little girl running away from a fun wave on the shore, expecting to be back next summer.

How do you like to say goodbye?

We wrote before about the interview question that you may most dread, and there were some great comments there that we’ll go back to in future posts.

What is the question you consistently ace in interviews?!!?

And what are some of the ways that you address the question successfully?

Tanabata is a really fun holiday. What will you write down on bright, colored paper ribbons to tie to the trees?

Toss your answers in the comments please, and enjoy the weekend!

Best, Senia

I find that I often ask questions about the upcoming, but because we know that some people prefer to reminisce about the past and some like to plan for the future (see Mimi’s article on savoring and Derrick’s article on time-modalities), I want to be asking more questions about the past as well:

QUESTION: What did you like best about your last weekend?

…and since I enjoy thinking about the future more than about the past: …And how do you think you may do similar things on July 4th as what you did last weekend?

Please feel free to toss your answer in the comments.

This is part of the series of addressing interview questions, and how to answer them.

Today is Question Friday, please let me know What is the interview question you most dread?

And I’ll be addressing these next week.

S.

I wrote about how the way you tell the story of your life - to yourself and to others - may affect how productive and successful you are in the future. One way to see which stories you’re telling and why you’re telling them this way is to ask yourself about some of your favorite stories that you heard as a child.

When: When you want to learn more about why you do certain things.

How Long to Play: 15-30 minutes.

Players: Alone, with one person, or with many.

Materials Needed: Paper and pen.

Goal of the Game: To be able to explain a current situation in terms of your thoughts from when you were a child. Why do this? Because sometimes seeing things this simply makes a current situation dissipate in power, which is what you may want.

HOW TO PLAY:
1) Sit down with your friends or by yourself.
2) Everyone write for 10 minutes: “What’s your favorite story from childhood and why?”
3) Everyone write for 5 minutes: “What current situation in your life might you be playing out like your favorite childhood story?”
4) If playing with friends, everyone share your favorite childhood story, why it was your favorite, and how it may affect your current expectations about any parts of your life.

(Since today is Question Friday, feel free to answer in the comments section! I’ll answer in there too - looking forward to hearing your answers!!!)

What’s the best part of today, June 1?

• June 1 is International Children’s Day.
  
• June 1 was Marilyn Monroe’s birthday.
  
• And, in news especially close to my heart since it refers to my favorite instrument, June 1 starts National Accordion Awareness Month in the U.S.!

QUESTION: What’s the best thing that happened to you today? OR
What’s the best thing that you expect to happen today!?

My answer is in the comments. Welcome to question Fridays! Would love to know what the best part of today, June 1st, was for you!