Thanks to Adam Grant’s May 2020 article in the New York Times, we now have a word to describe this malaise many of us are experiencing – Languishing.
“Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield. And it might be the dominant emotion of 2021.”
The question is how do we combat this? I suggest we start with the opposite of languishing – flourishing.
Martin Seligman, a founding father of the School of Positive Psychology, writes in his book Flourishing that five factors together contribute to flourishing.
- Positive emotions
- Engagement
- Relationships
- Meaning
- Accomplishments
Flourishing is not a personality trait. It is a process that requires intentional action.
In collaboration with my colleague, Kathryn McNaughton, we developed 10 coaching questions to get you thinking about simple steps for moving from languishing towards flourishing. Harvard University has also produced an evidence-based guide called “The Flourishing Human Program”. We encourage you to try some of the activities in this guide to move away from languishing and towards flourishing. For so many of us, we need to take a moment to reflect on small, simple steps to move forward and flourish.
Read the full article along with the 10 Coaching questions you should ask yourself and create a more positive outlook for yourself so you can flourish and thrive.
