How to Beat the Funk: Promoting Positivity for You and Your Team

How to Beat the Funk: Promoting Positivity for You and Your Team

by Doni Landefeld, Ph.D., ACPEC

Last month we focused on PERMA, the evidence-based model developed by Dr. Martin Seligman that facilitates higher performance with sustained well-being. This month let’s dive a bit deeper and focus on positive emotion, the “P” in the PERMA model. First of all, let’s begin with why positive emotions matter and a reminder to strive for continual flexing of this mental muscle. Here are four compelling reasons:

1. Get more done in less time. When mood is elevated, it’s a major boost to productivity. You’ve probably noticed when you’re experiencing positive emotions, how it helps attend to staying on task. 

2. Think in a more open-minded, broader way. Need to collaborate more? Experiencing positive emotions helps ramp up the sage strength of curiosity, ever the conduit of exploring more beyond what one already knows. Ah if we had more of this in our world, imagine all the great collaboration and peace that could be forged.  

3. Think in a more flexible and integrated way. Want to increase the chance that solutions will be more creative? How about helping your team to be higher-functioning? Elevating the mood to experience positive emotions promotes the sage strengths of innovation, which is what all teams and organizations need right now to grow and thrive during the most volatile times ever.

4. Expand your repertoire and influence. Experiencing positive emotions helps people think in ways that build their repertoire, that is promoting action that is likely to be more thoughtful, clear, creative, and perhaps even leading to more win-win outcomes. When influence expands, so does impact. 

Did you know that there are fewer positive emotions than negative ones? Just like it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown, there are fewer positive emotions to practice, so why not make life a little simpler and better – go for practicing and mastering those emotions that position you for greater success and well-being?  

Certainly, negative emotions play a crucial role deeply rooted in survival, typically eliciting a quick physical response to avoid danger. However, most threats demand higher cognitive functioning. Consequently, the survival part of the brain along with its accompanying physical responses such as fight or flight, will not serve creative, innovative thinking in the conference room. The only way to thrive is to harness the power of positive emotions.

So how do we experience more positive emotion?

As in building any skill, consider building your optimism muscle, practice is what primes the positive emotion pump. And the more practice that is employed, the more natural and consistently, you will experience positive emotions. The cool thing about practice and priming is how it invites even more positivity into your world; it’s a contagion effect.  

Here are four simple ways to incorporate more positivity.

1. Schedule positive and pleasant experiences on a regular basis, it could be with family, friends, or colleagues.

2. Read or watch short videos that are inspiring and positive

3. Keep pictures handy that inspire and create positive emotions in the moment. They can be pics of loved ones, people who inspire you or something else that inspires you

4. Generate positive words or mantras. One of my favorite phrases when I’m feeling uncertain or overwhelmed is “It’ll work out” (and it usually does!)

These quick tips are tactical and certainly not meant to replace deeper reflection or more thoughtful appraisal. Positive emotions are fleeting and yet they serve in a way that helps us shift to a more creative, competent, strength-based state of mind to get out of a funk and into a more collaborative, creative, big-picture, get-it-done and be happier kinda way.

For an even deeper, more impactful dive to infuse more positivity into your world in a strategic plan-inspired fashion, consider our 14-session package for you and your team. It includes our Positive Intelligence® program, as well as additional goodies on savoring, forgiveness, gratitude, satisficers vs maximizers and much more.   

To learn more, schedule a call with us: