The quest for wellbeing/why flourishing is good for you

Martin Seligman the author of Authentic Happiness has a new book called Flourish.

He promotes the idea that psychology should not just be about solving problems, but creating better mental health in everyone. Since then, the rise of ‘positive psychology’ has been all but unstoppable, with Seligman's book its key text. Three things: positive emotion, engagement with the world and others, and a sense of meaning and purpose. He proposed ways of achieving this blessed state, and even set out a gold standard for measuring it: life satisfaction, the score between one and 10 that people give themselves for how satisfied they are with their lives. And so, the ‘science of happiness’, as it is often called, became more and more.

Three ways to Flourish

The gratitude visit: Write a letter to someone who has helped you in the distant past, a person you never got round to thanking. Keep it to 300 words, and be specific about how they made a difference. Then call them up and arrange to see them. Read the letter aloud to them, and then discuss the content. You will both feel happier.

Three blessings: At the end of every day, get into the habit of writing down three things that went well in your life and why. They don’t need to be earth-shattering, it could be, ‘My husband picked up ice cream from the store on the way home from work today.’ It will feel awkward at first but stick with it – chances are in six months’ time you will feel happier, and could be addicted to this exercise.

Identify your signature strengths: Log on to authentichappiness.com and take the signature-strengths test. Signature strengths include 24 qualities, for example, leadership, kindness and love of learning. Seligman suggests that once we know what our key strengths are, we should find ways of using them every day.

Available as a limited edition original screen print in the shop.