Hello there, this is Ajit Nawalkha
and in this video I'm sharing with you
how to use positive psychology in coaching.
You may have already heard about positive psychology
and you may be using it unconsciously in your coaching.
But in this video,
I'll be sharing with you five specific tools
that I use in positive psychology as well,
to be able to use it in your coaching practice.
But before I get started,
let me tell you what is positive psychology.
Positive psychology is a relatively new form of psychology.
It emphasizes the positive influences in a person's life.
These might include character strengths,
optimistic emotions, and constructive institutions.
This theory is based on the belief that happiness is derived
from both emotional and mental factors.
In simpler terms, it basically is understanding
that if you focus on the positive,
you tend to create better outcomes in your life.
I'm oversimplifying it but just for the sake of this video,
let's simplify it in a way that we can truly understand.
And now let's get into the techniques that you can use
that are derived from positive psychology
that will help you in your coaching practice.
The first technique I have for you
from positive psychology in coaching is a reflection.
I want you to imagine your ideal self
and then reflect into how much joy
or what kind of joy would you feel as you imagine that,
as you feel into that.
This is a great exercise to do with your clients.
Everyday life can sometimes feel daunting and challenging,
but creating an ideal future self
or imagining an ideal future self
and what joy it gives us in the moment of now,
it's a great way to bring your client's attention
to their positive self,
to the possibility that lies ahead of them.
Often life may feel very constrained
and when you're working with your clients,
they may feel their life is constrained.
But when we give them the opportunity
to really reflect into the ideal version of themselves
and the joy they get to have
when they experience the ideal version of themselves,
gives them that space and expansion
to really lean into what may be possible for them.
And that gives them a positive,
more formative direction today,
that gives them more positive feelings today.
And as we reflect it into more positive feelings,
it creates space to go away from what may be happening
as a circumstance of life right now,
and really look into the possibilities of the future.
So first exercise
that you can guide your coaching clients with
is to help them reflect into ideal self,
their ideal self in the future,
and feel the joy of that person
or them becoming that person right now,
so they can start from a place and be in the place of joy.
The second exercise is called gratitude journaling.
The reason why gratitude journaling is so very powerful
is because very often our brain
focuses on the negative and it focuses on the negative
because it's trying to protect us from the world around us.
It's trying to say, "Oh, that's scary, that's scary.
"Safe from this, safe from that."
And while yes, that may be a great safety mechanism
for our brain, it doesn't put us in a positive,
more affirmative state.
It doesn't help us create more
because it's hard to create from a place of fear.
It's hard to create from a place
where we are scared of something.
And so putting ourselves in a state
by writing a gratitude journal,
by being appreciative of what is.
Even if it is a small little thing
and writing it down on a physical pen and paper
actually changes your state.
It has been found through research
that just thinking about gratitude,
absolutely changes your state,
but writing about it makes it more affirmative,
it increases your state even more.
It is because you're not only engaging
your mental faculties,
but you're engaging your physical faculties.
So it really reinstates the gratitude that you have,
and it really creates a more powerful,
more affirmative, or positive emotion
in your life right now.
So my invitation is, don't only do a gratitude practice,
do a gratitude journal.
Write what you're grateful for every single day,
five minutes, whatever it may be.
It could be a tiny thing, it could be a plant in your house,
it could be the air that you breathe,
or something more magnificent,
like the joy that you feel when you reflect into the future
or your ideal self,
or the joy of doing the work that you do,
whatever it may be.
Find real reasons to be grateful for.
Look into your current life and find gratitude
to things that are in your life.
From simple things, like being able to breathe fresh air,
to be able to have a partner that loves you,
to have a body that holds your beautiful soul,
and write it down,
so you can really benefit from the gratitude exercise.
Which brings me to a third technique.
Our mind, like I said, focuses on the negative
and it focuses on the negative
just because it wants to save us.
But because we are focusing so much on the negative,
we forget to appreciate the positive of any instance.
And that is why the exercise
that I want invite you to have your clients do
every time they're experiencing a lot of negative emotions,
and negativity in life, or negative things in life
is to look for three positives for every negative.
It may seem like a really immature exercise.
It may feel childish even.
It may feel like it was something
that is told to you at school.
But when you do that consciously,
when you put yourself into a place of saying,
"Okay, I feel the negative emotion
"that is happening right now, I feel a negative instance,
"I feel negativity in this environment right now.
"What are the three things that I can be positive about?"
It could be whatever, small things, doesn't matter.
But what happens is when you manage a three to one ratio
in positive to negative,
what positive psychologists have found
is it's a good ratio for you to stay more positive.
It's almost like the first positive
that you associated with the negative,
barely neutralizes it.
The second one probably neutralizes it.
And the third one really puts you in a positive state.
So what you wanna do based on what positive psychology says
is for every negative emotion, for every negative feeling,
try to find three positives.
And as you find three positives,
you will find as a behavior,
you will tend to be more of a positive person.
So go ahead and do that exercise.
Even, it feels childish, invite your clients to do that,
so they can see more positive in their lives
and not be attached to the negative
that seems obvious in their life.
It is so interesting to really have our clients reflect
on what are they focusing on.
There's a fun exercise.
Happened with me when I was just new to personal growth.
I was just discovering these ideas around coaching,
and personal growth, and transformation.
And one of my friends,
when I told him I'm not sold on this idea of positivity,
told me to do a very simple exercise
on how, whatever our attention goes
is created in our life, right?
So he told me, "Okay, I'm gonna give you 24 hours.
"Tell me recently, while walking on the streets,
"doing your day-to-day activity, have you seen a butterfly?"
And I said, "No, I live in the city.
"There are not flowers around me.
"No, I haven't seen a butterfly.
"Of course, I haven't seen a butterfly."
He was like, "Great.
"So in your day-to-day, from what you know right now,
"you don't see butterflies in your walk to work,
"in your walk back, when you're going to dinner,
"doing whatever, day-to-day, no butterflies around, right?"
Like, "Absolutely not, no butterflies around me."
So he said, "Okay, so here's an experiment I want you to do.
"For the next 24 hours believe
"that you will see a butterfly.
"There is no reason really from your current experience
"that you should see one, but just because I said so,
"just because I am saying and requesting you
"that for just 24 hours, which means what?
"From this evening to the next evening
"you will see one butterfly, that's it, right?
"Could you tell that to yourself?
"Just for 24 hours, just for this experiment's sake,
"and if it fails, it fails, right?"
So I was like, hands down.
"Fine, I'll tell myself that I'll see a butterfly,
"but I know it's not gonna happen, right?"
And so I go about my day and I'm walking down to office,
nothing happens, and I do my work all day.
I'm inside an office, nothing happens.
And on the way back, like I always took,
I took a way back and suddenly I see a butterfly.
I see a butterfly when I've never seen a butterfly.
At that time, I was living in the middle of a city.
There was no reason to believe
that there will be butterflies,
there are no flowers around me.
And I was like, "Oh, I see a butterfly."
And then I realize how our attention,
whatever we put our attention to it,
suddenly we start to notice.
And that is really the essence of this exercise.
If we get our clients to put their attention
to the three positives every time they get a negative,
soon enough, this will become their default state.
Soon enough, they will turn from thinking about
how life's being hard on them
to how life's being great to them, right?
So they will start moving towards a positive,
affirmative direction.
And that's what you want
because when they are more positive, more affirmative,
guess what?
We have found through research,
people who are more positive,
tend to create more in their life, create better outcomes,
achieve their goals, be more fulfilled
because they're more positive.
So when your clients have to focus on positive stuff,
it's way likely that they will achieve more goals
in their life, and that will be thanks to your coaching.
The fourth exercise that I wanna invite you to
is when you get a positive news
or when your clients get a positive news,
ask them to slow down and really appreciate
what just happened.
This is, again, how our mind works, right?
When we get a negative news,
we ponder upon that like crazy, right?
Last time when somebody cuts you off in traffic,
or somebody said something,
you thought about it for hours and hours,
sometimes even days.
It's crazy how much attention we give to negative.
But when was the last time that somebody said,
"Hey, thank you for doing what you do,"
or, "I'm so grateful," "Oh, you hit your financial goal."
How long did you pause to really celebrate it
or acknowledge it even?
Or was it more like, "Thank you," and then you moved on?
Did you stop to acknowledge what amazing stuff you did?
Did you stop to appreciate yourself
for the positive outcomes that you created in life?
Our behavior is defaulted to ponder on the negative
and not appreciate the positive.
My invitation for you is to ask your clients
to take the time to appreciate the positive.
For the matter, that's my invitation to you.
Because right now the amazing work
that you're creating in the world,
you may not be sitting down to just say,
"Hey, that's amazing what I'm doing, that's awesome."
So sit down, take the time,
and really create an affirmative statement for yourself.
Take the time to appreciate yourself,
so you can create more positive outcome
and move into more positive psychology for yourself.
As you focus and generate energy around you
appreciating the amazingness that you do,
you will find more self-love for yourself,
you will find more self appreciation for yourself,
you will see your confidence goes up
because you wait and go, "Ah, damn, I was good at that."
It's not from a place of ego,
It's not from a place in narcissism.
It's from a place of appreciation for self.
So I really, really invite you
and invite your clients to take the time
to appreciate the good that they do in the world.
And the last step or the last exercise I have for you
from positive psychology into coaching is forgiveness.
You see, things happen in life, good and bad.
And when bad things happen in life, we tend to hold onto it.
We tend to feel like somebody did us wrong
and feel like (groans) anger and frustration
towards the person.
And while it may feel like,
"Yeah, that's just human behavior,"
it really builds up in our body.
It's been found that if you're stressed very often,
your body actually takes a message
and you tend to get sick more often, more frequently.
But if you have more positivity in your body,
you tend to really be able to be healthier.
Forgiveness or forgiving someone for the act
that may have happened,
allows you to take away that negative charge,
the stress in your body
and create more positivity in your body,
more positivity in your soul.
So I want you to do this exercise.
I wanna invite you to ask your clients to do this exercise.
Take a piece of paper.
So first thing I want you to do is in the leftmost column,
write down the name of the person,
the person that triggered something in you
that have created stress and anger.
In the second column, I want you to write down
how this experience might have shattered you,
or this negative experience may have charged you so bad,
may have given you an experience
that you don't appreciate in life.
So the second column, I want you to write that.
Now, as you're writing the second column
in the third column,
I want you to notice what's really happening for you.
What's the emotion that's coming up?
How are you feeling as you write that down?
Now, as this emotion riles up,
because you're writing the experience
and how it was shattering for you,
I want you to calm yourself down, take three deep breaths,
a deep breath in (breathes in),
hold it for a few seconds (breathes out),
and breathe it out, and do it three times.
As you do it three times,
you'll find that your nervous system calms down
because oxygen is going into your lungs
and going into your bloodstream,
and it's releasing all that tension, all that worry.
And as you breathe out, you can breathe out that tension
that worry, that anger, that frustration, right?
Calm down your nervous system, calm down your emotions.
Now, as your karma, as a person,
I want you to go through each of these names and say,
"I forgive you."
If it is your name that's appearing
because you feel like you've done something wrong
to yourself, say, "I forgive myself,"
or, "I forgive you, Ajit," or, "I forgive you, your name,"
but say it out aloud or write it out aloud
that I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you.
Say it enough times
that you can feel the emotion being released from your body.
You can feel that tension,
that anger going down a little bit
as your nervous system is calmer,
and you're saying, "I forgive you."
Mean it, give it away, send it out as energy,
and let it shake it out of you,
and see your nervous system calming down,
see that energy being released out of you.
And as the final step, I wanna have you mark it as done.
I want you to check off that name
and say, "They have been forgiven."
If it's your name, just forgive yourself,
check off that name, right?
Send it to the universe and say, "Aho," let it be done.
Let it be done and over with,
that you have forgiven this person,
you have forgiven that instance and the feeling
that created for you,
that now you have released this emotion
and you become the person that you truly are,
the more positive, more affirmative,
more amazing human being that you are.
So those were five exercises from positive psychology
that you can use in your coaching practice right away.
I would say, even use it in your life right away.
Which one of these sound as outstanding to you?
Something that you're like, "That, Ajit, I'm taking,
"I'm putting it in my practice.
"I'm gonna do it with my clients.
"I'm gonna do it for myself," right?
Write that in the comment section below,
so know which exercise out of these five
really landed for you.
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So thank you very much for watching.
This is Ajit Nawalkha,
and you're watching this on "Evercoach".