Vivien Giannopoulos is a Psychology Honours student from Monash University in Melbourne. She is currently researching wellbeing. And would love your assistance. Find out more about participating in her research.

What is your research about?

I’m looking into peoples well-being. I’m interested in looking at interventions which are thought to increase people’s levels of happiness and positive emotion.

Why are you researching happiness?

This research is important because it will assist health professionals to gain a better understanding of how interventions can help people become happier.

It will also help to determine whether an individuals happiness orientation, that is, whether they seek happiness primarily through pleasure, engagement or meaning, influences how effective the intervention is at making people happier.

In today’s world where more and more people are sufferring from stress, depression, and anxiety what could be more important that figuring out what helps make people happier?

What is happiness orientation about?

There are thought to be three main ways to experience happiness.  The first is through pleasure.  The main goal here is to maximise pleasure and minimize pain. The pusuit of pleasure in the modern Western world is widely endorsed as a way to achieve satisfaction, i.e. ‘dont worry-be happy’

The second way is happiness through meaning.  That is about being true to one’s inner self, identifying one’s virtues, cultivating them and living in accordance with them.

The emphasis here is that people develop what is best within themselves and then use these skills and talents in the service of greater goods including in particular the welfare of other people or humankind at large, i.e. ‘be all that you can be and make a difference’

The third way is happiness through engagement.  This orientation has been influenced by the concept of ‘flow’: the psychological state that accompanies highly engaging activities. Time passes quickly, attention is focused on the activity, the sense of self is lost and the aftermath of the flow is invigorating. Flow is nonemotional and nonconscious.

What makes you happy?

Family and friends

Why should people get involved in your research?

As I mentioned above this type of research could help benefit many people and getting involved could also give you an idea of what you can do personally to improve your own levels of happiness.

Find out more about Vivien’s wellbeing research and how you can participate.

Recipe courtesty of The Food Coach.

Dairy free, Low carbohydrate, Low fat, Low GI

An easy, light soup perfect for winter, packed full of nutrition thanks to the fresh vegies and mushrooms.

Ingredients

1 carrot finely diced
1 stalk celery, finely diced
1 tsp thyme
½ cup barley, soaked in hot water for approx 30 mins
1 large clove garlic, crushed
1 tbsp olive oil
300 grams flat mushrooms, sliced
2 litres stock

Preparation

Saute the carrot, celery, garlic and mushrooms in olive oil for 10 minutes.

Method

Add the barley and stock and simmer for 45 minutes.

Makes 4 servings

Recipe courtesty of The Food Coach.

Is it just me or did this year go by faster than a speeding bullet? Well, it’s not over so before 2008 does a great disappearing act let’s celebrate and reward our achievements. As mothers I am sure we have celebrated the achievements of others this year - those of our children, our husbands, our friends, our family - but what about our own achievements?

What better time than December to take the opportunity to spend some guilt-free and self-indulgent time to review the year that has been.  I challenge you to take the time to reflect on your accomplishments and celebrate and reward yourself for them. This is something I can tell you from my experience as a coach working with women that we don’t do often enough, if at all.

One of the best things about being a coach is being privileged enough to bear witness to my clients’ successes and for me there are few things more beautiful. I often have to remind my clients to celebrate the progress they have made and reward themselves for it.

Often people forget what they have achieved - even in the space of one week. One client started off our session last week by making a statement about how hugely unsuccessful her week had been. As we began to explore further and delve deeper we found that she had achieved most of what she had committed to do. She was surprised as I kept asking questions and she started to remember the actions she had completed. She had even achieved things she hadn’t committed to.

Sometimes women don’t feel they deserve to be proud about what they’ve completed or that their results are insignificant. This week I asked a client, who has progressed towards her dreams in leaps and bounds since we started working together, if she had celebrated her success lately. Her answer was no. I questioned her a little further and she responded by saying she did not feel comfortable about her success. By the end of the conversation she committed to celebrating her success and came up with some great ideas about how she could own her success.

One of the key components of goal setting and attainment is celebration and reward for great courage and special effort. This so happens to be something we easily forget to do. My clients have me to remind them of how far they have come and since you may not have your own coach I thought it might be worthwhile to remind you too. Answer the questions below as a self-coaching exercise and if you want to share your thoughts with a coach and/or would like feedback email danielle@healthyandhappy.com.au.

Coaching questions

1. What were your top ten achievements for 2008?
2. Did you celebrate any of your achievements?
3. If you did celebrate, how did you celebrate and who did you celebrate with?
4. If you didn’t celebrate, what got in the way?
5. Come up with a solution for each obstacle you identified.
6. Brainstorm a list of ways you can celebrate and reward yourself for your achievements. Make sure at least a quarter of the items on your list are low-cost or no-cost options.
7. As a result of these questions, what are you committing to? What date do you commit to follow through with your commitments?
8. What would you like to achieve in 2009?
If you feel you may benefit from the support and motivation ShapeShifters can offer, we welcome you to take advantage of our FREE coaching consultation. In this one-hour telephone session you will find out more about coaching and walk away with three goals to focus on for 2009 plus a plan of action to implement immediately following the call.

For more info, head to www.healthyandhappy.com.au.

by Danielle Ferris, Head Coach, ShapeShifters