Joy or Above

Frequently asked Questions

“The test of a good teacher is not how many questions he can ask his pupils that they will answer readily, but how many questions he inspires them to ask him which he finds it hard to answer.”
~ Alice Wellington Rollins

What is Coaching?

Coaching is a partnership between a Client and a Coach that supports the Client in achieving their goals. A professional Coach will help you think differently; evolve and grow; find new solutions, see the options and opportunities that were not obvious before; and get into action towards achieving your desired goals.

“If we can help another to become intelligent, that is all we need to do.” ~ J. Krishnamurti

Please watch this short video to have an idea how Coaching works.

What is Positive Psychology?

In short, Positive Psychology is the scientific study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive. It is a rich and growing field, and aligns perfectly with coaching: both assume people are basically healthy, resourceful, and motivated to grow.

The phrase “positive psychology” was first used by Abraham Maslow in 1954, in a call to psychology to focus on humanity’s potential just as much as its shortcomings. It was again used in 1998 when Martin Seligman assumed the presidency of the American Psychological Association. Seligman recognized that the bulk of psychological research in the twentieth century had focused on human deficits and how to alleviate them, with considerably less research devoted to exploring human strengths and how to develop and promote them. Positive psychology addresses this gap in research.

How does Positive Psychology help in Coaching?

Positive Psychology is a natural fit with coaching. Clients seek out coaching for a full range of issues, however, underneath these issues is generally a desire to increase their overall sense of happiness and well-being. Positive Psychology provides important techniques and strategies that coaches use to help clients realize their goals on the path to greater well-being.

Positive Psychology also suggests specific practices that can be effectively integrated into the coaching relationship.

What is Happiness?

Most people think that they will be happy when they get a job, a promotion, a new car, a bigger home, a relationship, or more money. While these are important, none of them will make you happy for more than a few months to year, at the most. This doesn’t mean that finding happiness is wishful thinking. It simply means that we tend to look for happiness in the wrong places.

“The great Western disease is, ‘I’ll be happy when… When I get the money. When I get a BMW. When I get this job.’ Well, the reality is, you never get to when. The only way to find happiness is to understand that happiness is not out there. It’s in here. And happiness is not next week. It’s now.” ~ Marshall Goldsmith

True Happiness is a deep sense of inner contentment and fulfillment; a higher level of consciousness; a state of mind that once we reach it, it will never go away. Happy people have distinct activity in certain parts of their brain, heart rhythms, and body chemistry.

“We cannot increase our basic happiness by altering exterior conditions like marriage, residence, career. Every attempt to do so only increases the sense of despair. It is the essential self that must be changed. Our level of consciousness must be raised.“~ Vernon Howard

What are the benefits of being happy?

Researches have shown that happy people are healthier, live longer, have better relationships, and are more successful in life.

At work, happy employees are more productive, less likely to be absent or quit their jobs.

In addition, happy people are empowered and contribute to the advancement of their community and the world.

What determines our happiness?

Researchers have found that no matter what happens to you in life, whether good or bad, you tend to return to a fixed range of happiness within a year: they call it “your happiness set-point”.

Your happiness set-point is determined by your genes (50%), your circumstances (10%), and (40%) by your habits: thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Your happiness set-point will remain the same unless you make a concentrated effort to change it.

Is it selfish to be Happy?

“There is no duty we so underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world”~ Robert Louis Stevenson

The best thing you can do for yourself, your family and friends, and for World Peace is to find your Joy and Inner Peace. When you are happy, you will be able to give others more, as you will have more energy and more wisdom.

Besides that, happiness is contagious; when you are happy you can make the people around you be happy as well.

And as Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Please watch this short video from an Open Course in Positive Psychology (Science of Happiness) at Harvard University, in which Tal Ben Shahar answers this question brilliantly.

Is it possible to learn how to be happy?

Absolutely! Thanks to the Science of Happiness “Positive Psychology” we can teach happiness like we can teach Math or any other subject.

Learning how to be happy is a very important goal that you have the right to achieve. And it is possible when you apply the techniques that you will learn in the Coaching Toward Happiness Program.

Do you have a question?

Please send your questions to joy.or.above@gmail.com

“The important thing is not to stop questioning.” ~ Albert Einstein