This post continues a series on how to go deeper within each PERMAH pillar to measure where you are today with your well-being while offering a pathway toward flourishing.
Today we take a deep dive into Engagement. Here is a worksheet to help you reflect on your efforts to experience positive and supportive relationships and set goals to engage further within this pillar.
This post continues a series on how to go deeper within each PERMAH pillar to measure where you are today with your well-being while offering a pathway toward flourishing.
Today we take a deep dive into Relationships. Here is a worksheet to help you reflect on your efforts to experience positive and supportive relationships and set goals to engage further within this pillar.
This post continues a series on how to go deeper within each PERMAH pillar to measure where you are today with your well-being while offering a pathway toward flourishing.
Today we take a deep dive into Meaning. Here is a worksheet to help you reflect on your efforts to find Meaning in your life and set goals to engage further within this pillar.
This post continues a series on how to go deeper within each PERMAH pillar to measure where you are today with your well-being while offering a pathway toward flourishing.
Today we take a deep dive into Accomplishment. Here is a worksheet to help you reflect on your accomplishment efforts and to set goals on how to engage further within this pillar.
This blog has offered several pathways to improve one’s wellness, with the most recent post being How About Periodic Wellness Checkups?! This post starts a series on how to go deeper within each PERMAH pillar to measure where you are today with your well-being while offering a pathway towards flourishing.
Today we start with Health. Here is a worksheet to help you reflect on your Health and to set goals on how to improve it.
Here are a couple more PRIME instructional strategies for your wellness teaching toolkit>
Wellness Partners – How about introducing the term “wellness partnering” (i.e., coaching) as a technique that students can apply to support each other using their knowledge of character strengths? In applying this strategy, students will need lots of time and practice with their strengths of Emotional and Social Intelligence to be helpful partners. Active listening lessons can be a good starting place to help students see themselves as coaches. As you design and implement this strategy, one helpful approach can be the act of students working together to write wellness prescriptions for in-the-moment responsive needs and a wellness plan to be proactive in preparation for upcoming events.
Wellness Prescription Writing – Your students probably don’t know what a doctor’s prescription pad is, so the first step will be to teach them what it is. The next step for classroom integration is to develop ways to have students write wellness prescriptions for themselves and the class as a whole when they see a need. You can print out your class-designed wellness prescription pad that can be as simple as just having “Wellness Prescription” at the top, or you can build in some scaffolding with PERMAH and/or Character Strengths listed with checkboxes that need to be applied. Prescription writing can be a very “sticky” tool/idea in your student’s minds as they, in time, can call out responsively to in-the-moment class events to state, “we need to write a wellness prescription for this!”.
Images: Students | Prescription
I have written a lot about either purchasing or designing and personalizing student planners/diaries to support the living and embedding of Positive Psychology into the lives of our students. Planners are a PRIME instructional strategy for wellness and integration.
The folks at the Institute of Positive Education are out with their 21-22 PEEC diaries (planners). They look to be nicely scaffolded to help students further engage PERMAH and the Character Strengths in their daily practices.
Previous Posts (includes my school’s wellness blog):
Recently I wrote about using the phrase “How is your PERMAH Today?” as a strategy that engages several of the PERMAH pillars and some of the character strengths. I also included the question of asking oneself the same question in the post. In giving this strategy more thought, I came up with what I am calling a How Is My PERMAH Today? worksheet. It uses the chart from the PERMAH Pivot plan.
I am doing some professional learning with new staff, so I plan to have them first do the How Is My PERMAH worksheet, followed by writing their personal wellness plan.
Once my school moves forward with a wellness program and the language of Positive Psychology becomes a part of the language of learning, the opportunity will arise to teach the protocol of asking “how is your PERMAH Today?” along with some form of an age-appropriate “how is my PERMAH today?” worksheet for students.
Another way to look at this “how is my PERMAH” daily check-in is to think of having a wellness dashboard. Like that of a car, the dashboard has gauges that measure the performance of specific vehicle functions. In the case of a wellness dashboard, I think we can use the PERMAH construct with some representation of performance level and which character strengths are in play or could be in play for the day. If this idea becomes an app, I could see additional features, including physically “dialing up” individual pillars, each with its own color. It would also be helpful to have a menu of activities/strategies for each pillar to choose ways to further engage within each PERMAH pillar.
The character strength of the social intelligence page of my Wellness@ES site has a few intermediary strategies that can move students along to be ready to use the PERMAH question with others and themselves>>>
Active/Attentive Listening – One way to help our students make emotional and social connections with each other is to help them learn how to listen with attention. Design a listening protocol based on the tenets of attentive listening that fits the age of your students. Use this article and this one as a starting place with your design work to teach and embed active listening into the culture of your classroom. Look to integrate active listening into your Turn and Talk activities.
Active Constructive Responding (ACR) – Design strategies to teach the four ways we can respond to good news.
Personal Profile – Students use active listening skills to interview a partner to complete a personal profile organizer. The goal is for the interviewer to start with a few starter questions to then engage their own questions to learn about their partner’s interests, skills, talents, and goals. This activity needs to be scaffolded by grade level. The intent is to practice active listening and to help the students grow their social awareness. Students can, of course, complete the personal profile organizer for themselves to go the extra step to gather insights from family and friends for what they might not see in themselves.
Photo by Antoine Beauvillain on Unsplash
I think using PERMAH and the Character Strengths to analyze information to help guide significant life changes is one way to approach making a pivot. I used the following information to write a Google Doc PERMAH Pivot Plan that you can copy and adapt to your needs.
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This template plan is written for individuals and families planning to make significant life changes. It is specially provided for international educators looking at moving to a new school/country or returning to their home country. The first part of the process is to review how you use your Character Strengths to engage within the PERMAH pillars. The second part is to decide what you would like your Character Strengths and PERMAH profile to look like in your new school/country or after making another type of pivot.
The pivoting process starts by gathering information about oneself to build a personal profile of interests, talents, CliftonStrengths, Character Strengths, and efforts to live the PERMAH pillars. You can, of course, reflect and add other aspects of who you and/or your family is to your profile. You can find several books to help you with this process. Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next by Jenny Blake is a helpful one.
Jenny uses her Pivot Method (podcast interview) to take you through the process of understanding what you currently have going on for yourself to then design a plan for where you want to go with your pivot. You can read Jenny’s book and use the resources on her website to go through her pivot process in tandem with this one. The following are the main adapted components of her method (source) applied through a Positive Psychology perspective.
Step 1: Your Pivot Profile. Use the PERMAH Today chart below to list how you are currently living within the PERMAH pillars. This means listing what actions you are taking and which Character Strengths you are engaging within each pillar, along with your interests, talents, and CliftonStrengths in how they support your growth within each PERMAH category.
Your PERMAH Today>
Step 2: Plant. Be very intentional about living the profile you just listed. Then reflect on what you would like your Pivot Profile to look once you make your pivot (change). Use your profile to expand your vision beyond what you are currently doing. Look for new possibilities in how you might live your life and hopefully thrive. Make a list of possibilities around where you might be pivoting to (i.e., employment, residence, personal growth goals…). Complete the PERMAH Your Hopes for After the Pivot chart below. The chart can be the vision of what you want your life to look like after the pivot.
Step 3: Scan. Put on your research cap to gather information about the possibilities you listed. For international educators, this takes the form of using resources like job placement companies and school/country review sites and making connections to educators through online groups to create profiles of schools and countries. Use the chart below to review how the new country/school and/or other life change might support or not support your new PERMAH profile.
Step 4: Pilot. International educators can travel to potential schools/countries, but this might not work due to costs and the competitive nature of international recruiting (i.e., who knows where your next school might be). But you can pilot other possible changes within your current school by working with the administration to get a taste of leadership and/or new teaching roles. When possible, try out some of the possible pivots that you listed.
Step 5: Launch. Decide when to make the pivot and do so. Use the chart below to compare each of your possible choices.
This is especially applicable to international educators. An example is that you have offers from two schools. Both are pretty similar in helping you live the PERMAH profile you designed. However, one has extreme air pollution, and the other doesn’t. You list your ongoing interest in running, biking, and playing ultimate frisbee under the pillar of Health. You also list the Character Strengths of Leadership and Teamwork with your desire to form an ultimate frisbee league in your new location. This information can probably help you make the final decision on which school to sign with. 🙂
Your PERMAH After the Pivot>
Photo by Julien Flutto on Unsplash
Once your wellness program is integrated into the culture of your school, a simple and meaningful hack can further help your community members embed the language of PosPsych into their lives. Instead of using the usual “how are you?”, think about using the following to slow things down, build time for reflection, and enhance deeper connections by saying the following.
“How is your PERMAH today?”
It would take some time to teach how this statement is a protocol that students and teachers would not use lightly. There are times for the usual “how are ya?” in passing. However, using this phrase can bring on some PERMAH Engagement and Relationship connections and the application of a few character strengths. It also signals purposeful (Meaning) action that the communicator is ready to pause, actively listen, and, when fitting, apply the Active and Constructive Response (ACR) method of responding to the sharing of good news.
The receiver of the communication thus can feel acknowledged, validated, and possibly celebrated. There is also the benefit of self-reflection on some or all of the PERMAH pillars as the recipient pauses to reflect and respond. This process can lead to sharing some aspects of one’s life that are not going well. 🙂 We are reminded that applying Positive Psychology in our lives is not about avoiding uncomfortable thoughts and/or emotions. It is about constructively working with what life gives us.
One can also use the question “how is my PERMAH today?” to create opportunities for self-reflection to further support self-regulation and well-being, especially when connected to applying a growth mindset.
Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash
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