Transform how you feel about your work - find resilience, insight and more joy
If you’re looking to transform how you feel about your busy workload and the expectations of yourself and others, the Positive Intelligence model I use is - very genuinely - the answer. Most people who take the course emerge with significantly more resilience, far more personal insight and are able to find more joy in their work and life in general.
I myself, and many of my clients have found it to be incredibly helpful in increasing our insight, resilience and coping strategies for navigating a challenging career and workload, work/life balance, busy family commitments and for significantly improving our relationships with those closest to us and also with colleagues.
If this sounds like a cult or a hard sell, I can promise you it’s neither!
Recently created by one of America's top executive coaches, Positive Intelligence blends the latest understandings in coaching, psychology and neuroscience into a programme that will leave you with enormously increased insight, understanding and resilience to what life throws at you.
It is also very easy to fit around a busy workload and lifestyle, involving a few 2-minute exercises each day and a weekly group discussion.
My Positive Intelligence page provides lots of detail and allows you access to the fascinating free online PQ tests. But personally, I find that what convinces me to give something a go, at the end of the day, is a personal recommendation.
So I’m sharing with you here a heartfelt and very genuine testimonial that I’ve recently received from H, a client of mine who has just completed the PQ programme with me, as part of group of 5 participants:
In her own words: H’s summing up of the PQ programme
“I’m very happy to recommend the PQ course and also very happy to recommend Luke as a PQ coach.
It’s a great programme: interesting, actionable and practical. At times it’s been truly illuminating, but mostly it works because it builds on what feels instinctively right, and shows you how to challenge yourself (in a gentle way) to get more out of life and let go of needless stresses. I’m definitely calmer and more content as a result of the programme, and I hope my nearest and dearest would agree that I’m kinder too.
“The app-based approach to the programme means it really is possible to work the programme into your life, no matter how busy you are. It also means that you’ve no excuse for forgetting to do the work - something which really helps keep you accountable.
“I very much enjoyed being in a group with five others. We had plenty of similarities and differences between us and learned at least as much from listening to other people’s reactions to the programme as we did from doing it ourselves. This was particularly helpful when thinking about how the programme can help us understand other people in our lives. There was a good camaraderie between us and we revealed as much or as little about our own priorities and challenges as we felt comfortable doing.
“There was much strength in going through this together and in trusting each other with our progress and also our stumbles. We’ve also had plenty of laughs along the way, which always helps.
“I feel Luke has navigated his role within the PQ learning pod with real care. He was open enough to reflect on his own responses and challenges to some of the course content, which built trust and rapport, but was still very much the facilitator, gently guiding us on our own journeys. I found his honestly helpful too.
“For me, a natural cynic, there were some parts of the programme I found more convincing than others, but I soon found myself able to just go with it and not to overthink that few sections or ideas that didn’t particularly work for me. I found this freeing: in fact, I wonder if the course would have had such a profound effect on me if I’d felt that I had ‘pretend’ to be compelled by every part of it. I enjoyed and needed the freedom to respond to it on my own terms.
“I like to think that I’m pretty self-aware. Perhaps most people who consider doing this course will be in a similar boat. And I’m glad to say that I didn’t find any hidden corners of my personality or value system that I’d been repressing for years. Instead, I think I’ve been able to see myself with more nuance, and, overall, a little more kindly. I was surprised to realise how much judging goes on in my mind. I was very surprised to realise that I judge other people much more than I realised - especially in a professional context - and I wasn’t thrilled by this. But most importantly is that I now see that this comes at some cost to me let alone to others, and so it’s really worth working on.
“I also realised that I care more about pleasing people than I’d wanted to admit to myself, and that this sometimes gets muddled up with a determination to see myself as ’strong’ and independent. I don’t need years of psychotherapy to work out why this is the case, and instead of feeling judgmental or disappointed with myself, I can just get on with nudging myself into a more balanced place.
“But some of the strength I have gained from the programme has been reminding me the way in which I’m living my life that is congruent with my values and sense of self-worth. It’s easy to forget this in the melee of work / family / home. This has enabled me to take more pleasure from my day-to-day life; to appreciate what I’ve already got that little bit more.
“That aspect has been particularly beneficial in my relationship with my long-term partner. We have been through an extremely volatile and sometimes painful 12 months, and although I didn’t go into this programme to help me with personal life, it has made a significant difference. I can’t quite put my finger on why beyond that it's given me time and space to reflect on myself as an individual rather than always through the prism of our relationship. I’ve had so much to think about that it also gave me a mental break for keep analysing the minutiae of our interactions and what this may or may not mean. Now life just feels simpler: I know that I want the two of us to be together and I don’t feel the need to deconstruct this.
“My real challenge taking this work forward will be to continue to work on reducing the impact of my ’saboteurs’ whilst being kind to myself. For example, I realise now that my tendency to avoid difficult tasks or conversations causes me more stress than I had previously appreciated, but the main upset it causes me is the way I then go on to judge myself for procrastinating. But hopefully I’ve now got the tools to work on this and to keep developing good habits and new neural pathways. This work isn’t about ‘finding yourself’ or ‘fixing’ what’s wrong: it’s about being ok with our idiosyncrasies and learning to quieten only the extremes of our temperament or tendencies that can cause difficulty to ourselves and those around us.
“In summary, if you’re at all intrigued by this programme than I recommend you give it a go. Go into it with an open mind, don’t worry about it being some kind of cult - it really isn’t! - and enjoy the ride, destination greater personal contentment. You’ll be in safe hands with Luke: he’ll guide you gently but appropriately firmly when needed.”
H (Civil Servant)
Thank you so much for this, H.
If this description of the Positive Intelligence programme has got you at all interested, do please take a look at my page, do the PQ tests and get in touch with me to learn more.
Luke
