After addressing the myths and realities of positive emotions, I would now like to reconsider what positive emotions are useful for.
Barbara Fredrickson, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a leading researcher, argues that, while they have distinct characteristics from one another, positive emotions share the property of broadening people's repertoires of thought and action and of building up reserves of psychological, social, intellectual, and physical resources available to cope with future adversities. The Extend — Build — Transform Model.
Expand
Positive emotions broaden thought and action repertoires. They facilitate new response repertoires and more creative solutions.
For example, Being in a trusting environment allows me to try new ways of doing things or relating to others..
Build
Due to the expansion, the development of personal resources to face difficult or problematic situations is encouraged.
Continuing with the example: In that trusting environment, those new ways of doing things or relating to people allow me to develop skills (innovation, creativity, leadership, sociability) that can be useful for overcoming adversity..
Transform
(Permanent resource adoption) This construction produces the transformation of the person, shows a deeper understanding of situations, is more resistant to difficulties (cushioning the impact of negative emotions), is more resilient in order to grow from adversity, and is better integrated socially, leading to an «upward spiral» that results in the experience of new positive emotions.
Keeping this model in mind allows us to design more effective transformational learning environments.
Without going further, let's recall how outdoor activities, business games, and more recently, gamification, are all based on creating safe, trustworthy environments that spark interest and fun, where we are invited to experiment and make mistakes in order to incorporate new personal and professional resources.
Application to daily life
Every reader will no doubt, as an observer of reality, be able to draw their own conclusions based on their experiences and life circumstances. My invitation is to reflect in three areas:
Personal
Incorporating distinctions in terms of emotions allows us to increase our awareness of the ones we have, what triggers them, and how we can manage them in the most useful way possible. It also allows us to better understand the effects they have and what this facilitates for us.
- Do I have a predominant emotion?
- Does it work for me?
- Is there an emotion I don't allow myself to feel?
- What would I like to change?
Familiar
to be aware as partners, mothers, fathers, and children of the emotions that others provoke in us and those that we trigger with our actions.
- What emotions are predominant at home?
- How do they help each of us in our personal development?
- What would we like to change?
Professional
to be able to perceive, as leaders, professionals, team members, suppliers or clients, the emotions that preside over our relationships and commitment to work.
- ¿How do they contribute to overcoming the challenges?
- How do they drive professional and personal development?
- What other emotions would be more useful?
- What can we do to change them?
Through the incorporation of distinctions And practices of positive psychology to leadership and coaching, as we explain in this case, we can be able to promote and support organisations to higher levels of productivity, innovation and excellence.
From here, we need to stay alert to discover the new challenges in the field of emotional management will open in the near future.
