Engagement
What you will get: Reflections on positive psychology.
“Isn’t it time for you to get engaged?”
And what’s more…
Shouldn’t you be helping all your colleagues and friends to get engaged too?
And no…
I haven’t changed my Monday Motivation to a marriage encouragement service.
I’m talking about engaging with life.
Engaging with your work.
Engaging with everything you do.
There are plenty of organisations now talking about the importance of “staff engagement”.
So what is it?
Well according to the growing field of positive psychology, engagement is an important part of human happiness.
In other words…
When we are fully engaged in something we feel happy.
Picture, for a moment, what you are like when you are engaged:
What is your mood like?
How do you treat other people— family, colleagues, clients?
What affect does it have on your work— effort, creativity, quality?
A recent positive psychology blog I was reading had this to say about engagement:
“Engagement may seem like it randomly comes and goes. Increasingly, we are learning that there are many factors that predictably and reliably lead to engagement and that engagement has the power to dramatically improve our communities.
What is a classroom of engaged students like compared to detached students?
What results do businesses produce when employees are engaged versus when they are unplugged?
How do non-profits thrive when board members, funders and volunteers are engaged or stagnate when they are not?
One last question: can a leader be fully effective when he or she is disengaged?”
So I’m sure you agree, engagement is a pretty important concept.
So here’s the million dollar question – how do you create engagement?
Well, put quite simply, we feel engaged when we are experiencing positive emotions. And when we are experiencing negative emotions, we feel disengaged.
So, to a large degree, your engagement levels are down to you.
You see…
Who is responsible for the way you feel?
You are!
And nobody else can make you feel anything you don’t choose to feel.
All too often I here people say things like,
“You make me so angry.”
“You made me feel sad.”
I always get a slight emotional trigger when I here these kind of statements, because here’s the real truth…
Nobody can make you feel something apart from you.
So you choose to get angry, sad, happy, scared, or….engaged!
You and only you are the master of your own emotions.
And if you choose to focus more on what is right about the world and people around you, you will feel more positive emotions.
And when you experience positive emotions, you engage more!
I’m off to get an overdose of positive emotions and fully engage with everything I do today.
How about you?
To your success
Steve Neale
“Europe’s Leading Expert on Personal and Professional Growth”
Psychologist, Executive Coach, EI Practitioner, Award Winning Trainer, International Author, Psychodynamic Therapist, Hypnotherapist, Mindfulness Instructor, International Speaker, Creator of the LPS, Creator of the Accredited Masters in High-Performance Leadership
