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231: The Politics of Positive Psychology - Alison Gault
68 Plays3 months ago
In this episode we delve into positive psychology. Alison Gault is a qualified Positive Psychology coach, Wellbeing strategist, and Speaker. Alison specializes in helping busy, professional women to build a life full of happiness, energy and freedom by tapping into the power of positive psychology. Having worked with hundreds of busy professionals around the world, she understands the unique challenges that women face as they navigate the very real juggle of everyday life. Alison knows how easy it is to get busy and move personal well-being to the bottom of the list. So, she has made it her mission to make the science of positive psychology simple, practical, and accessible so that even the most time-poor woman can prioritize her wellbeing and live her greatest, thriving life.
Tune in to hear from Alison on:
1. What is positive psychology?
2. Why do you focus more on working with women in your practice?
3. Has the notion of well-being become more of a cliché and buzzword as we tend to elevate what that means as leaders, parents, colleagues, partners, and friends in 2024? Your take, please!
4. Being time-poor seems like a modern choice – we pack our lives with activities and more work but how can we better become more focused on what matters most and remain more attuned to that in a more ongoing way?
5. I recently became aware of the term “little treats” culture as a way we can infuse a sense of joy into the day-to-day – also known as the “lipstick effect”. Is that useful or just a way to temporarily make us happier and more content?
6. Takeaway: What is your final message for us on The Politics of Positive Psychology?
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Transcript
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the politics of everything. I'm Amber Danes, your host and podcast producer. This is a half hour of power podcast dropping every week where I unpack the politics of everything from money to motherhood, nutrition to narcissism, startups to secularism, the environment, quality and much, much more. Our guests are seasoned in the field of topic of their choice, even if you've not heard of them yet. This is a nonpartisan show. So while I love exploring varied views and get a buzz from a healthy debate of ideas, this is not a purely blue, white, green program. Please subscribe, tune in and enjoy the politics of everything.
00:00:46
Speaker
In this episode, we delve into the topic of positive psychology. Alison Golt is a qualified positive psychology coach, well-being strategist, and speaker. She specializes in helping busy professional women to build a life full of happiness, energy, and freedom by tapping into the power of positive psychology. She's worked with hundreds of busy professionals around the world, and she understands those unique challenges that women face as they navigate the very real juggle of everyday life. Alison knows how easy it is to get busy and move personal wellbeing to the bottom of the list. So as a result, she's made it her mission to make the science of positive psychology simple, practical and accessible so that even the most time-poor woman can prioritize her wellbeing and live her greatest thriving life. And I'm looking forward to this conversation so much. So welcome to the show, Alison. Thank you, Amber, so much for having me. I'm really excited to be connecting and talking about something so exciting, this positive psychology.
00:01:40
Speaker
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00:02:21
Speaker
You don't have to leave your browser to get that episode done and done fast. I have a special offer for you and I hopefully you can experience what I have with Zencaster. Go to zencaster dot.com forward slash pricing and use my VIP code, the politics of everything, all lowercase in one word. to get 30% off your first three months of Zencaster Professional. How good is that? I want you to have the same easy experiences I do for all my podcasting and content needs. It's time to share your story. So I want to ask you the question I ask all my guests. What did you think you'd be when you were a lot younger, like maybe as a teen or as a kid? And if we could join the dots, did you kind of land up there before you ended up doing what you do now?
00:03:06
Speaker
You know, I was reflecting on this, and when I was 18, I was absolutely determined to be a police officer. I even did a week of work experience with the London Metropolitan Police, which was very eye-opening. I did a week of work experience with the New South Wales Police at the academy there, and I was on track. I knew I wanted to help people, and I knew I needed to be involved with people, but it isn't how it transpired. I ended up going into a corporate career, and again, still helping people, But at that time, positive psychology as a science was really only emerging. So there was no way at 18, I was going to say, oh, I'd love to be a positive psychologist, please. I was going to say things do move and I guess careers evolve just for everyone listening. I mean, I think I know what it means, but I don't want to get it wrong. So what is positive psychology? Yeah, I'm so glad you asked because and someone just recently said to me, oh, positive psychology, that's just positive thinking, right? And I thought, oh, yeah, okay, there's a way to go.
00:04:03
Speaker
So positive psychology is a really robust and rigorous science. It's always been a part of psychology, but it was neglected in favor of supporting people after the Second World War. So people after the Second World War had mental health challenges. And so the science was very focused on supporting those people and focused on ill health. In 2020, Martin Seligman, who's credited with the found being the founder of positive psychology, He was able to funnel a lot of funding into positive psychology as a science and research, which is really focused on supporting fundamentally well people to live their greatest flourishing life. So some definitions talk about having a life worth living.
00:04:47
Speaker
But we're really talking about wellbeing and thriving and living a life of joy and happiness that we really enjoy to live. And so that's really what the whole body of science is targeted towards, helping fundamentally well people to live a great thriving life. That's great. So your practice mentioned in the bio, of course, you work a lot with women. Why women? Yeah, it's a really good question. I have to check in with this for myself on a fairly regular basis too, because it does seem a bit sexist. But I focus really heavily on women because women have unique challenges. And this this comes to the point, just recently we had um International Women's Day, and we were we were exposed to whole new data around the gender pay gap. And we know that men and women in terms of working hours, women have
00:05:39
Speaker
a greater demand in terms of domestic and child rearing duties. So we know that there's a mental load. We know we perform more of those duties. The demand on women is so much greater than it is on men. And I can range against the machine as much as I like. I'm not going to change that system just yet. It will. But my part the part that I can play in that is really supporting individual women to live their greatest thriving life. Because I know the knock on impact of that is enormous. And so that's why I tend to focus on women and their unique challenges. Yeah, that makes sense. And of course, you are a woman who's got that what we call lived experience. So I guess that makes you very well qualified to to work in this space. Well, that's right. And then actually in terms of
00:06:22
Speaker
the gender bias that women experience. We in Australia, we experience that at its greatest peak when we become mothers because we have whole societal expectations of what work and family and being a mother looks like. We also know some research in the US is really fascinating around women who even think that they don't experience gender bias, actually they show that they do. And even when presented with the evidence, those women still think that they're not experiencing gender discrimination or bias. So it's really fascinating space in terms of what it means to us in a daily basis and how we juggle all of the the mixing things and the the different pressures that we experience, even the the misperceptions and misconceptions around
00:07:09
Speaker
what being a woman, a professional woman is and what success looks like in that space versus what a professional mother looks like and what as a mother we're meant to it and live up to. It's just it's a very broad space but it's it presents really practical challenges in terms of women who are sitting in meetings thinking ahead to, are the children going to be picked up? Or what are we going to cook for dinner? Or have I turned off the stove this morning? Stop. My brain is just going, no. um Exactly. Right. And I don't know. Does they call it? Yeah, exactly. And know we love them, but our male counterparts do not experience that to the same degree, really, if at all.
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So this notion of wellbeing, I feel like it's become more elevated, almost a bit of a buzzword or a cliche in terms of how we think of ourselves. you know We obviously pay various roles. We might be leaders in our own businesses or in corporates. We might be parents, colleagues, partners, and friends. How do you really look at wellbeing? What's your slant on it? Because I think there's many ways to slice this and it just depends on your perspective. Yeah, I agree. And and certainly in the last couple of years, there's been some focus on mental health, and it's been being interchanged with mental well being and the two are different. So our mental health is like kind of like when we think about our physical health as well, we can be healthy and we can be unwell, and that requires a certain certain support and intervention. Equally, we can be mentally well, and how do we live that great thriving life? How do we really live a life that we love? And so when we talk about well being, what does that
00:08:48
Speaker
equate to and the and the reality is that there are multiple definitions of wellbeing. And it's a term that, as you mentioned, it's been bandied around. We have financial wellbeing and we have our you know security and our community wellbeing. Well, okay, if we boil it down to something as simple as how we think of wellbeing and the definition of it, and this is what I'd really like people to understand is how do we think about wellbeing in in a meaningful way. And if we consider wellbeing as effectively a balance between our resources, so things like resilience and great relationships and an equanimity, which is a calm response to things. And then we think about the challenges that inherently come into our life. So particularly for women, this tends to look like increased demand, either at work or at home.
00:09:38
Speaker
then how do we manage that balance? Knowing that challenges are going to come in, we need to be really bolstering those resources so that when we come into a nice balance, when the challenges enter our life, our resources can counterbalance that. And that is when we have a sustainable sense of wellbeing. I like that. I think you've unpacked that really well. So being time poor, I think is sometimes a modern choice. like we you know I think COVID, for all its faults and follies, allow people to reset, including myself and my family. And then you're kind of back to normality or a version of normality where we pack our lives with activities. There might be more work, more socializing, more sport, whatever it is. And I guess then we don't really prioritize what matters most because we're kind of giving equal attention to things
00:10:25
Speaker
because we're so busy, if you like. How do you become more attuned to prioritizing that kind of sense of you know what you can do with your day and also prioritizing wellbeing at the same time? Yeah. And Amber, you tap in into something there, which which comes up for me again and again with my clients, which is this almost epidemic of busyness. And it's really the way that our Western society has set us up. So you're right when you use the word choice, because we have chosen to make a multiple
00:10:56
Speaker
commitments to family and to exactly like you said, sports and work and all the rest of it. Before you know it, there is no time for us and our wellbeing. We've crowded it out. So what I really like to refer to in terms of pausing and considering that concept of time. So when we consider time in our day, we are in what the ancient Greeks referred to as chronos. We are covering off a to-do list of tasks and activities and things that we've got to think about and cover off within given pockets of time. And that is chronos. What the ancient Greeks also thought is that the concept of kairos, which is a nice, neat balance, which is this opportunistic sense of taking moments and pausing and having space and broader thought process. So when those two are in balance, then we have an opportunity for greater wellbeing, but it requires that pause and that recognition that we are in constant kronos. And how do we build in that kairos aspect of time?
00:11:56
Speaker
so That sounds lovely and technical and I love those terms that you've just used. Sorry, it's it is a really ancient concept, this balance of Chronos and Kyros, but what it really translates to in our day-to-day life is when we're looking at our tasks for a day or even looking at our calendar, where are we living to our priorities? Where is the space to even consider what those priorities look for? ah So if we think about priorities as the what we focus on, And the thing I like to come back to is when we're on our last day on the earth, where would we like to look back on our life and think that we have spent it well? And I can guarantee, I'll put money on it in fact, that most of us will not say, I wish I had cleaned up the house more. I wish I had done more of those to-do lists. I wish I'd sent more emails.
00:12:51
Speaker
I suspect strongly that most of us will say, I wish I spent more time with my kids and the people that I love. I wish I spent more time doing the things that I really enjoy. I wish I had more time and more space to deliver positive impact to the world. And those are where we think about our priorities at the highest level, because then when we check in at the end of the day, we can look at, did I live to those priorities today? How do I further those? Just to challenge you a bit on that, that sometimes feels quite utopian. Like not every day is a 10 out of 10 day, right? We can't control everything that's happening to us.
00:13:30
Speaker
I agree, and that's that comes back to this balance amber of wellbeing. Challenges come in, tasks and demand come in, and then it's up to us to bolster those resources to set that balance for our wellbeing. But then I agree with you, where do i where do our priorities sit within our day-to-day life? I'm not gonna pretend that we don't have a job that has demands on us and it requires us sending emails. But if we're doing that for 10 or 12 hours a day, and we're doing it just before sleep, which is gonna impact our wellbeing, If we're looking at prioritising our work over our family, that's when we've really got to consider what boundaries do we need to have in place? Where do we prioritise the things, the time? It's a finite resource to us. It's a short life. How do we want to live it? And we can do it. We can do it in that way where we live in Kronos and we have all the action tasks and it will pass us by.
00:14:23
Speaker
That sounds like that's big picture thinking, right? Because you as you say, the minutia of the day is is reality. We've got to do the washing up. We have to drive kids to activities. That's not exactly sparking joy, but if overall we're on this trajectory of what you're talking about, that's probably more balanced and realistic. Yeah, sure. And recognizing it's a short life. So do I need to do those dishes before I go out for a walk with the dog? do I need to send those emails before I go home to spend some time playing a board game with the kids? When we have that bigger picture view of what our priorities are, it can inform how we spend our minutes and hours in the day.
00:15:06
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. I recently became aware of this thing called Little Treats Culture. It was on a different podcast and it's this idea that we infuse a sense of joy into the everyday, also known in another generation as a lipstick effect. And that's that idea. Even when you're in a recession or times are tough, you go and spend money on a great lipstick or something small. because it boosts your mood exponentially, even if you know you can't afford a holiday to to Bali or something like that. Is that actually a useful tool in this whole process or way i' kind of making us, I guess, more consumer and consumption focused? do I guess it could be a walk or something else that you reward yourself with. But are those small things what you're talking about part of that bigger picture?
00:15:49
Speaker
and but you The lipstick effect, jeez, I studied that back when I did an undergrad in economics, right? So it's it's been a known phenomena for some time. And you're right, it's come to the fore again, because as we're grappling with the cost of living, it's coming forward again. And it's this, you know, these little treats like buying the donut or the extra... Yeah, the $10 coffee at the moment. And so, look, what we know about this, and I will say it is an advertiser's dream, isn't it? you deserve It's almost like the L'Oreal, you know, you're worth it kind of mantra. that You know that tagline? Yeah, exactly. And you know what you're worth? You're worth a great life that you love. So if we put that to the side for a moment, thinking about buying a coffee, buying a treat,
00:16:35
Speaker
Look, what we know is that we get a hit of dopamine at that point of pictures, right? And that's that's great. And there is some recent research which suggests that money can buy happiness. OK, that's why i dont know no one's going to say that usually. They usually like, oh, you know, being, you know, all aligned and happy and you don't need a million dollars to feel great. yeah And it's and it's all relative. Right. So what I would argue is that money, a lack of can buy you unhappiness. I'm not sure if it buys you happiness to the degree that we think it might. But what we do know is that when we make purchases that are aligned with our authentic, authentic interests,
00:17:16
Speaker
So for example, a gardener, a king gardener who buys a new pair of gloves, they will sustain that dopamine hit a little bit longer. It's it's a better bang for buck if you like in terms of your initial purchase. But what I will say is that if it's the dopamine hit that you're after, you can get that exactly as alluded to, Amber, in different ways. And you can get higher spikes that last longer without spending a dollar. So exercise is a really good source of dopamine and also cold water immersion. There's a bit of it around at the moment. Is that ice baths? Yeah, it doesn't have to be an ice bath, but yeah, cold water, like, you know, uncomfortably cold, basically, up to the neck for two minutes.
00:18:02
Speaker
and you will get a dopamine hit that goes up through the roof and lasts longer. Not for our spite. Not for our spite, like not going to the Arctic place. and But, so there are a number of things we can do to tap into dopamine if that's what we're after. Yeah, and that's what we kind of went after. and and i And I love the sentiment. It's just the idea of, yeah, it feels like, like you say, a marketer's dream. And I do know sometimes that can kind of be a band-aid thing, retail therapy, if you like, where it's like, you know, you spend money you don't have, or you kind of, you know, you think you deserve it right now, even though that really it's it's masking maybe some deeper issues, which might be that you haven't spent enough time doing other things that you love.
00:18:42
Speaker
That's exactly it, and what I will say is if you're gonna spend the money, if you're gonna buy a $10 coffee, you will get greater benefit if you buy that coffee and give it to a random stranger. I've done that, such a good feeling. It is, and what we know about those random acts of kindness, for example, is that not only do you get a benefit as a giver of the kindness, the receiver gets massive benefit, but every single witness to that act of kindness will not only get benefit but is exponentially more inclined to then go forward and perform kind acts.
00:19:17
Speaker
So it's like this massive ripple effect just by spending that $10 coffee and and redirecting it to somewhere where it's going to serve you and others better. And the only thing I would add to that, is it's a bit of a tangential discussion because I do work in comms and PR is that I love that, but I hate when people post that they're doing that or they've got videos of it. I feel like it's exploitative. if It's like, can you just pay the groceries of the woman in front of you without actually putting turning that into a TikTok? I mean, that's probably a generational thing too, where it's just like, I think there's more satisfaction in keeping it to yourself in a way. Yeah, and there's something there's something a little self-serving about, look at me, I'm so happy with my client. What I will do is is suggest that that may tap into, though, the weaknesses of that active client. I was going to say, and I might inspire somebody else, and my kids have shown me videos like that, and they've gone, isn't this great? And I'm thinking this is so staged, but hey, the sentiment's right, and yeah and it makes you be kinder and think about other people first, then that's probably the win.
00:20:13
Speaker
Right, and even if you even if an act of kindness is is a step too far, you don't wanna give your $10 coffee away, even if you buy something like a bath bomb when you have that bubble bath, it's a short-lived jolt of joy, we call them, so a short-lived moment of positive emotion, which multiple of those is good, but commercialism I just wanna be careful of. But if you spend the money on, and say, a bath bomb, and you have that lovely bubble bath, then that has other impacts for you so that can be relaxing and it can be a quiet space to think and consider about things you know tapping into that kairos time again so if you're gonna spend the money on something small that gives you a jolt of joy try to look beyond
00:20:56
Speaker
the initial hit of dopamine and how it can serve you beyond that initial purchase point. Absolutely. What business or life tool or hack are you using at the moment that you're really loving? It might save you time or money. It might spark joy. It might just be really convenient. And why is it helping you so much? Yeah, I know a lot of your previous guests have spoken about a meditative practice and I will second that and triple that and expand on that. But what I will say that we don't talk enough about is eye tapping to nature a lot. There is an enormous body of science and continuing study around why nature gives us the impact, the positive impact that it does. But as little as 15 minutes, I will go for a walk in between meetings and clients
00:21:41
Speaker
and I will just step into nature and consider the environment around me. For people who want to try this, it's not with the airports in and it's not just bolting through the park, it's just sitting and contemplating or walking and contemplating the nature around you and that has huge benefits for our creativity, it cleanses our mind, it supports our restful state, it can even improve our physical health, just are even our cardiac health. It has enormous benefit. And so I tap into that on a regular daily basis. Yeah, that's fabulous. Your biggest life lesson so far, and why has it been so relevant or valid for you? Do you know, it comes back to that um point I made around considering our greater life. I remember, geez, I was an ambitious young consultant,
00:22:30
Speaker
in my early 20s. And I remember once at 10.30 at night, I was sitting at my desk, you know those sort of solo light above me in an otherwise dark office? And one of the directors from the client came in and he said to me, he came over to me and he was picking up an umbrella after being at the theater. And he said, Alison, I will promise I will not nag you about this, but I just wanna tell you now, on your death bed, you will not wish that you had worked harder. And I said, yes, yes, thanks very much. And then I worked for another couple of hours and then I went into it the next day. And I was a 12 hour day, just pretty wrong. I was ambitious then. And so I will say it took me a few years, honestly, but it rattled around in my head. And I remember thinking,
00:23:15
Speaker
you know I never made it to dinners on time. I would book it at 7 p.m. dinner with friends and I wouldn't even make it on time. I'd always be late and ordering you know after everyone was having dessert. But then when I realised that actually there was a different way of living, that work is there to serve a better life, not to be the life, then that it was a real game changer for me because then I started to consider really what am I about and what positive impact do I want to have in the world? And it wasn't just sitting at my desk working harder. Funny that. They go crazy, right? Just a final takeaway message for us on this topic of the politics of positive psychology. Yeah, look, positive psychology is increasingly becoming known as the science of wellbeing. It's expanding to include things like economics and medical science as well. So what I really encourage absolutely everybody to do and explore is what positive psychology and wellbeing really means for them.
00:24:13
Speaker
and to build it into their life in an integrated way so that they get to live, you get to live, and we all live the greatest life that we can with happiness and joy and vitality and energy and freedom because we all absolutely deserve it. So know it and live it. Excellent. That's like a TED talk right there for everyone. So thank you so much. It's been such a fabulous conversation. We've had a lot of fun, but there is some serious stuff in there too. So if you do want to connect further, of course, there's details in the show notes. Until next time, take care.
00:24:49
Speaker
Thanks so much for listening today. If you've enjoyed the politics of everything, I thrive on your feedback. So please add a short review and share the podcast with your network through Apple, Spotify, and all the usual suspects. I'm always on the hunt for new and diverse guests. So if you or someone you know has a fresh idea, you're busting to get out there, please email me at amber at amberdains.com and my crew will get back to you very soon.