It could be that you have a goal that you’d like some support with. It might be that you’ve felt stressed, depressed or low and would like some help to experience greater positivity. Or maybe you’re languishing in one area of life and would like to flourish instead. Positive psychology is a scientifically-grounded form of coaching which draws on the research and evidence-based tools from the science of optimal functioning & well-being. This is one-to-one coaching tailored to meet your particular needs and goals so that you will feel good, function well and flourish on every level – psychologically, emotionally, professionally, spiritually, physically and financially.  Positive psychology coaching is a strengths-based approach that harnesses your natural talents to build your personal well-being and promote your professional success. One of the principles of positive psychology is that your maximum potential for growth lies in developing your strengths rather than in fixing your weaknesses. Helping you to thrive is the ultimate goal of positive psychology coaching. Your immediate needs may be to:-

• Overcome chronic low moods & low-grade depression
• Deal with stress & stave off burnout
• Build your resilience

Beyond that positive psychology can help you to:-

• Achieve personal & professional goals
• Identify & activate your strengths
• Support you in striving for your goals
• Increase happiness & well-being
• Build positivity
• Reach 3:1 positive to negative emotions, the tipping point of flourishing
• Boost resilience to bounce back from adversity and stress
• Develop optimism & deflate pessimism
• Build psychological capital
• Discover your purpose in life & work
• Increase meaning and engagement
• Manage career crossroads & life transitions
• Protect from and recover from depression
• Move on after burnout
• Stimulate creative thinking
• Flourish & Prosper
• Experience a positive transformation

The great thing about positive psychology coaching is that it uses tools that have been scientifically proven to work. Positive psychology’s evidence-based techniques are grounded in the knowledge to help you thrive and prosper.

PERSONAL COACHING: Is it worth investing in coaching to raise the bar on your personal well-being? Here’s why the answer may be yes – happiness not only feels good it does you good too, helping you to greater flexibility of thinking, creativity and productivity. Happy people enjoy better health and boast stronger immune systems. In fact happiness buys you an average of 9 years of extra life – powerful evidence of the benefits! There is a a proven relationship between happiness and success in life – success leads to happiness but what’s not so well known is that happiness also leads to success. Happy people enjoy higher incomes and better ratings from their customers and colleagues.The good news is that around 40% of your capacity for happiness is under your voluntary control so there is a lot you can do to positively influence your well-being.

Some people choose coaching because they want to experience greater positivity and satisfaction in life. Others want to learn the psychological techniques to boost their mood naturally and overcome a depressive tendency. If you’re wondering whether coaching or therapy is the right thing for you, here’s some guidance that may help. If you have unresolved issues from the past that keep interfering in your present life then therapy may be the right choice for you. If you have goals that you want to achieve but have had difficulties in moving forwards with them or a specific goal you’d like some support with then coaching would help you. Although there is an overlap between coaching and therapy – we are all human after all and the positives co-exist with the negatives – the main difference is that coaching is behavioural mentoring focused on what you want to achieve for your life whereas counselling is about gaining an emotional understanding of past difficulty.

This quote referring to Martin Seligman, the co-founder of positive psychology, sums up the differences between  positive psychology coaching and therapy.  “Dr. Seligman is training Positive Psychologists, individuals whose practice will make the world a happier place, parallel to the way clinical psychologists have made the world a less unhappy place.” –  Positive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania.

EXECUTIVE COACHING: Coaching for you and your business to build your psychological capital, play to your strengths, enhance your performance, promote your success, realise your potential and manage any stress along the way. If you’re self-employed or working for a SME, coaching is a way of accessing personal support for your particular needs and goals. Your greatest opportunity in your professional career comes from focusing on your strengths rather than your weaknesses. By playing to your strengths you’re creating the conditions for you to excel with ease because you’re using the talents that come naturally! There is a growing body of evidence that companies that encourage their staff to develop their strengths benefit from higher levels of employee engagement, motivation, increased performance, job satisfaction and success. If you’re looking to support your professional well-being, make the next career move or want to increase your resilience in times of uncertainty and stress, then this is for you.

Positive psychology coaching is valuable for both personal and professional purposes. Check out the coaching programmes on offer – where we apply positive psychology to all areas of your life. You get to learn all about the science as it is most relevant to you and get your life on track. Coaching is usually in blocks of six 1-hour sessions so that we can achieve a sustainable change and track your progress between sessions. Alternatively you can book a one-off 90-minute session to focus on a particular issue.

Coaching Programmes

The Highly Effective Habits of Happy People: This coaching package is targeted at boosting your positivity and raising the bar on your well-being by training you in scientifically-proven, highly effective happiness habits that can make a lasting difference to your life. Choose a 3-month or 6-month programme, which consists of 2 x 1-hour coaching sessions a month plus ad-hoc email support. 3 months (6 hours = £300), 6 months (10 hours = £500)

The Positive Psychology Programme: How to feel good and function well in your professional and personal life. We take a 360-degree look at your life and apply a broad range of positive psychology tools to help you flourish across all areas. Across 8 x 1-hour sessions we will cover the key areas in positive psychology (such as strengths, well-being, optimism, resilience, motivation, goals, relationships and life purpose) and address both dimensions of happiness – the hedonic (the peaks of joy and other positive emotions) with the eudaimonic (the deeper sense of meaning in life.) We pay attention to the ‘whole you’ including the physical and spiritual aspects of well-being. Each session is guided by whatever is current for you and we use this as a way in to learn about and apply positive psychology. 8 hours of sessions organised at a frequency that best suits you – £500 per programme.

Other Coaching Options

Coaching for Depressives:  If you suffer from recurrent or chronic low moods, mild depression, emotional flatness or burnout and would like to speed your recovery or protect yourself from depression, then this is for you. We will teach you the evidence-based techniques to grow your experience of positive emotions like joy, contentment or satisfaction, alleviate the symptoms of depression and raise the bar on your happiness. You will master the tools to stop depression and lead to a more sustainable form of happiness. Please note that this coaching is aimed at teaching you the self-help techniques for depression and is not a substitute for clinical treatment. Consult your doctor to decide on the best approach for you.

Strengths-Coaching: Identify your strengths and find out how to apply your natural talents for success. Your strengths are the levers that you can pull to put you on the path to flourishing. The research shows that people who focus their efforts on developing their strengths rather than on fixing their weaknesses are more effective and enjoy greater success and well-being in their lives.

Coaching for Creativity: Increasing your positivity stimulates creative and flexible thinking. This is coaching to inspire you, spark your imagination, help you think ‘outside the box’ and generate new ideas that excite you.

Media Coaching: If you have a media interview or a public event, we can help you prepare by honing your presentation and communications strategy. Miriam worked across network radio and TV in the UK for over two decades and has extensive experience of presenting and engaging audiences.

Coaching sessions on the phone, on Skype or in person (Bristol & Bath or elsewhere by arrangement). We coach people in the UK and overseas. For a free 20-minute consultation to discuss your coaching needs and find out about fees, please get in touch. We love to hear from you!

Clients: Have a read below to get an idea of why some people choose coaching with positive psychology. Clients come from all walks of life and backgrounds and include coaches, therapists, psychologists and health professionals with a personal interest in positive psychology.

Testimonials

“Facing redundancy after 7 years of working for the same company, I decided to sign up for a series of coaching sessions with Miriam. Just last week I was telling someone about my new job that I love and the words I used to explain it rang a bell. They were almost the exact words that Miriam and I had put together to construct the description of my ideal job during our sessions. At the time I had no idea what the job role would be but I knew how I wanted to feel about it and the qualities it would bring to myself and other people. It’s wonderful that what I wanted has materialised and I am very grateful to Miriam for her use of cutting-edge methods to help me see a future that I’d not even believed was possible for me.” Isabelle, Bristol

“I had a dream of writing a book on positive psychology for parents to share what this new branch of psychology has to offer. Miriam has done an amazing job of helping me clarify exactly what I needed to do and has helped me stay on track despite all the competing demands of my busy job as a child psychologist. As a coach myself I know what a difference coaching makes to getting an important project up and running. Miriam really does walk the positive psychology talk with positivity, kindness and huge optimism which always lifted my spirits, focused my intentions and helped me find another burst of energy. Now I have a finished book proposal and 2 publishers interested in taking it forward. How brilliant is that!” Jeni Hooper, Child Psychologist & Parent Coach

Positive Psychology is a great way of focusing on the strengths we hold inside (instead of dwelling on the negatives!) and putting them to best use. It provided me with a wealth of tools and techniques to use when I feel as though I am struggling and I am using these on a daily basis. At the end of our course we put together a life plan to take away and focus on in the future. I have found this incredibly beneficial as it gives me a way in which to focus on achieving my ultimate end goal – to be happy! Miriam is a fantastic teacher, whose warm and genuine nature is apparent from the very beginning. I feel very fortunate to have worked with her. Mel, S.Glos.

“A combination of Miriam’s natural desire to help people thrive and the science of Positive Psychology makes for a great coaching experience. I am now much appreciative of what I do have; I am practising mindfulness with more success and I now feel I have a set of goals and a sense of direction. Rather than thinking ‘when I achieve this, then I’ll be ‘happy’ I am enjoying, savouring the journey of getting there.” Peter Kershaw, London

I approached Miriam Akhtar for some personal coaching having found that her CD on the topic went some way towards helping my anxiety and depression from which I had suffered occasionally over a number of years.   I had been given a variety of medication but found that my body could no longer tolerate the side effects.   I had also quite recently undergone an 8-session face-to-face CBT course which had given temporary relief only since I was not given any self-help tools on which I could draw. Miriam’s training was different and more effective in that it gave me those tools to cope with down times and to accept that by focusing on things in my life that gave me happiness I would be better equipped to find a positive solution to those difficulties that had dogged me before. I feel more positive about my attitude to life having completed Miriam’s 6-session telephone coaching as she had helped me identify my strengths and use them to pursue that elusive goal of happiness. I was very comfortable with coaching by telephone and felt that it offered no barriers at all to sharing my most personal thoughts and experiences with somebody whom I grew to regard as a friend.” TH, Hants