Wellbeing

Learning to be happy

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Happiness education

Psychology has spent nearly a hundred years working on a disease and disorder model, on discovering deficits in human behaviour and trying to repair the damage. The result is that psychologists know very little about healthy and happy functioning.

Positive psychology

Positive psychology, still less than a decade old, has finally arrived to study what people can do to be happier, experimentally proving what works and what doesn’t, studying positive emotions, positive traits and institutions.

Not surprisingly the happiness techniques in teaching people “how to be happier”, seem to be far more effective in combatting the “disorders”, such as depression, than ever the traditional ones of teaching people “how not be be unhappy” ever were.

Seeing the negative

With ADHD too much the focus is on the negative, on problems and trying to be normal. Not enough attention is paid to value, purpose, gratitude and strengths. In fact with ADHD clients the findings of positive psychology through a lot of light and offers valuable insight in living a happy ADHD life.

Positive psychology can be very effective for ADHD as the emphasis is on maximising the positive, using signature strengths, embracing gratitude and optimism, and aligning your life with your values.

These scientific insights to happiness inform much of my coaching approach.

Andrew Lewis

Andrew Lewis is an ADHD Coach, writer and founder of SimplyWellbeing. He has over 15,000 hours and 18 years of experience in coaching over 500 ADHD executives, ADHD business professionals and ADHD creatives. Andrew ran a major ADHD support group and an ADHD diagnostic clinic for a while. He is an ADHD specialist backed with business expertise from a twenty years career in software, from roles in programming, through marketing, sales and to running a few software start-ups. His ADHD insight is personal, with decades understanding his own ADHD experience and in bringing up his ADHD daughter. He has published his writing primarily via this website, with interactive ADHD courses in development.