WIREDGOV

Blog posted by: Mary Turner (27 September, 2013)

Like so many others, I took early retirement after succumbing to burnout as a result of stress and overwork. But I wanted to turn this negative experience into something positive, and to better understand what had happened to me.

I began to research workplace well-being. I quickly found out two things - firstly that there was an interesting field of psychology called 'positive psychology' which could tell me a lot about how to live my life better, and secondly, I was very lucky! Lucky because I could now spend time doing the things I enjoy with the people I care about, and without the stresses and pressures of a job that had been making me ill. I could look forward to poorer but happier times.

That was 18 months ago, and I still feel very lucky today.

I have always enjoyed learning new things, and so quickly became very involved in research – I wanted to learn from my own experience, and to inform the debate about workplace well-being. I came across the fascinating Foresight Project in Mental Capital and Well-being early on, and as a result nef’s Five Ways to Well-being; the mental fitness equivalent of the 5-a-day dietary health message. Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Keep Learning and Give - I thought they were brilliant!  (I also discovered you can buy them as a set if very reasonably priced post-cards, so I have one framed set on my wall as a reminder, and I have also given sets to several of my friends.)  

My daughter had come across the work of Martin Seligman and directed me to his seminal book Authentic Happiness. From this I discovered the positive psychology movement,, and other key researchers in the field including Csikszentmihalyi, Lyubomirsky, Fredrickson, Layard, and Achor. This gave my research two distinct strands: individual flourishing and workplace wellbeing.

I was amassing a fair amount of information, and I found a new sense of direction and purpose when my son suggested I write and post reviews of the books I read online – which gives me a place to draw together all my research, as well as being fun to do! After about a year of research I felt informed enough to begin to write, and have now produced several articles on positive psychology and on workplace well-being.

The idea of creating a well-being diary came about because I wanted a diary in which I could record what I had done and, particularly, to focus on those things that contributed to my happiness and well-being. I tried searching, but found nothing, so I decided to self-publish my own, initially just for me. My first diary was for 2013, and I have enjoyed using it – so have various friends who wanted copies, and who gave me feedback on the 'pilot' version. As a result of this feedback I have improved the design for 2014. 

Thanks to nef I am using the Five Ways to Well-being as the focus for the reflective sections, and I am donating the proceeds to support the work of nef's well-being project. The diary costs £7.50 and can be found via my website at www.howaboutwellbeing.info or via Lulu and Amazon.  I hope other people will find it helps them to improve their personal well-being too.

Mary Turner (MEd) is a retired teacher trainer researching wellbeing, happiness and how to flourish in our lives.