Flourishing – n. a condition denoting good mental and physical health: the state of being free from illness and distress but, more important, of being filled with vitality and functioning well in one’s personal and social life.

– APA Dictionary of Psychology

Languishing – n. the condition of absence of mental health, characterized by ennui, apathy, listlessness, and loss of interest in life.

– APA Dictionary of Psychology

Which would you prefer?

That may feel like a reciprocal question. But how do you actually move from one state to another? Is it possible? Is it possible for you? Especially with what you have in your life and on your plate right now?

If you aren’t flourishing, or you are in some parts of your life or work but not others, it may not feel so cut and dry.

To move from one mode to the other, you need to:

  1. Do something differently (which may take time and effort)
  2. Know which things to do differently (which could take a lot of trial and error, a.k.a. time and effort, or knowledge, which you usually need time, effort, or money to acquire)

Languishing is a real, serious problem today. Thankfully, the scientific community has woken up and realized that real problems need concrete answers.

For most of its history, psychology, the study of mind and behavior, focused entirely on what went wrong with people, how to fix it, and very little about how to prevent it. It worked on getting people from minus to zero.

Even then, it mostly focused on people who were doing very poorly and ignored the every day vicissitudes of life, along with how to get people above zero. And isn’t that what we all want?

An entire new field of scientific research, sometimes called the science of well-being and other times positive psychology, positive health, or positive epidemiology, coalesced to get clearer answers on exactly what causes and contributes to flourishing and overall well-being.

Across several fields in the last 25 years, there has been an outpouring of research on what goes well with people along with how to measure it, nurture it, and cultivate it.

The unfortunate thing is that much advice out there is based on hearsay or anecdotal evidence based on one person’s experience rather than the findings from this research that have been demonstrated time and time again with people from all walks of life all around the globe.

Here at Dream of Travel Writing, from the beginning, our mission has focused on: supporting writers to create sustainable businesses so that they can fully fulfill themselves and their needs in order to bring their most creative, observant, and inspiring selves to the work they put out in the world, so they can most impact others.

Understanding how to support well-being is a key to what we have set out to do. I’m undertaking some specific training to make sure I am bringing you the most accurate, compelling, useful, and up-to-date insights about everything from being engaged with your work to building fulfilling working relationships and from mastering priority achievement to finding a professional purpose that can power you through your day.

I’ve completed an advanced certificate program (with real, full-time university level classes!) through the University of Pennsylvania, which is home to the professor and thought leader, Dr. Martin Seligman, who founded this global shift, and I will be starting my master’s with Dr. Seligman this fall.

Though doctors (of medicine, psychology, and philosophy) still heatedly debate certain aspects, they have largely come together around certain key things that make up well-being and specific things you can do on your own to increase yours.

Of course, new insights also arrive all the time, and we want you to be able to make the most of those too!

In our new Creating a Flourishing Life and Business newsletter, we will combine foundational knowledge and the latest significant research on what you can do for your own life and business to feel:

  • more engaged,
  • more fulfilled,
  • more purposeful,
  • more successful,
  • more accomplished,
  • more focused,
  • and just plain happy (though the science folks use the dry term “experiencing subjective well-being”)

We’ll share quick insights, activities, and inspiration in each of the key areas of flourishing:

F: Flow & Engagement

L: Life Purpose

O: Outcomes and Achievements

U: Uplifting Emotions

R: Relationships

I: Insights and Self-Knowledge

S: Surroundings

H: Health & Vitality

You are your whole business.

When you’re sick, tired, unfocused, unmotivated, and disengaged, everything suffers.

Each week, tailored to small writing businesses like yours, I’ll share research, activities, inspiration, and inciting questions to help you see little ways to make small tweaks in your life and business to help you flourish and move your business closer to what you always dreamed it would look like for you.

Join us, beginning this Tuesday, if that sounds like something that might make a difference for you.

Can we help you flourish?