The Energy Framework is a powerful 5-part model underpinned by Positive Psychology elements that demonstrate improvements to wellbeing and motivation in daily life. 

Whilst immersing myself in Positive Psychology, it became clear to me the elements I felt strongly about reflected positively in my energy levels. When I talk about energy, I don’t mean physical energy (although this is often a by-product), but the feeling of motivation and attitude that propels you to take action. 

My own research and development then focussed on gathering the strongest, research driven, psychological concepts that could be used together to provide a powerful and effective tool-kit in building and maintaining mental energy and motivation. 

The result is a combination of concepts that pull together to create real positive change in the following areas:

  • Energy and motivation
  • Resilience to everyday challenges
  • Improvements in productivity and creativity 
  • Greater general wellbeing – leading to less sickness and stronger effectiveness in life. 

 

Explore the sections of the framework below

Knowing, applying and recognising character strengths can actually have a significant positive impact on life.

Research shows that using your character strengths can help you:

  • Buffer against, manage and overcome problems
  • Improve your relationships
  • Enhance health and overall well-being

Within relationships or a team environment understanding character strengths can have a major positive impact on how you view yourself and others which can lead to greater inter-personal satisfaction, more productive relationships and an environment based on energy. 

Scientific research reveals that people who use their strengths every day are three times more likely to report having an excellent quality of life, six times more likely to be engaged at work, 8% more productive and 15% less likely to quit their jobs. Every individual has a unique set of character strengths that give them the power to find happiness and well-being. (Information from viacharacter.org)

Strengths are important part of the energy framework as they reflect the authentic self and the positive parts of an individuals’ personality. Exercised effectively they can generate motivational energy to impact positively the way you think, feel and behave.   

The growth section of the framework focusses on:

  • Developing a growth mindset
  • Understanding the important of courage and vulnerability
  • Finding the balance between stress and challenge.

A growth mindset is essential to enable self-development and is a belief that abilities can be learned and improved rather than the notion that “oh I’m just not good at that (and never will be…)”. This is an important attitude and behaviour change both in the workplace and in life in general. 

Vulnerability is regularly seen as a weakness – especially in the workplace where it’s often frowned upon for showing emotion or struggle. However, as Brene Brown has said, “Show me one act of courage that doesn’t involve being vulnerable?”. 

Understanding how to be brave, recognising bravery and accept the shared human condition of vulnerability is a powerful energy-generator. 

We all want to be challenged, but not stressed by the challenge. Finding our ‘Flow’ is important to being productive, creative and effective in both life and the workplace. 

The thought-action section focusses on how we speak to ourselves and how our behave to ourselves and others can affect wellbeing. 

There are several elements within this part of the framework including:

  • Social Connection
  • Gratitude
  • Self-compassion
  • Kindness 
  • and others…

How we treat ourselves and others has an incredible impact on wellbeing in general. Understanding the power of social connection for our happiness and satisfaction within the workplace is essential for building an environment of wellness.

Equally, having the tools to combat imposter syndrome, negative self-talk and judgement can have a significant positive impact on your life and the lives of those around you. 

Knowing how effective kindness, gratitude and recognising small successes can be is also a big part of this section of the framework. 

Planning for and generating positive emotions from activities, interactions and behaviour have been demonstrated scientifically to improve our productivity, creativity, decision making as well as our overall wellbeing. With this truth in mind, we firstly need to discover and understand what nourishes us as individuals or nourishes a team of people within a workplace and secondly, we need to build our environment and structure our day to include nourishing moments to perform at our best.

The art of nourishment within the framework concentrates on understanding that in order to perform well in life, we need to plan for positive emotions daily and look at how we bring joy into our everyday lives.  

An attitude of nourishment within a corporate environment can transform the wellbeing of employees. Putting an emphasis on discovering and motivating staff through nourishing their needs shows care and builds loyalty.

Within this section of the framework, we also focus on the emotion of Joy and act of Savouring.  

Having goals and striving for achievement in life is extremely important, but how do they fit in with your life purpose and meaning? How do you add more meaning to goals that are not quite as motivating to you – such as some workplace objectives.

Intention is a powerful way to add self-determination towards the achievement of the goal and energise the process. 

Whereas a goal is objective – it has a beginning, middle and end; an intention is subjective and more human. Often, especially in the workplace; we forget the human factor within our goal setting and the challenges that emotions, stress and overwhelm can bring to the achievement of these goals. Intentions give us the space to add our own human values to our goals and make the journey towards the goal as rewarding as reaching it. 

Within this section of the framework, although intention is the main focus, we also look at aligning meaning and purpose with better forms of goal-setting to improve productivity and achievement levels. 

For the corporate environment, helping team members align their workplace objectives with their human intentions can motivate them to become more effective in achieving those objectives.