Positive psychology tends to focus on the good: pleasure, engagement, gratitude, mindfulness, optimism, meaning and the things that help people flourish.
But well-being isn't necessarily about making everything sunny.
Too much emphasis on positive emotion can overlook the value of negative emotions — and the resilience we can build by experiencing them. Focusing too heavily on the individual can also cause us to overlook something equally important: Sometimes the environment itself is part of the problem.
Resilience, achievement and well-being
One model of positive psychology that has stuck with me is RAW, which connects resilience, achievement and well-being.
The resilience part is enormously important because confidence in our abilities often comes from hard work and sticking out tough times. A career in which everything is sunny and always goes your way might sound nice in theory. But there's something important that comes from being challenged, doing difficult things and discovering that you can make it through them.
It strikes me that our strengths are quite literally what make us strong.
They aren't simply the things we wish we could do or hope to do someday. They're the things we can do — and often feel proud of precisely because we've put in the work to become strong at them.
Sometimes the achievement is simply not quitting
Achievement doesn't always mean a promotion, a degree or a big professional win.
Sometimes the achievement is simply not quitting.
That doesn't mean suffering is a prerequisite for happiness, or that difficult environments should be tolerated in the name of “building resilience.” Sometimes the environment really is the problem.
And well-being isn't something we have to earn by suffering.
But some of the things that contribute to well-being — confidence, resilience, competence and pride in what we can do — are often forged through difficulty.
Maybe that's why a vacation feels a little sweeter after we've worked hard enough to really need one.
Which leaves me with a question I've been thinking about for years:
Can we develop true resilience and a sense of accomplishment without some blood, sweat and tears along the way?