Coaching practices for Positive Psychology Perma

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Positive Psychology Perma, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • On paper my life looks successful
  • I keep hitting my targets and checking the boxes, and it keeps leaving me weirdly hollow
  • Something about my life feels off and I genuinely can’t name what
  • My whole sense of whether I’m doing well rides on outcomes I don’t fully control, so when the results are slow or disappointing I feel like I’m getting nowhere
  • I’m in the middle of something genuinely hard that won’t lift, and I’m so tired of pretending it’s a blessing in disguise

Practices that may help

  1. Positive Psychology, Made Practical
    Martin Seligman’s positive psychology studies what makes life worth living, organized around the PERMA model — Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment. Several of its signature interventions, including three good things, the gratitude visit, and using signature strengths, have genuine randomized-trial support for raising well-being and lowering depressive symptoms.
  2. Seligman’s PERMA Model, Made Practical
    Martin Seligman’s PERMA model identifies five pillars of well-being: Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment. Unlike happiness models that treat well-being as a single variable, PERMA argues these five elements are each intrinsically valued and each independently improvable. Several PERMA-targeted interventions have randomized-trial support; others are mechanistically grounded with less direct evidence.
  3. Audit your life against PERMA
    Check well-being across all five pillars — emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, accomplishment.
    Positive Psychology, Made Practical
  4. Build meaning through contribution rather than achievement (meaning pillar)
    Orient your work toward what it does for others, not just what it earns you.
    Seligman’s PERMA Model, Made Practical
  5. Benefit-Finding in Adversity, Made Practical
    Benefit-finding — the cognitive process of identifying positive outcomes, lessons, or changes that emerge from difficult experiences — is associated with better psychological and physical health outcomes in observational research on illness, loss, and trauma. However, positive psychology researchers are careful to distinguish genuine benefit-finding from forced positive reframing, which can backfire. Timing, authenticity, and the type of adversity all matter significantly.
  6. Run a PERMA audit of your current well-being
    Rate each of the five PERMA pillars to find which is currently limiting your overall flourishing.
    Seligman’s PERMA Model, Made Practical
  7. Building Positive Emotions, Made Practical
    Positive emotions can be cultivated deliberately through practices that vary what triggers them: gratitude, savoring, meaningful engagement, kindness, and awe are the most studied routes. Barbara Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory proposes that positive emotions expand thinking and build psychological resources over time — supported by observational research, though some specific claims (like the 3:1 ratio) have not replicated. The individual practices have varying but mostly real evidence bases.
  8. Track mastery progress, not just outcomes (accomplishment pillar)
    Measure your growth in capability over time, not only whether you hit your targets.
    Seligman’s PERMA Model, Made Practical
  9. Find one thing to appreciate in a current difficulty
    Without toxic positivity, identify one genuine gift — skill, relationship, or insight — inside a current struggle.
    Counting Blessings: The Psychology of Grateful Reflection
  10. Access positive emotion during adversity, not after
    In the midst of stress and difficulty, finding even small genuine positive moments is a resilience mechanism, not a betrayal of the difficulty.
    Broaden-and-Build, Made Practical

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