Experts share the latest trends in wellbeing and happiness

During Wellbeing 360, which brought 40,000 attendees together online, international experts said that the pandemic has provided opportunities to explore new forms of personal growth and give a boost to companies and communities.

This year, the event formerly known as Foro Felicidad 360 (Happiness 360 Conference), featured 204 speakers who shared knowledge and tools based on positive psychology with people from 150 countries.

Attendees were able to get first-hand information from experts such as Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, and Kim Cameron, one of the founders of positive organizational psychology, as well as other opinion leaders.

 

 

CONECTA presents some of the trends that occurred within this event organized by Tecmilenio, a university backed by Tec de Monterrey:

 

New trends in positive organizations

 

Seeking the wellbeing of employees

When presenting the Hero Model, Marisa Salanova, President of the Spanish Society of Positive Psychology said that organizations must have frameworks to promote the happiness and wellbeing of employees.

“There are organizations that we call heroes, which even in adverse situations keep their strengths and healthy practices going. This has an effect on employees at the level of engagement, trust, and positive emotions,” she said.

 

The heliotropic effect

In explaining the heliotropic effect and how it would help organizations grow, Kim Cameron, Founder of the Center for Positive Organizations at the University of Michigan, said that the light of positive energy is what people need to flourish.

“The definition of this effect is that all living things have a tendency to move towards the light and away from darkness, or to move towards positive energy and away from negative energy,” he said.

 

 

New employee profiles

The Dean of the Tec’s Business School, Ignacio de la Vega, said that in their new proposal to help humanity, companies are also looking for new profiles in their employees that demonstrate compassion and empathy.

“Companies are looking for other skill sets when recruiting or hiring. The ones that dominate now are soft skills,” explained the Dean.

 

 

New trends in educational wellbeing

 

Educating to find happiness

Martin Seligman, President Emeritus and Co-Founder of the International Network for Positive Education, said that you have to educate people through using tools such as gratitude in order to influence their wellbeing.

He suggested that each night before bed, the attendees write down three things that were good during the day as this would help them to sleep better and lower their depression levels.

Seligman, considered the father of positive psychology, explained that, “Thinking about these things is an extremely powerful exercise.” 

He added that a positive attitude also helps people to be successful at work and in their personal lives.

“As teachers, we have to generate optimism and positive emotions. You can predict that those who have these positive emotions will be more successful,” he said.

 

 

The elements of happiness

Tal Ben-Shahar, Founder of the Academy for Happiness Studies, spoke about his SPIRE model on the aspects of being happy.

“There are 5 elements that are interconnected. We only need to focus on one or more, and be aware and constant in that,” said Ben-Shahar, who is also a Harvard professor of positive psychology.

S - Spiritual Wellbeing

P - Physical Wellbeing

I - Intellectual Wellbeing

R - Relationship Wellbeing

E - Emotional Wellbeing

 

New life trends with purpose

 

Using the molecule of meaning

During his presentation, Simone Rosati, international consultant for soft and strategic skills, said that to have a purposeful life we ​​need to be meaningful beings.

“A life with meaning requires the ‘molecule of meaning’: acceptance, ambition and promotion,” said the creator of the Super Star Humans movement.

Rosati’s new concept is Sin Topia, which he defines as a new alliance between the future and humanity. 

To be able to practice it, you need to go through 5 stages: 

• Train your attention
• Train new required skills
• Get over those tough times
• Contribute as opposed to comply
• Build positive chemistry

 

 

Give your life purpose

Michael Steger said that having meaning and a purpose in life can help us to be healthier and happier, to be better with people and feel more fulfilled.

The Director of the Center for Meaning and Purpose at Colorado State University said there are three approaches to having purpose:

• Focus on the experience of being alive
• Understand life
• Develop skills and enhance practices.

 

 

Use your character strengths to achieve wellbeing

Ryan Niemiec, the Director of Education for the VIA Institute on Character, spoke about the character strengths that help you cope with adversities such as stress, depression, or anxiety.

There are 24 strengths that produce positive personality characteristics.

“With your mind in a conscious state (mindfulness) you can ‘catch’ those strengths of character to handle problems and adversity,” said the psychologist.

 

New trends in positive families

 

The role of parents with their children

In her talk on Positive Parenting, María Elena Garassini, the Venezuelan representative for the Ibero-American Network of Positive Psychology, addressed the role of parents.

She said that this pandemic has created the challenge that parents and children now spend more time together, so this relationship must be taken care of to forge happy people.

The expert shared the four parental skills:

- Protection, to guarantee their physical, emotional and psychosexual integrity.

- Bonding, which is the ability to interpret the behaviors of all family members and respond to them in a warm and kind way.

- Training skills, based on the stimulation of learning.

- Reflection, which serves to provide feedback on the practice of parenting.

 

 

“The function of parents is to care for, protect, educate and socialize their children, in order to guarantee their rights, optimize the development of their potential and promote their wellbeing,” she explained.

She shared good practices that parents adopt. Among the most prominent are:

- To give unconditional love and firmness.

- To offer constructive communication as well as time in terms of quality and amount.

- To offer active listening, consistency in the education of values, and to be aware that as parents we are models of healthy lifestyles.

 

New trends in flourishing cities

 

The new ways of designing cities

Dennis Pieprz, President of Design at Sasaki, an international architecture firm, said that today’s cities must be designed with space, protection, community, and involvement in mind, rather than luxury or sophistication.

“(During the pandemic) the cities became quiet for the whole world, the people retreated, and this had huge consequences for urban planning,” he said.

 

Cities in fifteen minutes

Another concept is ‘cities in 15 minutes’, said Alfredo Hidalgo Rasmussen of the School of Architecture, Art and Design at Tec de Monterrey.

It consists of distributed areas, so that jobs, shops, schools, and entertainment areas are not concentrated in one single point.

“It’s a complex concept, but simple if we say that it is a place where you can find everything you need just a few minutes from your home,” he said.

Héléne Chartier, Head of Development of the C40 Zero Carbon program, considered that this concept would improve life in cities.

“The idea is to make urban life more pleasant, agile, and flexible by creating nearby services for everyone,” she said.

 

Cities of human flourishing

The Director of the Tec’s Center for the Future of Cities, Enrique de la Madrid, said that sustainable cities help people to flourish.

“If we have good air quality, mobility options, access to affordable housing, green spaces, job options, etc., it will allow us to live in harmony and the conditions for living in a city will be advantageous,” he said.

 

 

What is Wellbeing 360?

The Wellbeing 360 conference, previously known as Foro Felicidad 360 (Happiness 360 Conference), is organized by Tecmilenio and aims for virtual attendees to acquire tools that they can use to improve their health and maintain a positive emotional state.

David Garza, Executive President of the Tecnológico de Monterrey, highlighted that in the current context, individual wellbeing is key to facing the new educational, labor, and social challenges.

“Tecmilenio has been doing a great job to promote wellbeing in its students, teachers, and collaborators and, through this event, it makes practical tools available to the international community for the integral wellbeing of all people,” he said.

“At Wellbeing 360 we want to give people the tools they need to be able to flourish and grow during this time of so many challenges”, says Rosalinda Ballesteros, Director of the Institute of Wellbeing and Happiness Sciences at Tecmilenio.

 

 

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