Many people find navigating the busy festive season challenging. However, with tools gained from positive psychology, we can enjoy our annual vacation as much as possible. The holidays should be enjoyable, but they also often come with their stresses, whether these are financial, emotional or relational.
In this post, we’ll discuss positive psychology and some simple tools you can use to enhance your wellbeing during the silly season and throughout the year.
What is positive psychology?
Positive psychology is the study of optimising our wellbeing. While many branches of psychology focus on what is wrong and how to fix problems, positive psychology aims to find ways to create better lives for ourselves, which is why people call it “the science of happiness.”
In a previous post, we discussed the famous Yale online course The Science of Wellbeing, which shares science-backed methods for achieving optimal wellbeing. Interestingly, what we think will make us happy in the long term often doesn’t. However, there are tried-and-tested practices for improving our lives, which we’ll discuss below.
Tools for navigating the silly season
There are many ways to improve your sense of wellbeing, appropriate during the festive season and throughout the year. Here is a list of some of the most popular positive psychology tools to help you make the most of your holiday.
1. Practising gratitude
A daily gratitude practice is one of the most simple and effective ways to boost your mood and gain perspective on your life. You might feel overwhelmed during the holidays, burdened by responsibilities, or stressed about finances. While being grateful won’t remove your problems, it can help you gain valuable perspective.
For example, you may not have been able to afford the holiday you wanted, but you can be grateful for time with friends and family at home instead. Feeling thankful for even the simplest pleasures can go a long way toward improving your outlook. Reminding yourself of everything you have instead of focusing on everything you don’t can help.
2. Savouring
We can spend so much time looking forward to the holidays and feel cheated towards the end of the festive season when it all ends too quickly. While you can’t control time, trying to savour and truly enjoy your holiday experiences can help you be present.
Even simple activities like savouring a meal, a drink, or even time with friends and family can help to keep you in the moment instead of always looking forward to and planning for what’s next. In fact, both savouring and gratitude, which relate to each other, are two of the most powerful and proven ways to boost your sense of wellbeing.
3. Showing kindness
Random acts of kindness can also improve wellbeing. We can get so caught up in our lives that we forget how far even a little kindness can go. While we might be wary of engaging with strangers, there are many opportunities to help without feeling like we’re endangering or compromising ourselves too much.
Helping someone find their way, offering to carry heavy shopping bags to someone’s car or even letting someone go ahead of you in the queue are all opportunities to step outside of yourself and share a bit of goodwill with others. During the festive season, there are many opportunities to practice kindness, such as giving to those less fortunate and making an effort with people who may not have friends and family to celebrate with.
4. Building social connections
People with strong social connections are healthier and happier. We all experience relationship ups and downs, but building and maintaining strong social connections can help us enjoy greater wellbeing throughout our lives.
It’s normal for some relationships to change or fade; we might go through lonely times. However, by consistently nurturing our social relationships, we can ensure a more fulfilling life. The holidays offer many opportunities to reconnect with people and to spend time with loved ones, even if you can only connect virtually.
5. Learning healthy habits
Healthy habits are another proven way to boost your sense of wellbeing. Eating and sleeping well, exercising and meditating have all been proven to enhance your life and mental health. During the holidays, it can be challenging to maintain a routine or to be 100% healthy all the time. It’s okay to let go a little, but returning to these tried and tested practices can help you enjoy your holidays more by not overindulging too much or being too sedentary.
For example, you can take walks during your holiday, which combines meditation, exercise, and spending time outdoors. You can also balance late nights out with quieter nights in and taking time to rest when you can. You can balance festive treats with healthier meals like salads and vegetables instead of heavy, deep-fried foods.
6. Changing your mindset
One of the most potent aspects of positive psychology is that it doesn’t only provide proven tools for boosting your sense of wellbeing and happiness. Making time for these practices improves your present state of mind and radically shifts your mindset and what is possible.
Beyond positive thinking, positive psychology offers constructive ways to enhance one’s life experience, especially during the holidays. Whether taking some time out for yourself or negotiating a chaotic festive season with many social obligations, incorporating one or more of these tools into one’s day can help create more balance.
Learn about positive psychology at SACAP Global
If you want to focus on your self-development this festive season, we offer a range of courses that introduce positive psychology in a practical and accessible way. While the holidays can be socially demanding, they can also provide some time for introspection, adding a fulfilling aspect to your holiday experience.
These online courses include the following:
- Factors Influencing Human Behaviour: During what is often a social time, this course can offer valuable insight into your sense of self and how this impacts the way you connect with others. If you’re negotiating tricky interpersonal dynamics during the holidays, this can help provide some perspective on your habits, problem-solving skills and how your feelings impact your actions.
- Building Positive Self-esteem: This course will teach you methods and strategies for building self-esteem. If you sometimes struggle to feel good about yourself during the holidays, this course presents an opportunity to engage with how your thoughts, experiences, emotions, and self-concept have contributed to your self-esteem.
- Developing a Growth Mindset: By shifting your mindset during the holidays, you can better manage your internal world, empower yourself to access your skills and talents, and maximise all available opportunities to enhance your holiday!
- Motivation Mastery: Unlock Potential & Achieve Goals: By exploring your personal motivation levels during the holidays, you can also learn how to implement various strategies to enhance your festive season. While you don’t need to set strict holiday goals, this course offers an opportunity to apply what you have learned and become more motivated, even if it is just to create a more joyous holiday experience.
To learn more about our other related offerings, browse our course list.