Falling Up

One of my favorite happiness business books is The Happiness Advantage by Harvard’s Shawn Achor. (https://goodthinkinc.com/resources/books/)

I first heard about Shawn from his popular TED Talk and immediately purchased the book. I incorporate his concepts into the Arrive At Happy corporate workshops and retreats and the topics are always extremely popular. One extremely effective concept for leaders and managers is “Falling Up.”

Falling Up is capitalizing on the downs to build upward momentum in the organization. Achor states that “the human brain is constantly creating and revising mental maps to help us navigate our way through this complex and ever-changing world.” Our brain has been wired over thousands of years of evolution and is wired for survival. When humans are stressed or in crisis, a lot of us miss the mental “path up”. After crisis or adversity there are three mental paths and I inspire leaders how to focus on the positive path, the one with the possibilities.

Here are the three mental paths that we can take after challenge or even failure at work or in life:

First Path - Brain and thoughts keep circling around where you currently are. No real change and you end up where you started.

Second Path - Your mind goes deeper into negativity due the challenge and focuses on negative consequences due to what is happening.

Third Path - Falling up leads you to a place where you are stronger, wiser, and more resilient because of the challenge(s).

Achor writes, “Study after study shows that if we are able to conceive of a failure as an opportunity for growth, we are all the more likely to experience that growth.”

In my workshops, I will have people work in small groups and each write down and share a challenge at work that they are currently going through. I will then have them brainstorm on each challenge together and create a Falling Up mental map. They will discuss how this obstacle could be helping them, what possibilities are in the future, and how they could become stronger professionally after they get through the challenge. It is truly about changing perspective and focusing on what benefits are possible.

What is a challenge that you are experiencing professionally and how can you truly Fall Up?