"If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there”. —Lewis Carroll "If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else”. —Yogi Berra We are far enough into the new year that most of our “new year’s resolution” have either taken hold or have been forgotten. The beginning of the year is one of those pivot points that challenge us to stop, take inventory, and at least consider making changes in our lives. Although we don’t often think about it, new year’s resolutions are a kind of goal setting. The idea of setting goals often strikes fear in our hearts. Most of us have been part of organizations that required us to set goals at one time or another. Some of us didn’t mind so much setting goals as being required to! In The How of Happiness , Sonja Lyubomirsky helps the reader to see goal setting as a path to mental health and growth rather than as a burden. ...
During and post-COVID, I did some online coaching related to resiliency. Very often we ended up talking about coping skills, actions that were a response to stress or change. Coping skills are basically damage control, helping us to get back to a baseline of “okay.” I was recently introduced to the positive psychology term of “savoring”—attending to and embracing the positive experiences of our lives. Basically, coping and savoring are two sides of the same coin—both are emotional regulation strategies, but they operate in entirely different "climates." You might think of them as the tools you use for different weather--coping is your umbrella for the rain, while savoring is your sunglasses for the sunshine. In coping, we are trying to manage the negative in order to reduce distress, solve problems, or minimize the impact of an unexpected event. Some examples would be seeking social support after a loss, pra...