Top 10 Best Positive Psychological Coaching Tools

The vast array of Positive psychology evaluations, resources, tools, and feedback models allows coaches to create individualized, systematic coaching plans that are supported by empirical data. The following are the most helpful tools from the field of positive psychology:

1. Gratitude by Mental Elimination:

Its primary objective is to encourage readers to be more appreciative of their good fortune and less likely to take anything for granted. Positive emotions can be boosted more by imagining their absence than by focusing on their presence. Clients can be helped by being reminded of how lucky they are by imagining a world in which a wonderful occurrence never occurred.

The Gratitude by Mental Elimination exercise begins by having the client consider something positive happening in their lives at the present moment, followed by a brief mental exercise in which they consider what their lives would be like if that positive item were taken away. Afterward, they should have their clients record all of how their lives would be altered in the absence of this single positive factor. Learn more about this tool through this video .

2. The Passengers on a Bus Metaphor:

The primary objective is to help clients recognize the power that they provide to their thoughts, feelings, emotions, and memories. The metaphor of “passengers on the bus” is a good way to explain how our own subjective experiences appear to steer our actions and decisions.

The metaphor can be used to show that it is possible to live in such a way that traumatic events no longer shape one’s choices but are instead merely accepted and allowed to ride along in one’s thoughts for a while, like passengers on a bus.

If a client is having difficulties moving forward in therapy due to ideas, feelings, or actions, the Passengers on a Bus metaphor might be brought up again in the following sessions.

3. Self-Care Vision Board:

The primary aim is to foster more kindness toward oneself through imaginative play. Taking care of one’s own mental, emotional, and physical health is an essential part of self-care. Self-care, or the ability to recognize and address one’s own emotional and physical needs, has been linked to improved empathetic and immune system functioning as well as reduced levels of stress and sadness.

It has been found that engaging in acts of self-care can boost a person’s sense of self-awareness, self-regulation, coping skills, and a healthy sense of work-life balance. FYI, you can create a Self-care Vision Board by yourself easily!

4. Positive Reminiscence:

One of its primary aims is to teach people how to experience more pleasure in their daily lives. By recalling a happy memory from their history, patients can practice the art of savoring and strengthen their pleasant feelings with the Positive Reminiscence exercise.

Savoring entails being mindful of pleasant sensations and able to recognize, value, and expand upon favorable events. Clients can benefit from savoring as an alternative to coping with traumatic events. Clients start to realize and remember the positive emotions elicited by the little things in life when they learn to cherish them.

Participants are asked to recall a happy memory from their past, imagine it in as much detail as possible, and concentrate on the positive emotions they felt at the time as part of the exercise. The client should try to relive the experience in his or her mind to heighten and prolong the pleasant feelings associated with it.

5. The Self-Compassion Pause:

Its primary objective is to help people develop a more sympathetic relationship with themselves through challenging circumstances. Clients high in self-compassion show themselves empathy and compassion when they’re down. Clients who regularly engage in self-compassion may also report greater increases in life satisfaction, social connectivity, and subjective well-being. One can start from working on The Self Compassion Pause worksheet.

To help their clients develop a more compassionate outlook, therapists can use the Self-Compassion Pause as a jumping-off point. When clients are aware that they are experiencing distress, such as stress or discomfort, this method is most effective when used as a homework assignment in day-to-day interactions.

6. Strengths & Values-based Introductions:

The primary objective is to help clients connect by revealing their shared values and assets. Clients can get to know one another well in a short amount of time through the Strengths & Values-based Introductions exercise, which can work as a motivator and create trust among group members.

With the therapist’s help, clients can repeat their stories and reacquaint themselves with aspects of themselves that may have become dissociated owing to cognitive rigidity or relationship insecurity.

In this activity, clients are encouraged to reflect on how their narratives might serve as a metaphor for the challenges they are now facing. Clients can learn more about their virtues and principles while doing this work.

7. Daily Motivational Awareness:

Its primary objective is to raise patients’ levels of self-awareness to better motivate them in their daily lives. Clients should start the Daily Motivational Awareness exercise by pausing periodically during the day to reflect on and jot down the things that excite and motivate them to take action. Clients might think back on the session and evaluate how much of their motivation stems from internal factors.

The exercise can be done in a less formal setting as well; for example, by having the client set timers a few times a day and simply conducting the exercise without writing the observations.

8. Colored Candy Go Around:

Its primary objective is to facilitate conversation and shed light on interpersonal relationships. Play-based therapeutic activities give families a chance to talk about their experiences and express their opinions in ways they might not feel comfortable doing in more formal settings.

In the beginning phases of family therapy, the Colored Candy Go Around exercise can be used to playfully and creatively involve family members. To kick off this activity, the practitioner will hand out a handful of candy in a variety of colors to each member of the family. Each hue stands for a distinct inquiry, such as:

•  Green_What adjectives best characterize you and your loved ones?

• Pink – How do you all enjoy yourselves together?

• Orange – In what ways would you like to improve your life or the lives of those closest to you?

• Red – Exactly which concerns do you have?

• Yellow – Tell me about the wonderful aspects of your family.

To continue, have everyone count how much of each color of candy they have in front of them before inviting one person to pick a color at random (for example, four yellow candies).

In this scenario, the family member is tasked with listing four positive aspects of their immediate family. Each individual who responds to a question gets to pick the next person in line to do so, and so on until everyone in the family has had a chance to react to every question.

9. The Quicksand Anxiety Metaphor:

Its primary objective is to show how acceptance and mindfulness are superior to avoidance when it comes to calming anxious feelings. Using the quicksand analogy, therapists can get their clients to reflect on how they deal with stress in the face of inevitability.

As a result, individuals can see how their attempts to avoid or flee from such situations may only lead to deeper involvement with the problem. A person stuck in quicksand may not recognize that the only way out is to stop trying to escape and instead fully immerse themselves in the sand, or “get with it.”

Once the practitioner and client have explored the quicksand metaphor together, they can combine the terminology of the metaphor and the real world to spark more dialogue. Like, “What do you do when you start sinking in your anxiety?” It’s best not to compare the client’s experience with quicksand to that of someone with anxiety throughout the entire exercise; doing so risks having them learn the lesson through rules rather than through practice.

10. The Guest House Poem:

The basic idea is that feelings are transitory and that there is some good to be had from feeling bad. The poem “The Guest House” is a way to teach people about mindfulness and how to deal with difficult feelings. Psychological and bodily harm has been linked to repressing feelings. Many psychiatric issues can be traced back to the sufferer’s attempts to avoid or suppress distressing thoughts, sensations, and emotions.

Clients risk having their negative feelings exacerbated when they try to hide or suppress them. The intensity and power of these feelings, though, can be mitigated if you just treat them as visitors.

Being human is compared to hosting guests in the poem, and negative feelings are portrayed as guests that must be tolerated. The poem can also be used to reassure clients that their feelings are just passing through and that they can be embraced for as long as they need to before moving on.