Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfilment
Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment, Martin Seligman.
Professor Seligman has championed and led the positive psychology movement:
“I realised that my profession was half-baked. It wasn’t enough for us to nullify disabling conditions and get to zero. We needed to ask, what are the enabling conditions which make humans flourish? How do we get from zero to plus five?”
Dr Seligman (below), director of the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center, is a thought leader in the field of happiness research.
A pioneer in the development of this relatively new branch of psychology, Seligman's work proves that positive thoughts and actions can help us lead happier lives. Positive psychology, according to his website, “focuses on the empirical study of such things as positive emotions, strengths-based character, and healthy institutions.” Seligman defines authentic happiness as combining:
The pleasant life (pleasures and enjoyment);
The good life (engagement and productivity);
The meaningful life (significance).
His book: Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realise Your Potential for Lasting Fulfilment, is an essential read for any student of happiness. As a key aim of the Happy Manager is to help managers make the workplace a happier place, we think this is a great place to begin.
"Seligman provides the tools you need in order to ascertain your most positive traits or strengths. Then he explains how, by frequently calling upon these "signature strengths" in all the crucial realms of life -- health, relationships, career -- you will not only develop natural buffers against misfortune and negative emotion, but also achieve new and sustainable levels of authentic contentment, gratification, and meaning."
(Amazon book review)
Some Suggestions to Get the Most Out of This Book.
We have no hesitation in recommending Authentic Happiness, just as we've been happy to refer to it in several places on our site. Take a look at some Happy Manager articles which have used the wisdom of Seligman's excellent book:
Interested in other books on happiness? Martin Seligman has written written numerous books on psychology. Below is a selection of his other work which you might find useful. Or click on the blue header on our Happy Manager bookshop link, in the left hand margin (UK visitors click on the red box). You'll find our selection of books on happiness, many of which on offer at up to 30% off list price.
A pioneer in the development of this relatively new branch of psychology, Seligman's work proves that positive thoughts and actions can help us lead happier lives. Positive psychology, according to his 
