Can Workers Be Coached to Thrive?

Big business certainly contemplates moving workers to thriving. The best process hasn’t been universally discovered because thriving is a concept that follows work/life balance and is relatively new for most.

Work/life balance was a pre-pandemic concern and working remotely didn’t seem to solve the issue, surprisingly. It seemed work/life balance was about having more personal time which seemed to be time away from the office. Yet, working full time at home seemed to be even more of a problem. Of course, it seems many have adapted and don’t want to return to commuting.

How We Spend Our Time is Crucial to Develop Thriving

If time at home is not the full answer and visiting the office a few times a week doesn’t make things better, what is the best way for workers to find full satisfaction in their work and personal lives. It would seem that there has to be a new concept with new strategies.

Thriving has to be seen as a whole life strategy which is where many businesses miss the bet. A few perks including higher pay, more responsibility or autonomy, and fewer meetings all help relieve the stress of earning a living, yet they are not the definition of striving.

Striving and happiness are close cousins. They both excel with personal growth, making progress toward goals, and a feeling of living a purposeful life. The last item can be quite personal and differ with people, but the first two items involving personal growth supports thriving.

Happiness is Thriving and Thriving Leads to Happiness

Happiness, despite what the media and our culture often say, is a biological process that results from stimulating certain hormones and neurotransmitters. Nature induces us to eat and have sex or we would not be inclined to do either. The acts of surviving include learning, creativity, contribution, companionship, caring, protecting, and exercising. Each of these can stimulate the happiness brain chemicals that also tell us we are thriving.

Thriving builds on having productive days. At the end of the day we want to say “that was a good day”. We want to be productive in our career and personal lives. This was the goal of work life balance without any real goals of how to achieve it. Thriving takes the next step of setting some important goals to achieve to reach the experience desired.

Coaching Can Play an Important Role

Coaching can create the guidance for workers to evaluate and then plan the steps to create a thriving life. First is understanding what it is and then comparing it to the life currently being lived. Next begins the strategy to create more thriving activities into the day. This involves time management. It may also involve getting the support of people who influence our time.

We have to understand what thriving entails, what we need to add in our lives and perhaps subtract, and then plan the time for the important activities, and get the support of anyone that may affect our plan. Coaching guides the decision process, holds one accountable, redirects efforts for lapses or diversions, encourages the right practices, and helps set priorities.

Thriving is a new way of life for most people who are just starting and foreign to most people at this time. Microsoft says it is the New North Star in their corporate governance and is one of the leaders in creating a more comprehensive approach.

Coaching is a way to get the individual workers on board with their own concept of thriving so that the workers and organizations can have meaningful conversations and develop mutually beneficial steps forward.

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As a Thriving Worker Consultant, I can engage in conversations with employers on how to begin the process of helping workers thrive and reach peak performance. It begins with a conversation to see how far an organization is willing to go to change the culture for workers.

Great practices for daily living can be learned with the Markap Series of Books. If your organization would like live presentations or Zoom meetings, they can be arranged for small to large groups.

The Markap Books:

Self-Leadership, Gratitude, Happiness, and Start Now

See Books on the Home Page

Contact me at Mark@markap1.com

Workers can be coached to thrive.