Amsterdam, 26 January 2023 — Are you prospering or languishing?

Story

It happened this week. As we ushered in the lunar new year, our wish was “may you prosper this year.” Traditionally, prospering has been narrowly defined in material terms as succeeding financially and experiencing economic wellbeing. In Latin, to prosper means flourishing or doing well. From our experiences in the past few years, however, we learned that there is more to prosperity than financial success. It is also about our mental state. In fact, that’s where we might find the key to prosperity.

When we are not experiencing prosperity, there is an absence of flourishing and we might feel a sense of stagnation in our work and life. We are not feeling at our best. Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist, refers to this state as languishing, where we are short on joy and motivation, and may also experience a lower ability to concentrate. As Grant notes, when you’re in a languishing state, you don’t feel down, but not up either.

Drawing on the research about languishing, we learn that it is very possible to be languishing without being aware of it. What we will notice, according to Grant, is that even as we are getting by, there is an absence of peak mental health. And that is not a great condition to start the year with the hope of prospering. It’s difficult, I believe, to prosper in the material sense for as long as we are languishing with an absence of peak mental health. Thankfully, however, that is something we can work on after we become aware of it.

Challenge

So what can you do when you discover that you are languishing and not in the peak mental state you want to be? Prof Adam Grant points to three steps that can help, and he calls these mastery, mindfulness, and mattering. From my coaching experience, these three make a lot of sense, so I’ll share them here. And then I’ll add a fourth. The first step is to invest in mastering a new skill (or behavior). Your mastery grows when you practice and go for small wins to experience making progress, which is the strongest known predictor of joy at work (shown by Prof Teresa Amabile’s research). 

Grant’s second step is mindfulness, which he describes as concentrating on a single thing. So it’s about focusing, which is an essential leadership behavior that Daniel Goleman, a psychologist and writer, has researched and written about. While focusing can help to start, there is a lot more to learn and explore about mindfulness in my experience. 

The third step, mattering, needs some explanation. This is about engaging in activities that matter to people around you, and knowing (and celebrating) that your work benefits other people. Grant mentions an example from the pandemic, when many people learned a new skill to bake bread (mastery), which nudged them to practice the process (focus), and then allowed them to share the result with people around them (mattering).   

Question

To manifest prosperity and effective leadership, we can’t afford to be languishing. We need to be in peak mental health. So what about you, are you prospering or languishing? If you are not in peak mental health and not feeling rich inside, you’re likely to be languishing. 

I promised you a fourth step to recover from languishing, and that is working with a coach to help you get into your peak mental state and develop prosperity from the inside out. That way, you can become the best version of yourself in your life and work.

Book a free strategy session if you would like to explore how to prosper in your life and leadership.