Carly and Tresne

Carly and Tresne

Directors

The Happiness Mission

Lambton, Australia

Alumni: Sydney, Australia

In our 11069NAT Diploma of Positive Psychology and Wellbeing we always talk about the ripple effect; starting with self and creating a ripple out there in the world - whatever that may mean for each person.

In this interview, one of our Diploma of Positive Psychology and Wellbeing graduate explain how the course has helped them (and their business!) go from strength to strength.

What drew you to complete the Diploma of Positive Psychology and Wellbeing?

We were drawn to the Diploma because we were working with students assisting them with wellbeing strategies within our company The Happiness Mission.

We wanted to learn more about the research behind positive psychology after stumbling upon Martin Seligman’s work. We were watching YouTube, searching positive psychology and we found the lovely Sue Langley presenting.

To find out that Sue was running her own Diploma was so exciting. We were starstruck when we actually walked in and saw her, she was, and still is a massive inspiration to us.

How was your experience of the Diploma of Positive Psychology and Wellbeing? 

It was such an enriching experience for us both. We felt so indulgent spending the time learning and reflecting. The most challenging task for us was the forgiveness letter, yet it was the greatest moment too. When Sue said that carrying around that hurt, grief and anger was not hurting the person, yet was hurting ourselves, it really changed our perspective.

We really loved the meaning activity; we have recommended it to so many people since. Tresne’s favourite part of the course was the reflections. It was so eye-opening to hear other people’s views; it’s amazing that you can be sitting in the same room, absorbing the same content, yet have such diverse opinions.

The mindfulness was soothing and gave us so many tools for everyday life. My favourite part was learning about the brain as it was mind blowing (pun intended) learning about the amygdala hijack; it made so much sense.

To be honest, the course was so much better than we could have ever imagined. If we could do it again tomorrow, we would.

How are you spreading your positive ripples, and how has the Diploma of Positive Psychology and Wellbeing helped you achieve this?

The impact of studying the Diploma cannot be measured. It has changed the way we communicate, the way we engage with others, the way we live our lives. We have channelled our energy into our business The Happiness Mission and it has tripled in growth since completing the Diploma.

We still consider our strengths when assigning roles in the company, we consult our values in decision making and we use strategies learned in the happiness pie activity daily. For example; watching funny videos to get ourselves out of a bad mood.

Some of the long term strategies, like keeping a ‘what went well’ journal have genuinely been life changing, I mean once we learned that we could positively impact an optimism bias, it was a no-brainer (another pun intended) to ensure it occurred daily.

We have suggested and recommended the Diploma to so many people. The wonderful part is, once you leave the face to face training you still have support from team members. Completing the assignments was so liberating and cathartic.

The support, knowledge, and passion provided in this Diploma, is like no other education we have ever encountered.

We are grateful beyond words for the experience, and we use our Diploma learning daily.