I’m pretty sure I have a green thumb, because almost everything that comes into my yard thrives, multiplies and is wildly prolific. Things flourish!
To flourish, according to Webster’s definition, is to grow luxuriantly, to achieve success, and to be in a state of activity or production. Another definition defines flourish as the ability to grow or develop in a healthy or vigorous way, especially as the result of a particularly favorable environment.
Those last words seem especially important, when we examine the science of flourish and what it means to create a favorable environment.
According to Rick Hanson, author of Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, attention is like a spotlight. What it illuminates streams into our mind and shapes our brain. Developing greater control over our attention he says, is perhaps the single most powerful way to reshape our brain and thus our mind.
Or, to put it another way, we get what we think about.
So perhaps one element of a favorable environment is to pay attention to where and what we’re focusing on. If we’re in an environment that continually puts the spotlight on what went wrong, it doesn’t foster psychological safety, creativity or other elements that enable people to thrive.
Maybe it’s time to check our environment. If something isn’t working, ask ourselves how we are thinking about it? Are we creating more of what we don’t want by, as Hanson reminds us, shining the spotlight on what we’re worried about? If we’re looking for different results in any aspect of our lives, let’s examine how we’ve been thinking about it and then make a decision to change our focus.
