Last week (or last month) I have started a Finnish course “Matka yhteisölliseen hyvinvointiin” which would be something like a journey to the communal well-being in English. I love participating that course in Finnish but why am I writing my journey diary in English? First of all, I work a lot in English so I want to be able to communicate what I’m learning also in English. Hopefully I can take my learnings into some action in my university and community. Second reason to write in English would probably be to challenge myself but also to take this blog and bring it back to life. Third reason to write in English is to clarify what I have learned to myself. Something like teaching someone else when your thoughts need to be quite clear. Otherwise I think my learnings might stay quite vague. Also, for me it is easier to start to write in English. In Finnish I procrastinate seriously. Maybe because in English I write shorter sentences and I don’t expect to be perfect in the written self-expression.

So how have I develop my own well-being skills? This topic has been really interesting. Although via the three videos and also the webinar I have received new information and research behind the theories, the best part has been all the exercises done during the videos and the webinar. Many times people wish concrete examples and tools from any training and I think this time I have really been able to equip my tool box. I’ll randomly go through my thoughts from this topic.

Mitä opin hyvinvoinnista ja yhteisöllisyydestä oman osaamiseni näkökulmasta? Miten voisin hyödyntää oppimaani omaan työhöni kouluttajana ja kehittäjänä?

In his video, Raimo Lappalainen talked about the trap of happiness (onnellisuuden loukku). I think that was a great beginning since I feel that in these days people are struggling with being happy quite a lot. There’s a lot of talk about happiness in the public (or at least what I have noticed) and I think that part of the mystery is how people interpret the word “happiness”. For me the word “passion” feels too big (almost bigger than life) and intensive and I’m not sure if I’m really passionate about anything. In the way that I think one is passionate. I like many things but for me the word feels strange. Then again, I don’t have any problems with word happy or happiness, because I don’t think that being happy is something bigger than life. So there might be lots of people who think that being happy means something unattainable.

What does this mean for me as an educator or developer? It means that we need be really careful with the words we use but also make it visible that we might have different meanings and depth with even the most “common” words like happy, happiness and passion. Also understanding and approving the different nyances and meanings that we have for the words and not just trying to convinse that the meaning we have for something is the “right” one.

What else have I learned about well-being and communality from the perspective of my own compentence? I have gained the confidence to talk more about feelings and well-being and I think that I’m already better equipped now. I have better reasoning why we need to talk about these and how the well-being skills are skills that needs to be practiced. For example the optimal alertness/energy from Juho Strömmer is something we could use in our pedagogical courses in the beginning to see how people are doing and feeling. Also with other workshops this is suitable. Also I would like to take the cup example from Juho to the time management course for the students.

I still need to digest and go back and through all the materials from the first topic.

I’m really curious about what is still to come and I would definately recommend this course to all students and employees in the higher education. Fopefully in some form these issues will have a bigger role and space in the higher education as work-life skills or as just general “how to be a human”-skills.