Positive Emotions at Work: A Wellbeing Habit That Promotes Clear Thinking

Workplaces ask people to think clearly, communicate well, and make excellent decisions, even when the pace is high. Many teams are navigating constant change, full calendars, and competing priorities. It is no surprise that leaders are looking for practical ways to protect energy and lift performance without adding complexity.

One of the most useful lenses is simple: wellbeing is practice. People build wellbeing through small, repeatable actions that support how the brain and body function day to day.

Positive emotions matter here because they help refuel the brain. When people experience positive emotion, they tend to have more capacity for higher-order thinking, including attention, self-regulation and decision-making. This is a balanced approach that respects the full range of emotions. Every emotion is valid. Every emotion carries information. Positive emotion is one part of the system that helps people stay resourced enough to perform well.

Why Positive Emotions Matter in Workplace Reality

When the brain is fuelled, people are more likely to:

• • Pay attention to what matters
  • Think clearly in complexity
  • Self-regulate in challenging moments
  • Stay strategic rather than reactive
  • Communicate with more care and precision

These capabilities directly shape culture and performance. They also influence psychosocial safety, because regulated leaders create better conditions for respectful conversations, clearer expectations and faster repair after missteps.

The opportunity for organisations is practical: build the habit of positive emotion into the flow of work and measure wellbeing accurately so efforts stay focused and effective.

Wellbeing Requires Practice

Many organisations invest in wellbeing resources, yet teams still struggle to translate intent into sustained change. That is where practice becomes the differentiator.

A helpful question is: what could your people do in two minutes that boosts positive emotion and resets energy

Most people already know what helps them. The challenge is building small moments into the day consistently and creating a workplace culture where these moments are normalised rather than squeezed out.

Four Micro-Actions Teams Can Practice This Week

These actions are designed to be simple, time-light and easy to lead in real workplaces. They work well for leaders, wellbeing champions and practitioners supporting teams.

1. The Sixty-Second Reset Between Meetings

Choose one minute between meetings to bring energy down and attention back.

Examples:

• Look away from screens and take slow breaths

• Relax shoulders, soften the face and slow speech pace

• Name the next priority in one sentence

Outcome:

More self-regulation and clearer decisions in the next conversation

2. Build “Small Joy” into the Workday

Joy is often a short-lived burst and those bursts matter. Look for tiny moments that lift energy without requiring major changes.

Examples:

• Share a quick win at the start of a meeting

• Recognise progress on a hard task

• Create a two-minute “good news” moment once a week

Outcome:

More energy, stronger momentum, improved engagement

3. Gratitude That Strengthens Connection

Gratitude can shift perspective and build connection when it is done with structure.

Examples:

• “One thing I appreciated this week was…”

• “One contribution that helped the team was…”

• “One support I want to acknowledge is…”

Outcome:

Stronger relationships, improved teamwork, better retention drivers

4. Curiosity Prompts that Open Possibility

Curiosity helps people step out of reactivity and into problem-solving.

Examples:

• What is different today that changes the approach

• What else might be true here

• What would success look like in one week

Outcome:

Better conversations, better solutions, stronger psychosocial safety

The Organisational Lens: Measure What Matters

Practice is powerful and measurement keeps it targeted.

Accurately measuring wellbeing has never been more important. Many organisations recognise wellbeing as a priority following years of global disruption that challenged resilience and mental and physical health. Leaders want robust tools that help them assess, benchmark and increase wellbeing across teams.

Work on Wellbeing (WoW) is the measurement step that turns wellbeing priorities into focused action.

Work on Wellbeing (WoW) is a world-leading wellbeing assessment tool designed by global leaders in wellbeing, organisational psychology and positive psychology. It supports individuals and organisations to receive trusted insights and actions grounded in research.

The Work on Wellbeing assessment examines four pillars:

• Global wellbeing
• Life satisfaction
• Workplace wellbeing
• Component wellbeing

This gives organisations a clear picture of where wellbeing is strong, where it needs support and which actions are most likely to shift outcomes.

Why Work on Wellbeing Accreditation Builds Capability

Work on Wellbeing accreditation equips you with the skills to administer the assessment globally, assess and debrief results and support individuals and workplaces to improve wellbeing with practical, research-informed actions.

This matters because wellbeing work needs credibility. A robust, scientifically validated tool enables clearer conversations, stronger benchmarking and more measurable outcomes.

The accreditation is designed to increase your ability to lead individuals and organisations to be the best they can be, with outcomes that matter to decision-makers:

• • Enhanced performance for goal achievement and increased productivity
  • Increased engagement and wellbeing for leaders and teams
  • Increased resilience and wellbeing, decreased stress and burnout
  • Improved retention in a happy, healthy workplace

Measurable Organisational Outcomes

WoW supports more than insight. It gives you a structured way to move from assessment results to decisions, actions and measurable change.

Here are three practical ways practitioners and internal wellbeing leads apply WoW in organisations:

• Set a clear baseline across the four pillars (global wellbeing, life satisfaction, workplace wellbeing, component wellbeing) so leaders can see where to focus first

• Run debriefs that lead to action by turning results into one clear priority, one behaviour shift and one support step that can be practiced immediately

• Track change over time to show progress in engagement, resilience, retention and productivity, and to guide where to invest next

This is science to strategy in practice: assess wellbeing with rigour, choose targeted actions and report progress in a way leaders can use.

View upcoming accreditations

Upcoming WoW Accreditation | Tuesday 3 March 2026

If you support leaders, teams, or clients and you want a clear way to measure wellbeing, run confident debriefs and agree on practical next steps, this March intake is for you.

Dates and time

• Tuesday 3 March - Thursday 5 March

• 9:00am - 12:30pm (AEDT)

Post-accreditation path

• Administer the Work on Wellbeing assessment globally

• Debrief results in plain English

• Help organisations benchmark wellbeing and prioritise actions that lift engagement, resilience and retention

Register here for the March 2026 intake

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