How Do We Advance Human Flourishing?

We often hear from people: helping to advance human flourishing is noble but a big undertaking. It is not specific enough. Never ending.

That is all true. But it doesn’t stop us.

Our Better Selves believes that to advance human flourishing, we must activate our values, build thriving community, and empower more effective change agents.

ACTIVATE VALUES: this is simply how we understand and intentionally live our values through forethought, learning, and testing. It is critical in this process that we consider broad principles of human flourishing, including evidence from fields such as positive psychology, in order that we help steer values activation towards outcomes that allow us to all individually thrive. Additionally, this evidence around human flourishing considers broader macro norms that help people live together: that one’s thriving through activating their values does not come at the expense of others, but rather they are all better off. This is why Values Activation is best facilitated in Thriving Communities.

BUILD THRIVING COMMUNITY: Communities are critical components of how we promote human flourishing. The evidence continues to build on how community is critical to promote belonging, forge identity, and provide other support which is vital to human flourishing. We have had community in various forms since our very earliest days as humans. However, not enough work has been done to create intentional thriving communities which avoid typical “us vs them” and instead create an “aspirational us” such that the “them” is defined but never completely out of reach. But while Thriving Communities tend to mitigate or solve a number of problems of human flourishing, we still need individual catalysts who tackle problems head on: we call them Change Agents.

EMPOWER CHANGE AGENTS: Change Agents are vital in our quest to solve important problems of human flourishing. Too many change agents are languishing in situations where they do not have opportunities, support or resources to activate their values and begin to tackle real human challenges. From finances and time constraints, knowledge and skills, and a clear sense as to their mission and values, Change Agents require deeper support than a mere one-off workshop or online course. Our Better Selves knows that it takes a comprehensive support approach to helping Change Agents activate their values and begin to solve real problems. That is why we are creating a vibrant ecosystem that serves their needs.

The ecosystem we are creating with Our Better Selves will work to further these three components in various ways. If you want to be part of it, work with us.