PERMA in Coaching: Five Elements and a Worked Example

PERMA in coaching offers five directions for exploring well-being: Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishment. Martin Seligman’s framework can help a client describe what feels worthwhile, what is missing and what they want to preserve. It does not require five new habits or a cheerful account of difficult circumstances.

A client might accomplish a great deal while missing absorbed, skilled work. Another might value a demanding family responsibility without enjoying every moment. A useful conversation makes those differences visible before choosing an action. It also considers money, health, discrimination, access and workload rather than explaining every difficulty through individual attitude.

Coachful is our #1 recommendation for organizing this coaching workflow: an original reflection worksheet, a client-owned goal, a practical next step and a review of what actually happened. Our recommendation concerns the workflow, not a claim that software or PERMA treats illness. The Coachful features support the record around the conversation.

Understand the five elements before choosing an exercise

Seligman’s account of well-being theory presents PERMA as contributions to well-being rather than a definition based on one feeling. The following coaching applications are original examples, not a prescribed PERMA intervention or formal assessment.

Positive Emotion: make room for valued pleasant experience

This element concerns experiences such as enjoyment, interest or appreciation. In coaching, ask what the client would welcome more of and whether attending to it feels useful. The answer might be a quiet meal, a joke with a friend or pleasure in finishing a repair.

Do not turn that inquiry into a demand to reinterpret harm positively. A client can appreciate an enjoyable afternoon and remain angry about unfair treatment. They may also decline gratitude writing because it feels repetitive, intrusive or irrelevant. Ask what they prefer instead, including no exercise. The practical question is whether an opportunity fits their life, not whether they can produce an acceptable positive statement for the coach.

Engagement: distinguish absorption from being busy

Engagement concerns involvement in an activity that uses attention and capability. Penn’s Positive Psychology Center discusses flow in relation to challenge, skill, clear goals and feedback. An overflowing calendar is not evidence that someone experiences this kind of absorption.

Explore a specific episode: what task was involved, what made it interesting, and what conditions allowed attention to continue? Then check whether the client wants more of that activity. Some essential duties will remain routine. A useful change might protect time for skilled work while retaining necessary administration, rather than promising flow throughout the day. Absorption also needs boundaries: losing track of time does not authorize missed care responsibilities, skipped breaks or unpaid overtime.

Relationships: consider connection and reciprocal choice

This element concerns valued connection and support. The coaching task is to understand which relationships the client wants to develop, maintain, limit or leave alone. More social activity is not automatically the right goal.

A request for companionship, advice or a different working conversation needs another person’s answer. A colleague may like the idea but lack time. A relative may not want a reconciliation conversation. Build those possibilities into the plan. Record what was actually accepted, rather than converting a client’s intention into a mutual commitment. Where safety or serious mistreatment is involved, ordinary relationship exercises may be inappropriate; use suitable specialist support and protective processes.

Meaning: identify a contribution the client endorses

Meaning concerns connection with something considered worthwhile beyond oneself. That might involve family, faith, community, learning, work or another commitment. The client decides what matters; the coach does not assign a purpose.

Examine both the contribution and its cost. Someone may care deeply about helping new colleagues but have no spare capacity for an extra mentoring scheme. The next step could be negotiating paid time, narrowing the contribution or choosing a different setting. A manager’s statement that a project is meaningful does not settle whether employees find it meaningful or whether the conditions are reasonable. Nor must a person find their central purpose in paid work.

Accomplishment: define progress that is worth its demands

Accomplishment concerns achievement, competence or mastery. Coaching can make the desired result concrete: completing one usable draft, learning one technique or making an informed decision. Bigger targets are not inherently better.

Agree how the client will recognize enough. A practice attempt can be worthwhile without becoming a qualification, business or permanent habit. Separate effort, quality and external acceptance. The client can complete an application without receiving an offer, or improve a draft that its owner still declines to publish. Those are different results. For deeper distinctions between action and outcome, see progress and accountability in coaching.

Separate the theory, the measure and the intervention claim

A framework names areas for consideration. A questionnaire measures defined constructs under specified conditions. An intervention tests or delivers a particular activity. Evidence supporting one does not automatically establish the others.

Butler and Kern’s 2016 development paper describes the PERMA-Profiler: 15 core questions, three per domain, plus eight additional items, making 23 in total. Three development studies involved 7,188 participants; eight further studies involving 31,966 examined its measurement properties. The authors reported acceptable fit and several forms of reliability and validity. That is evidence about a measure, not a trial showing that any coach-created PERMA activity improves a client’s well-being.

There is also a substantive measurement debate. Goodman and colleagues’ study, published online in 2017 and in the 2018 journal issue, surveyed 517 US adults recruited through Mechanical Turk. Their confirmatory analysis found a latent correlation of .98 between PERMA and subjective well-being. They interpreted their analyses as showing convergence on an overarching well-being factor, while acknowledging distinct lower-level features. This self-report survey did not test coaching effectiveness.

In his 2018 response, Seligman argued that strongly related measures could still describe useful building blocks, rather than separate kinds of well-being. He acknowledged that the elements’ measures are correlated and that PERMA is not an exhaustive list. He called for evidence beyond simultaneous self-reports, including longitudinal and intervention work.

For coaching, the defensible position is modest: use the five distinctions when they help the client think, and examine the actual change. Do not present five custom numbers as five independent psychological systems or turn a local improvement into proof of the whole theory. The studies above are specific historical contributions, not a complete review of all subsequent research.

A custom worksheet is not the PERMA-Profiler. The journal paper carries a noncommercial, no-derivatives license; do not copy its questions, scoring materials or profile into a commercial coaching resource without appropriate permission. If using a formal measure, check its current authorized terms, administration and interpretation. The original record below uses narrative observations and practical evidence, with no borrowed items or scoring.

Work through a complete fictional PERMA coaching example

This fictional case follows Leonie, an internal training operations manager. It illustrates choices and mixed results, not customer evidence. She says, “I finish plenty, but almost none of my week uses the skills I enjoy.” She wants to explore a work change, not receive a mental-health assessment. Persistent distress or health concerns would need their own appropriate attention.

On 1 May 2034, Leonie and her coach use PERMA to understand the complaint. They do not assume that her accomplishment is low simply because her enjoyment is low. Their completed original reflection records the following distinctions.

They select engagement and a worthwhile contribution as the immediate inquiry. The other areas inform the choice without becoming additional targets. Leonie’s manager, Ravi, still controls her workload and the internal guide’s release; the coaching conversation grants no authority to remove duties or publish new instructions.

Obtain a real workload decision

Leonie’s current 40-hour week contains 16 hours of meetings, 14 of service operations, six of reporting and four reserved for interruptions. She proposes replacing 90 minutes of report formatting each week for two weeks with a 90-minute guide trial. Her message to Ravi is specific:

For the weeks beginning 8 and 15 May, may I retain the report’s required figures and checks but omit the duplicate slide formatting? That releases 90 minutes each week. I would use 60 minutes for one internal-guide draft, 20 minutes for review coordination and feedback, and 10 minutes for a record. No new publication or change to service instructions would occur without your approval. If the required reporting work still needs those 90 minutes, I will not add the trial after hours.

On 3 May, Ravi replies that the source report remains mandatory but the duplicate slides can stop for the two weeks. He authorizes the proposed time and retains publication approval. Leonie confirms the exact scope. Reporting becomes four hours 30 minutes; the trial uses one hour 30 minutes. Meetings, service work and the four-hour interruption reserve remain unchanged, so the plan still totals 40 hours.

Asha declines Leonie’s proposed Thursday review because she is covering a service desk. She offers Friday 12 May, 15:00–15:10, and the same ten-minute window on 19 May. Leonie accepts. In each week, her 20-minute coordination allowance covers ten minutes of messages/preparation and that ten-minute exchange. Asha separately agrees ten minutes in her own workload; her time is not included in Leonie’s 40-hour total.

Complete the first attempt and retain the failed test

On 9 May, Leonie uses her planned 60-minute block. An urgent service query interrupts it for 20 minutes. She spends the remaining 40 minutes producing a short draft from the current approved guide. The interruption occupies 20 minutes of the allocated trial block; the corresponding drafting time is lost. She does not quietly work another 20 minutes at night.

Her complete draft instruction is: “Open the induction area and select your access request. If the request fails, contact support.” During the actual 12 May review, Asha asks, “Which area do you mean, and is support the training inbox or IT?” She cannot identify the correct starting location or escalation route from the draft alone. The agreed practical test fails.

Leonie’s record distinguishes that failure from engagement. She says the 40 minutes of editing held her interest, but frustration remained when the work stopped. Asha’s questions were useful; they did not establish that the instruction was ready. Leonie records the missing details and keeps the draft unpublished. She does not label the attempt successful because it felt more meaningful.

Revise the output and test it again

On 16 May, Leonie gets the full 60-minute block. She checks the actual approved internal locations and named service routes with Ravi as part of her ten minutes of coordination that week. He confirms the current route but does not approve a broad rewrite. The revised fictional instruction says:

In the staff portal, open Learning, then New starter access, and choose Request training account. Use your employee ID in that form. If the portal form does not open, email the IT service desk through its existing staff-directory address. If the form opens but your training course is missing, send the course name and your start date to the Training operations inbox listed on the same page. Do not send passwords to either team.

These are fictional internal routes, not instructions for readers’ systems. On 19 May, Asha reads the revision without Leonie explaining it. She identifies the starting form and distinguishes a form-access failure from a missing-course query. That meets their limited test. Asha is an experienced colleague, not a representative sample of new starters; no broader usability result is claimed.

Leonie sends Ravi the revised draft and the two test records. He approves a further new-starter check but declines publication until that check occurs. Leonie acknowledges the decision and leaves the current approved guide unchanged. The full completed outcome is a clearer unpublished draft and permission for a further test, not a released improvement or demonstrated reduction in support queries.

Review the actual experience and resource use

At the 22 May coaching review, Leonie says the work used skills she wanted to use and felt connected to helping colleagues. She appreciated Asha’s practical response. She also reports that general work frustration remains and says she does not want a larger wellbeing program. She chooses one further test within a separately approved plan; that test is still future at this review.

Across the two weeks, Leonie records 100 minutes of drafting, 40 of coordination/review and 20 of notes: 160 trial minutes. The first block’s 20-minute interruption is additional service work inside that allocated block. Together those activities occupy the 180 minutes originally released from duplicate formatting. The lost drafting time is not restored elsewhere.

In week one, 16 hours of meetings, 14 of ordinary service operations, four hours 30 minutes of reporting, one hour 10 minutes of trial activity and 20 minutes of the extra query total 36 hours. In week two, the same meetings, ordinary operations and reporting plus one hour 30 minutes of trial activity also total 36. Each leaves the original four-hour reserve before any other use of it. These figures reconcile the changed allocation, not a claim that no other interruptions occurred.

Asha’s two ten-minute reviews are separate colleague time. The pre-trial approval exchanges and the 22 May coaching review fall outside those two workweeks; Ravi’s own time and other staff time are not included in Leonie’s account. No cost saving or full organizational productivity calculation is claimed. The useful result is that this bounded trial did not depend on hidden overtime or assume another person would donate unlimited help.

Run a practical PERMA conversation in six steps

1. Agree the question and boundaries. Ask what the client wants to understand and what would make the conversation useful. Explain that the framework is optional and does not diagnose health or determine an employee’s fitness for work.
2. Explore concrete episodes. Use the five areas to notice experiences, not infer a deficiency from an empty box. Ask about what is already working as well as what the client misses. Leave room for experiences the five labels do not capture.
3. Select one worthwhile direction. Let the client prioritize, preserve or decline areas. Translate “more meaning” into a contribution they endorse, or “more engagement” into a particular activity and conditions.
4. Check resources and other people’s choices. Identify time, costs, access, authority and dependencies. Obtain the necessary answer before treating a request as an arrangement. Decide what will stop or shrink to create room.
5. Define a bounded attempt and its evidence. State what the client will do, what an adequate output looks like and when to stop or revise. Keep the person’s experience separate from quality checks or another person’s approval.
6. Review without demanding improvement. Examine the original plan, actual activity, costs, responses and remaining concerns. Continue, change or end the experiment according to the client’s informed choice.

An original record can contain six plain fields: the chosen question, relevant experiences, selected direction, agreed arrangement, actual attempt and review decision. It needs no composite flourishing score. For a client who prefers conversation, write a short agreed note instead of requiring a worksheet. The session notes guide explains how to keep the record focused.

Use Coachful to preserve the distinctions

Create an original worksheet containing those six fields and introduce its purpose before assigning it. Use a client-owned goal for the selected change. Link only the actions the client has accepted, such as requesting time or producing a draft. Completing “send request” should not imply “manager approved time”; record the actual reply separately. Do not build a five-score clinical dashboard from an informal conversation.

For a submitted form or worksheet, open the response’s Coach review section, record what needs discussion and save it as Reviewed or Follow up as appropriate. That review is private to the coach team. The client cannot read it, and it is not included in their response PDF. Return an actual comment through the client’s private conversation with the authorized coach-team audience, or discuss it in the next agreed session. Saving an internal review alone does not deliver feedback.

If summarized sessions are used, check recap delivery before sensitive discussion. Recaps send automatically by default. In Sessions > settings gear > Session AI > Session recaps, select Approve before sending when a review is needed, and check any session-type override. Open Review to edit the client-facing content, then Send recap or Keep private. Creating or changing client tasks is a separate action; a summary should not invent Asha’s agreement or Ravi’s publication decision.

The screenshots are illustrative demonstrations, not Leonie’s records or formal PERMA assessment screens. Software organizes the chosen evidence; it does not establish well-being, validate the draft or make a workplace decision.

Troubleshoot pressure, poor fit and continuing distress

The client feels required to be positive. Stop the exercise and acknowledge what is happening. Ask whether another topic, a factual work review or no structured model would be preferable. Do not interpret refusal as a personal obstacle to flourishing.

The experiment creates more work. Reopen the resource agreement. In Leonie’s case, missing permission to stop duplicate slides would have blocked the trial. A shorter activity may help, but it should not conceal unpaid preparation or transfer duties to an unconsulted colleague.

The client enjoys an activity that fails its external test. Preserve both observations. Decide whether another attempt is worth the cost. Enjoyment cannot establish usability, safety, qualification or permission.

A relationship request is declined. Respect the answer and consider a different route without pressuring the person. A contact request, an accepted meeting and a supportive relationship are separate states. More messages do not necessarily improve the situation.

The difficulties persist beyond the work change. Coaching is not a substitute for healthcare. NIMH guidance advises professional help for severe or distressing symptoms lasting two weeks or more, including problems with sleep, concentration, interest or usual activities. Concerns can be discussed with a healthcare provider earlier; two weeks is not a requirement to wait. Keep the practical work issue and health-support decision visible separately.

Frequently asked questions

Does PERMA in coaching mean working on all five areas?

No. Explore the areas that help the client understand their experience, then choose a manageable direction. A client may want to preserve an existing strength or decline an exercise. Five simultaneous improvement targets can make an already pressured week worse.

Is a custom reflection the PERMA-Profiler?

No. The formal measure has its own questions, evidence and terms. The narrative record here is an original coaching aid without scores, norms or diagnostic interpretation. Do not label it as the formal questionnaire or copy protected assessment material into it.

Can PERMA replace attention to working conditions?

No. Workload, pay, access, safety and authority can determine whether a proposed action is possible. The fictional trial required a real workload decision. A positive reflection could not remove reporting duties or authorize publication.

What if accomplishment improves but the client still feels unhappy?

Record that result honestly. A completed task does not prove broader well-being improved. Ask what the client wants to explore next, whether continuing the activity is worthwhile and whether distress calls for appropriate professional support.

How is this different from strengths coaching?

PERMA organizes areas of well-being. Strengths work explores capabilities or qualities and how someone uses them. A strength such as careful editing can support a chosen activity, but it is not itself a PERMA score, personality diagnosis or guarantee of satisfaction.