Discover a life of meaning &Â purpose.
Live your best possible life. Preston Coaching & Training can help.
Mindfulness and Character Strengths
Preston Coaching & Training offers opportunities for individuals and groups to cultivate mindfulness skills and develop character strengths in order to live enriched, meaningful, and purposeful lives.
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The coaching and training opportunities in mindfulness and character strengths that we offer include:
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individual and group coaching & training
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half-day or full-day educational workshops
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one-hour or two-hour introductory presentations on mindfulness and character strengths ​
We can likely tailor an experience that meets most individual or group needs for coaching or training in mindfulness and character strengths.
About Me - Barry Preston
Professional Coach & Trainer
Dr. Barry Preston (known to his students as “Dr. P”) is a life-long educator and coach, having spent over thirty-five years working in public education and religious community contexts. His master’s degree and doctoral research explored the intersection of psychology, narrative, and group educational and transformational processes. He is a certified professional coach and a member of the International Coaching Federation. He has training in Acceptance and Commitment Coaching and Mindfulness-Based Character Strengths. He loves his family, movies and mythology, speculative fiction, baseball, and progressive rock music. And, along with Hobbits of the Shire, he loves peace and quiet and good tilled earth.
Preston Coaching & Training Opportunities
Each program listed below is an educational training program that also creates space for coaching conversations within the course itself and opens the possibility of coaching conversations that extend beyond the course for those who want to deepen and broaden their experiences or for those who find themselves stuck in the application phase and need help in moving forward with their goals.
The Power of Character Strengths
Character strengths are what’s best in you. They are the core parts of your personality that reflect who you are. Their expression brings benefit to yourself, others, and the world. This course helps us develop the power of character strengths by:
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raising awareness of what character strengths are
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exploring how our strengths have served us in the past
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applying our signature strengths in practical ways in our lives
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designing our lives to encourage habits that help us maintain the power of our character strengths in all areas of our lives
Mindful, Effective Action
Mindfulness is the self-regulation of attention with an attitude of curiosity, openness, and acceptance. The opposite of mindfulness is living on autopilot. Scores of studies show there are substantial benefits to waking yourself up with the practice of mindfulness. This course teaches participants how to cultivate mindfulness skills that help us to develop:
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ability to accept the aspects of life over which we have no control
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focus our awareness on the present rather than being distracted by regrets from the past or worries about the future
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clarity on what constitutes our core values
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skills to take committed action in the service of who and what is most important to us ​​​
Life as a Hero’s Journey
Our minds are made for storytelling, and we understand the meaning of our lives by the “life story” we tell about ourselves. However, the way we interpret the facts of our lives depends on the lens we wear to interpret our experiences. This course is a process that combines narrative identity and character strengths through which we:
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identify our greatest strengths
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learn the steps of the Hero’s Journey through familiar and popular stories
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apply the Hero’s Journey framework to interpret a feature of our own life story
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identify possible future “life journeys” to which we are being called that will give meaning to our lives
What is Coaching?
A professional coach partners with clients “in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. The process of coaching often unlocks previously untapped sources of imagination, productivity and leadership. We all have goals we want to reach, challenges we’re striving to overcome and times when we feel stuck. Partnering with a coach can change your life, setting you on a path to greater personal and professional fulfillment” (International Coaching Federation).
The opportunities offered by Preston Coaching & Training intentionally integrate mindfulness skills and character strengths into the coaching process. ​
What is Training?
Training is an educational process through which clients learn about the concepts and applications of mindfulness and character strengths. The client/trainer relationship is like a student/teacher relationship. In training sessions, we teach clients about the latest evidence-based research on mindfulness and character strengths and how they can impact our lives.
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Ideally, the content of training in mindfulness and character strengths moves into the coaching space and is applied in a powerful way that transforms lives.
"When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves."
Viktor E. Frankl
