Leading Oneself with Personal Excellence (Coursera)

This course can be taken for academic credit as part of CU Boulder’s Master of Engineering in Engineering Management (ME-EM) degree offered on the Coursera platform. The ME-EM is designed to help engineers, scientists, and technical professionals move into leadership and management roles in the engineering and technical sectors. With performance-based admissions and no application process, the ME-EM is ideal for individuals with a broad range of undergraduate education and/or professional experience.

Course 3 of 3 in the Principles of Leadership: Leading Oneself Specialization.

What You Will Learn

- Explain how the paradoxical pursuit of happiness impacts our wellbeing.

- Learn how to decrease anxiety with increased personal agency

- Develop a mindset that promotes resilience to better deal with adversity.

Syllabus

WEEK 1

Pursuit of Happiness

Kicking off our first week in this course, we will examine our pursuit of happiness and how it may be a flawed pursuit. Many people, when asked what they want from their life, will state they want to be happy. But are we happy? Unfortunately, statistics show most of us are struggling to find true happiness. We will explore ideas like the paradoxical pursuit of happiness, happiness models and the hedonic treadmill to help us develop a better approach to finding subjective wellbeing.

WEEK 2

Staying on Course

In a world that is doing its best to steal our attention, focus is rare, distraction the norm. This week we take a look at how to maximize our focus when it matters most. You will come away with a better understanding of how our brains are designed for instant gratification. This often does not serve us well. Delayed gratification, patience and focus can become superpowers.

WEEK 3

Keep Moving Forward

Building on the work we did in the last module, we now turn our attention to motivation, procrastination and flow state. Each of them is intertwined and often overlapping each other. You will learn what causes procrastination, which will surely surprise you. What happens when motivation fails us? What is flow state and how can we achieve it more often for superior motivation.

WEEK 4

Steering the Ship

In a society where it seems “shaming, blaming and complaining” have become endemic. It is imperative to learn to practice personal accountability, agency and self-efficacy. All of which have been shown to increase our sense of wellbeing. Distress levels increase when we feel like we have lost control of our lives. We will discuss the dichotomy of control to understand what we control, and that which we don’t. This week we will discuss how you can become the captain of your ship.

WEEK 5

Navigating the Storms of Life

Wrapping up the course, we come to one of my favorite topics. How can we better navigate the storms of life? When adversity strikes, and it will, how do we respond? Topics like resilience, grit, fortitude and mental toughness will be examined and contrasted. These are skills that can be developed and you will gain knowledge about how to do just that. Increased mental toughness may sound hard, but it paradoxically often makes our lives easier.