Katie Ashburner and Dr. Peggy Kern
There has never been a greater collective focus on human wellbeing – across academia, industries, organisations, schools, and public policies — and for good reason. When people are well, students achieve more, employees perform better, relationships, physical and mental health improve, and people are better citizens. But how can you support individual and collective wellbeing when the world is becoming increasingly complex and psychological harms have become commonplace? Billions of dollars are spent each year on mental illness. The pace of society has sped up. AI is disrupting ways of working and being. So how can you support wellbeing in a complex world?
For us to even be able to speak about supporting the wellbeing of individuals, groups and organisations, we must first acknowledge the rich history that has led us to this point in time. The concept of human wellbeing can be traced across millennia. It was present in early religious texts and was clearly described in ancient Greek philosophy through the lessons of Socrates, the work of Plato and the teachings of Aristotle. Within the world of modern psychology, this idea has been studied for hundreds of years, leading to the formal inception of the scientific field of Positive Psychology in 1998.
In the nearly 30 years that Positive Psychology has existed, the field has produced a profound body of work highlighting the conditions that support the building and maintenance of individual and collective wellbeing. As a field it is continuously evolving and adapting thanks to the dedication of this community of researchers and practitioners. However, there is still little consensus on what wellbeing is or what emotional, cognitive, behavioural, social and environmental processes are required to support it within the complexity of modern life.
When looking back and exploring the factors that have enabled and supported human wellbeing since the dawn of our time, wellbeing could be thought of as a dynamic state of adaptive human functioning. Wellbeing is not achieved once and secured, it is continually cultivated. It emerges through the ongoing interaction between an individual’s internal capacities and the external environments in which they live, work, and relate. Human wellbeing is strengthened over time through awareness, psychological need satisfaction, intentional behaviours, flexible regulation, meaningful engagement, responsive relationships and supportive environments. It is your capacity to move through the full spectrum of human experience with flexibility that enables wellbeing.
Schools, workplaces, the online space and communities are dynamic and complex systems. Even highly trained professionals can find it difficult to know how to anchor their thinking and behaviour to effectively support individual and collective wellbeing. Moments in time – sometimes ordinary, sometimes difficult, sometimes quietly good, sometimes harrowing — are where wellbeing is built or eroded, over and over, every day. Wellbeing is dependent upon the emotions, thoughts, behaviours and environments that people experience and engage with day by day, moment by moment. That movement is dynamic – ever evolving, shifting – and complex — impacted by the people involved and the contexts within which we as humans co-exist.
To address the challenges of the modern world, this article introduces the AaBC123 Framework. It does not replace existing frameworks, rather is designed to cut through that complexity to ground individuals, organisations and communities in effective wellbeing action.
Your Wellbeing Anchor
AaBC123 operates as a metaphorical anchor. Not only can it keep you steady in storms, but can also keep you from drifting away from where you should be when conditions are calm. This framework is designed for both sides of life - when life is going well and when life is a struggle. It has four possible functions; momentary intervention, measurement, situational analysis and strategic design. Each letter and number of the acronym provides direction for supporting wellbeing amidst the complexity of everyday life.
So, what does it all mean?
A — Awareness means that you have knowledge, perceptions and understandings of both your needs, the needs of others and the realities that you are faced with.
For us to even be able to speak about supporting the wellbeing of individuals, groups and organisations, we must first acknowledge the rich history that has led us to this point in time. The concept of human wellbeing can be traced across millennia. It was present in early religious texts and was clearly described in ancient Greek philosophy through the lessons of Socrates, the work of Plato and the teachings of Aristotle. Within the world of modern psychology, this idea has been studied for hundreds of years, leading to the formal inception of the scientific field of Positive Psychology in 1998.
In the nearly 30 years that Positive Psychology has existed, the field has produced a profound body of work highlighting the conditions that support the building and maintenance of individual and collective wellbeing. As a field it is continuously evolving and adapting thanks to the dedication of this community of researchers and practitioners. However, there is still little consensus on what wellbeing is or what emotional, cognitive, behavioural, social and environmental processes are required to support it within the complexity of modern life.
When looking back and exploring the factors that have enabled and supported human wellbeing since the dawn of our time, wellbeing could be thought of as a dynamic state of adaptive human functioning. Wellbeing is not achieved once and secured, it is continually cultivated. It emerges through the ongoing interaction between an individual’s internal capacities and the external environments in which they live, work, and relate. Human wellbeing is strengthened over time through awareness, psychological need satisfaction, intentional behaviours, flexible regulation, meaningful engagement, responsive relationships and supportive environments. It is your capacity to move through the full spectrum of human experience with flexibility that enables wellbeing.
Schools, workplaces, the online space and communities are dynamic and complex systems. Even highly trained professionals can find it difficult to know how to anchor their thinking and behaviour to effectively support individual and collective wellbeing. Moments in time – sometimes ordinary, sometimes difficult, sometimes quietly good, sometimes harrowing — are where wellbeing is built or eroded, over and over, every day. Wellbeing is dependent upon the emotions, thoughts, behaviours and environments that people experience and engage with day by day, moment by moment. That movement is dynamic – ever evolving, shifting – and complex — impacted by the people involved and the contexts within which we as humans co-exist.
To address the challenges of the modern world, this article introduces the AaBC123 Framework. It does not replace existing frameworks, rather is designed to cut through that complexity to ground individuals, organisations and communities in effective wellbeing action.
Your Wellbeing Anchor
AaBC123 operates as a metaphorical anchor. Not only can it keep you steady in storms, but can also keep you from drifting away from where you should be when conditions are calm. This framework is designed for both sides of life - when life is going well and when life is a struggle. It has four possible functions; momentary intervention, measurement, situational analysis and strategic design. Each letter and number of the acronym provides direction for supporting wellbeing amidst the complexity of everyday life.
So, what does it all mean?
A — Awareness means that you have knowledge, perceptions and understandings of both your needs, the needs of others and the realities that you are faced with.
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Firstly, awareness of needs invites us to genuinely check in with the physical, emotional, psychological, social, cultural, spiritual, and ecological needs that are currently affecting your functioning and the functioning of others. For instance, if you are hungry, there is a need to eat. If you feel unsafe, there is a need to establish safety.
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Awareness of reality invites us to look at the current internal and external environment. What is truly happening — not what you wish were true nor what you fear might become true, but what is actually true? What is working, and for whom? What isn't working, and why? What can and cannot be controlled? What opportunities can you capitalise on or leverage? What perspectives have you listened to and which ones have been ignored? What conflicting truths exist? What underlying beliefs are present? Who and what are you accountable to and for? What resources and knowledge are available both internally and externally, individually and collectively? And critically: what does success look like given the current context?
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a — Acceptance refers to willingly acknowledging and accepting the current needs and reality that you identified in the awareness step. Acceptance does not mean you approve of or like reality. Rather, it means stopping the fight against what is true and moving forward to a place of acceptance. Without acceptance, you stay stuck, living the status quo and never moving towards sustainable wellbeing.
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B — Behaviour From a place of awareness and acceptance, you can then take effective action through targeted, intentional behaviour. Within this framework, effective behaviours are presented in three tiers, each appropriate for different functions, contexts and levels of complexity.
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Tier 1 behaviours are actions that individuals engage in. Tier 1 Behaviour asks: given your awareness and acceptance of the current needs and realities, what would be the most effective momentary action? This involves consciously choosing helpful responses rather than conditioned, automatic, unhelpful reactions. This tier draws on the individual's personal toolkit of strategies which have been developed over time to help them to navigate present realities effectively.
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Tier 2 behaviours are actions taken by those who have an impact on the wellbeing of others, such as team leaders, school principals, community organisers, and organisational managers and leaders. Action involves creating environments for those you lead to build and sustain both individual and collective wellbeing. Tier 2 behaviour requires a strategic, structured approach to addressing not only the obvious behaviours of those you lead, but also more embedded and complex behaviours. Tier 2 behaviours require awareness and acceptance of both the individual and collective needs and realities that these behaviours will impact, then creating ecosystems where wellbeing behaviours are valued and embedded.
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Tier 3 behaviours are actions taken by those formally responsible for measuring, initiating and sustaining wellbeing change within systems. Examples include navigating the emotions of those within the system, identifying and promoting collective values, building hope, integrating internal and external expertise, utilising individual and collective strengths and engaging in research enhanced processes of planning, action and reflection at multiple systems levels. The Tier 3 behaviours function as both a comprehensive intervention guide and an assessment tool. This tier can be used to identify what is and isn't currently happening in a system, where the gaps are, and where focused effort is most likely to create meaningful change.
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C — Care As a human being, you have a need to connect, belong and bond with others. Care wraps around both Aa’s and B, — because the awareness you raise, the acceptance you cultivate, and the behaviour you choose must be held within genuine care for self and care for others.
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Care for self involves being compassionate to yourself, engaging in physical care, personal growth, and the maintenance of healthy boundaries. These are not optional extras. They are the conditions under which individual wellbeing is built and maintained and effective behaviours become sustainable.
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Care for others is expressed through virtuous behaviours — the prosocial, strengths-based, relationally generous actions that support collective wellbeing. It is also expressed through care for the physical spaces you create and maintain; the quality and intentionality of your communication; and through your commitment to creating environments where people can speak honestly, take reasonable risks, and be themselves without fear of punishment or humiliation.
1-2-3 — The System Levels
The numerical dimension of AaBC123 is where systems thinking is embedded throughout the framework. It draws on the work of Jarden and Jarden’s (2016), Me-We-Us Framework which provides a rigorous and practically grounded way of understanding the interrelated and interdynamic nature of wellbeing change across the multiple levels of a system.
Level 1 — Me — is the individual. A student, a teacher, a parent, an employee, a leader. Wellbeing at this level is personal and self-directed. It emphasises the importance of individuals having awareness of their own needs and realities and engaging in effective behaviours with care for themselves.
Level 2 — We — is the group, team, partnership, or pair. It is the level of relationships and collaboration, the small communities we navigate daily. Viewing AaBC through this lens requires us to hold awareness of the needs and realities of the partnership, team or group and collaboratively choose behaviours with care in ways that are deemed helpful for all.
Level 3 — Us — is the organisation, school, family system, community, or the broader social and cultural whole. These groups are also required to hold awareness of the collective needs and realities that exist within and intentionally choose helpful behaviours with care for the macro level.
The numerical dimension of AaBC123 is where systems thinking is embedded throughout the framework. It draws on the work of Jarden and Jarden’s (2016), Me-We-Us Framework which provides a rigorous and practically grounded way of understanding the interrelated and interdynamic nature of wellbeing change across the multiple levels of a system.
Level 1 — Me — is the individual. A student, a teacher, a parent, an employee, a leader. Wellbeing at this level is personal and self-directed. It emphasises the importance of individuals having awareness of their own needs and realities and engaging in effective behaviours with care for themselves.
Level 2 — We — is the group, team, partnership, or pair. It is the level of relationships and collaboration, the small communities we navigate daily. Viewing AaBC through this lens requires us to hold awareness of the needs and realities of the partnership, team or group and collaboratively choose behaviours with care in ways that are deemed helpful for all.
Level 3 — Us — is the organisation, school, family system, community, or the broader social and cultural whole. These groups are also required to hold awareness of the collective needs and realities that exist within and intentionally choose helpful behaviours with care for the macro level.
Notably, wellbeing intervention is not sustainable if it only operates at one level. A program to support individual wellbeing without addressing individual needs, team dynamics or organisational culture is working against itself. A policy that reshapes organisational structure without attending to the experience of individuals on the ground will not create the change it hopes for. All three levels are always present. All three require attention.
AaBC123 holds this explicitly. The full framework — Awareness, acceptance, Behaviour with Care — is applied at each level simultaneously, acknowledging that needs at the Me level look different from needs at the We level, and that effective behaviours which support individuals may need to look quite different from those that support whole systems at the Us level.
The Moments That Matter Most
AaBC123 is designed as a fluid and responsive framework, which builds awareness, strengthens need satisfaction, supports intentional action, enhances regulatory flexibility, and fosters relational systems that enable sustainable, adaptive wellbeing to be built. This framework does not promise permanent wellbeing. Rather, it provides an opportunity to build both the individual and collective capacity for adaptive functioning within changing environments.
The science of wellbeing is clear on this much: change does not primarily happen in programs and initiatives. Change doesn’t happen to systems, it happens within systems. It happens in moments, hundreds of ordinary moments, every single day. When you take a breath before a difficult conversation. A team that pauses instead of engaging in a reactive response. An ecosystem that allows the people within to thrive.
These moments, stacked one on top of another, across a day, a week, a year, a life — this is where a culture of wellbeing is supported or thwarted. What AaBC123 hopes to offer is a framework to structure intervention that is grounded enough in what the science already knows, and practical enough for you to genuinely reach for, in exactly those moments.
AaBC123 holds this explicitly. The full framework — Awareness, acceptance, Behaviour with Care — is applied at each level simultaneously, acknowledging that needs at the Me level look different from needs at the We level, and that effective behaviours which support individuals may need to look quite different from those that support whole systems at the Us level.
The Moments That Matter Most
AaBC123 is designed as a fluid and responsive framework, which builds awareness, strengthens need satisfaction, supports intentional action, enhances regulatory flexibility, and fosters relational systems that enable sustainable, adaptive wellbeing to be built. This framework does not promise permanent wellbeing. Rather, it provides an opportunity to build both the individual and collective capacity for adaptive functioning within changing environments.
The science of wellbeing is clear on this much: change does not primarily happen in programs and initiatives. Change doesn’t happen to systems, it happens within systems. It happens in moments, hundreds of ordinary moments, every single day. When you take a breath before a difficult conversation. A team that pauses instead of engaging in a reactive response. An ecosystem that allows the people within to thrive.
These moments, stacked one on top of another, across a day, a week, a year, a life — this is where a culture of wellbeing is supported or thwarted. What AaBC123 hopes to offer is a framework to structure intervention that is grounded enough in what the science already knows, and practical enough for you to genuinely reach for, in exactly those moments.
