Positive Mobility
entry by Julie M. Marx, Global Family Expert at Expat Valley
An orientation toward international relocation that emphasizes the developmental, relational, and experiential opportunities that mobility creates, alongside an honest acknowledgment of its challenges. Positive mobility frameworks are used in coaching, education, and family support contexts to support intentional, growth-oriented engagement with the internationally mobile life rather than passive endurance of it.
Comparable terms
Intentional mobility (coaching — emphasizes agency and purposeful engagement) · Thriving on the move (community, coaching — informal; emphasizes active flourishing) · Mobile resilience (coaching — combines mobility and resilience framing) · Proactive relocation (HR/mobility — emphasizes planning and agency)
Why this matters
Positive mobility is not about pretending everything is fine. It invites families to ask, “How can we use this life well?” rather than just endure it. This framing supports agency, creativity, and more honest conversations about trade‑offs.
Cross-references
Flourishing (Wellbeing & Mental Health); Resilience (Wellbeing & Mental Health); Sense of Agency (Wellbeing & Mental Health); Meaning-Making (Wellbeing & Mental Health); SIE (Transitions & Mobility). Flourishing is the wellbeing outcome that positive mobility most ambitiously aims toward; resilience is the psychological capacity that makes positive engagement with mobility possible; sense of agency and meaning-making are the two psychological processes most directly associated with transforming mobility from something that happens to a person into something a person authors. SIEs are among the populations most likely to embody positive mobility, having chosen international life independently rather than being organizationally assigned to it.
Sources
“Positive mobility” is in practitioner and coaching use but lacks a single foundational academic source under this specific term. The concept draws on positive psychology frameworks, particularly Seligman, M.E.P. (2011). Flourish. Free Press, applied to the relocation context. The most applicable mobility-specific source is: Pascoe, R. (2000). Homeward Bound: A Spouse’s Guide to Repatriation. Expatriate Press; and Pascoe, R. (2006). Raising Global Nomads. Expatriate Press.
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