Do You Accept The Challenge?!

    I just watched a video and read an article of Shawn Achor talking about how to be a happier person. In the article, Mr. Achor pointed out that many people base their happiness on success, he then said to look at all the famous actors of Hollywood and see how many of them are actually happy. I never thought of this! I, for one, am definitely guilty of saying “I’ll be happy when…” but then once I achieve that, “I will be even happier when…” I never realized how toxic that can truly be. In the video, he tells a story about how his sister “magically” falls off her bunk bed and hurts herself, and he consoles her and tells her she must be a unicorn based on the way she landed. After this entertaining story, he relates it back to the main idea of the video which is the advances in positive psychology. Positive psychology focuses on avoiding being average and focusing on being different. He encourages people to focus on the positives, rather than the next challenge. Mr. Achor then says that only 25% of jobs are acquired based on IQ, while the other 75% is based on positivity, performance, happiness, and intelligence. At the end of his video and article, Mr. Achor discusses five different things you can do for 21 days to train your brain to be more positive. The 21 days challenge is to pick one of these ways, and to focus on it, and do it.

The five things are:

1. Write down three new things you are grateful for each day.

2. Write for 2 minutes a day describing one positive experience you had over the past 24 hours.

3. Exercise for 10 minutes a day.

4. Meditate for 2 minutes, focusing on your breath going in and out.

5. Write one, quick email first thing in the morning thanking or praising a member on your team.

I am very interested in taking part in the 21 day challenge. For the next 21 days, I am going to write down three things I am grateful for, because Mr. Achor says that this will help my brain to look for the positive things in life automatically rather than the negative. Any of these activities would be beneficial to someone who is in search of happiness, and let’s be honest, who isn’t? Doing any one of these things for 21 days will help improve your mental health and in effect, make you a happier person.