Michael

Nat and I are developing short brochures with exercises to help in your pursuit of happiness. You can download a PDF version of the blog text below.

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Nearly all of us can list activities that make us happy. It might be listening to favorite songs, or playing with the dog, or cooking Mexican food. Some of these are easy to do. You can do them any time or any place. They don’t cost a lot of money.

Create a list of these activities and carry it with you. Then, if you start to feel sad or anxious, you can pull out your list and do one of the things that makes you feel good.

EXERCISE:

1. Write down 10 activities that make you happy (jogging in the park, picking flowers, eating a sandwich from your favorite deli, calling your best friend)
2. Add 10 more activities to your list
3. Rate each item from 1-10, where 10 means that every time you do this you feel great and 1 means this activity makes you feel good some of the time but not always
4. Cross out every activity that you rate lower than 8
5. Copy all items with a score of 8 or greater to a new list
6. Put this list in a place that you nearly always have with you (your wallet or purse, your car)
7. Take it out and look at it before you leave the house in the morning
8. Plan when you are going to do the next one on your list
9. Do one each day
10. [EXTRA CREDIT] Write out for each activity everything you enjoy about doing it (It is very important to know why something makes you happy)

Happiness is a habit. Your written inventory of activities that make you feel good makes it easy for you to cultivate the habit.

Michael