The 21 Day Challenge

My college roommate, Annie, shared an inspiring TEDx talk on happiness and success by Shawn Achor (leading Tyler and I to watch a series of other great TED talks, another good one being Dan Gilbert's talk on how poor humans are at understanding what will make us happy).

Shawn discusses (in an extremely humorous way) how 90% of long-term happiness is not based on the external world, but how our mind processes the external world.  He discusses his surprise as an undergrad at Harvard, how few students were happy; how the initial happiness of getting in wears out within two weeks, replaced by anxiety and stress. 

He revisits the traditional equation that first, we have to be successful; then we become happy.  He cites a "happiness advantage" whereby if we can get our minds to be happy in the present, then we become more successful.

But unlike other TED talks that end at bringing up thought-provoking ideas, Shawn gives a toolkit for rewiring your brain for a lasting positive change.  Done for 21 days in a row, he posits that these tools can train your brain to be more positive:

1) Gratitude: find 3 new things each day to be grateful for 

2) Journaling: write about one positive experience in the last 24 hours

3) Exercise

4) Meditation

5) Random or conscious acts of kindness, e.g. thanking or praising someone

Hence, the 21 Day Challenge!  His words make sense to me, so I figured I'd give it a try!  I started yesterday; stay tuned on April 2nd and let's see!!