This weekend we watched a very inspiring speaker talk about happiness and success in life. Shawn Achor, a leading expert on happiness and human potential, teaches that if your pursue happiness first, you increase your chances of reaching your goals and feeling successful. He is CEO of Good Think Inc. – a consulting firm that shares this powerful information to leaders across the world. For little me at home, he has 5 steps to practice for 21 days (to form habits). 5 steps that will help create lasting positive change to promote happiness and success. I’m super excited for this challenge! I am a big believer that happiness is a choice, and that choice has a positive domino effect on a person’s life. So here are the 5 steps – I encourage you all to try this as well for 21 days, to form the habits, and reap the rewards!

1. Write down 3 new things you are grateful for – research shows this improves your optimism

2. Write down 1 positive experience you have had in the last 24 hrs – this gets you to look for meaning in your life rather than tasks

3. Exercise for 10 minutes (min) – this releases endorphins that boost your self-esteem

4. Meditate for two minutes (min)  and concentrate on your breathing – slow, deep breathing decreases stress and raises happiness

5. Send one positive note, email, etc. to someone to thank or praise them – this increases your feeling of social support ( a key factor in happiness)

22 Jul This entry was published on July 22, 2013 at 7:59 am. It’s filed under General Fun and tagged Exercise, Goals, Gratitude, Happiness, happiness is a choice, human potential, Journal, Meditate, Positive Change, Random Acts of Kindness, reaching your goals, Shawn Achor, Success. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.