I was watching a video today of a presentation made by Shawn Achor. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the version I watched anywhere, but there’s a similar presentation on YouTube (which isn’t as good, of course). I decided to include a link to the third part of the “backup version” in here, so to speak, because I think it’s worth watching.
Out of that list of ways to enhance our happiness, the easiest seems like the gratitudes. (I could write a journal, but I tried that in Norway and ran out of steam pretty quickly… it’s tough when it takes me four single-spaced pages in a Word file to recap the events of the day.) So for the next 21 days, I’m going to write five things I’m grateful for. He recommends doing them first thing in the morning, but there are days when first thing in the morning for me is get dressed, grab food and run out the door. And some days, grabbing food isn’t on that list, either.
You’re all welcome to join me and, if you’re not sure where to start, you’re all welcome to reference a blog entry I wrote back in 2006: Reasons to be thankful. You can think of the grown-up ones, you can think of the simple ones—just be sure that you’re grateful for them.
Today’s list:
- Mountain Dew — I like the flavor, it’s got caffeine and I hate coffee. I mean HAAAAAAAAAAAATE coffee.
- Peter Stark — The professor for my Leadership course in the MBA program. He’s a smart guy. I learned a lot.
- My warm bed at night — Sleep is awesome.
- Sunshine — It’s bright, shiny, warm and a nice contrast to the recent gloomy, cloudy Memorial Day weekend.
- Friendship — ‘Cause I get by with a little help from my friends.