New Challenge

This morning, I while eating my breakfast, I was browsing through some of the blogs I read, I came across this story on chookooloonks.com about another one of the TEDtalks.
The youtube video is called "Shawn Achor: The Happy Secret to Better Work."  You should definitely go watch this video, because he says things much more poetically than I will restate them. And I will take what I need from the video, and you may get something entirely different from it.  I watched the video and I agree with his basic point.

I think that maybe I already tend to live my life that way, or at least, I try to.  I kind of live by this  motto; If there is nothing you can do to control the outcome, if it is out of your control, then why are you stressing about it? Give it to the Universe, cuz everything works out the way it was meant to anyway, even if you don't like the outcome. Try to find the positive in every situation, what can you learn from this, how can you grow as a human being.  ~At least that's how I try to live! Does it always work out for me, NO!!! Am I always a ray of sunshine and happiness? NO!! May I possibly require a SADD light to get through the depressing winters here in Michigan? YES! Have there been times in my life when I thought the pain and sadness might just consume me? YES! My life has been far from perfect, and I found a  lot of unhealthy ways to deal with things in the past. Some of the ways I dealt have had a few good times and laughs attached to them but at the end of the day they have a lot more regrets   attached to them. Wait regrets is the wrong word, I regret nothing in life! From every bad decision comes a life lesson and it helps to create who you are as an individual. I'm not sure what the right word is, maybe baggage is the right word.  You make bad decisions and you have to drag that around with you for a long time, or until you figure out how to unload it. ANYWAY, my point is that life is not perfect but being unhappy and stressed can not fix it, so I try my best to be as happy as I can, as often as I can..

Back to his video... he talked about how our brains work better in a positive state, called the happiness advantage. Being happy puts your mind in a better place to learn and create and do better work and lots of other things. I think that he is very right but I also think that when it comes to naturally creative people it kind of goes both ways. You need to be creating to be happy, to some degree. Even if you are making crap work, you have to make something, or your mind becomes overloaded with the unhappy bugs{I'm sure science has a name for those} and they take over!! For a lot of creative people art{in any form} is an escape. When I was younger all I ever wanted to be was an artist. I drew, I painted{with the little cheap watercolor sets, the ones for little kids,cuz we were poor and that's all I could get} I loved art class and when my guidance counselor told me I couldn't be an artist, I needed a real career choice, something that could make money and I needed to go to college, I was totally bummed out. But obviously she knew more than me, she was sitting in an office, with a desk, wearing a suit. And no one told me she was wrong.  No one told me I had other options, or that I was good at what I did. So I did other things, I stopped drawing and painting.  And by the time someone did tell me I was good at it, I didn't believe them. Thankfully there were other artistic influences in my life like music, that helped me deal with a lot of my issues, and I'm not saying that lack of art in my life was the only factor to me being unhappy, I'm saying that it's presence may have helped me stay happier, may have been an outlet for my anger and other less wonderful emotions.   At some point in my life I decided I knew more about myself than anyone else, that I was gonna live my life my way,  and that they had all been wrong. That art of any kind, good or bad,  was a driving force for me.  That I needed to create, and it gave me great satisfaction. Is my work awesome, NO! Not yet. Am I still exploring the world to find what I enjoy doing, yep! Probly always will be. Do I wish I were great at something? YES! But I'm HAPPY just doing what I do.

Back to his video again... {I do get sidetracked, don't I???} What I liked about his message was this, a 21 Day Challenge... Try these things for 21 days and you will see that you are retraining your brain to be happy.

3 Gratitudes ~each day, retain pattern of seeing the positives first
Journaling ~one positive experience you've had within 24 hours, relive it
Exercise ~teaches your brain, your behavior matters
Meditation ~get over the cultural ADHD we've created, allowing us to focus on one task
Random Acts of Kindness ~write one positive email, or praising or thanking one person in social support network
That is the very rough version of what he had to say, and I think I will give it a try... who's in with me??? I think Meditation and Random Acts of Kindness will be the hardest part for me!! I'm not big on meditation, I usually just fall asleep, and I try not to multitask anyway, cuz I suck at it!!   And well I'm not really very good at being kind!!!

But I can do gratitude and journaling and I'm working on exercise anyway. So I guess on top of all those crazy Resolutions for 2012, I just took on a 21 day challenge... BUT if being happier can give me a Happiness Advantage and help me create or do better work than I'm in!!!

***Todays goals are to hit that To-Do list hard, do some research for ideas on my One Little Word prompt for Feb. and get to the gym.