This Wednesday: How to feel happier BY THE END OF THE DAY: Your menu of options.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: How to be happier BY THE END OF THE DAY: Your menu of options.

Do you need a happiness boost—right now? If so, take a look at this menu of options and make your choices. Remember, the more you tackle, the bigger the boost you’ll receive.

When you’re feeling blue, it can be hard to muster up the physical and mental energy to do the things that make you happier. Plunking down in front of the TV or digging into a tub of ice cream seems like an easier fix.

However, research shows (and you know it’s true) that these aren’t the routes to feeling better. Try some choices below. The more you push yourself, the better you’ll feel; but if you can’t tackle a big task, just do something small. Even a little step in the right direction will give you a lift.

According to my ground-breaking happiness formula, to be happy, you need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth. What’s dragging you down? Is it a lack of fun, of connection? Do you feel a lot of guilt, boredom, or anger? Do you feel that something’s “not right” about your life? Do you feel stagnant or stuck? Focus your efforts on the choices that will do the most to address what’s not working in your life.

Your menu of choices -- commit to doing as many items as you can:

Friends
__ call or email one of your closest friends
__ call or email three friends to whom you haven’t spoken in a while
__ track down an old friend who has drifted out of your life (I just did this a few days ago, zoikes)

Fun
__ add a fun thing to your calendar
__ add a fun thing to your calendar that involves other people
__ add a fun thing to your calendar that involves other people doing something outside

Challenge
__ think of a subject that you wish you knew more about (be honest! something that really interests you!) and spend 15 minutes on the internet reading about it
__ take a step toward acquiring a new skill that you want – research Italian classes in your neighborhood, order Photoshop for Dummies
__ if you absolutely can’t think of one single subject that interests you, visit two bookstores (one huge, one independent) and browse until some book catches your attention – and buy it

Do good, feel good
__ sign up to be an organ donor, and remember to tell your family
__ give $25 or more to a worthy cause
__ sign up to volunteer or participate in an organization

Energy
__ walk around the block
__ take a twenty-five-minute walk
__ go the gym or go for a run

Order
__ clear out the space around your computer
__ clear out a closet
__ walk through your house with a garbage bag, and clear clutter until the bag is full of trash; then walk around again and fill a new bag with things to be given away; repeat

Guilt
__ make a dentist’s or doctor’s appointment that you’ve been putting off
__ reach out to a family member whom you’ve been neglecting
__ make something right: apologize, confess, repair, replace, or return something you borrowed

Nagging tasks
__ clean out some old emails that you haven’t answered
__ stop off at the drugstore to buy supplies you need
__ stop off at the hardware store to buy supplies you need
__ fix something broken

Good citizen
__ Throw away someone else’s litter
__ Be helpful to an elderly person or a person with small kids
__ Be friendly to a store clerk who seems grouchy

Gratitude
__ Reflect on the following quotation, from Marjorie William’s Woman at the Washington Zoo:

We could hear her friends pull up to the curb. As her momentum carried her to the top of the stairs, Alice looked back and tossed me a radiant smile. She had become my glimmering girl: She looked like a rock star. She looked like a teenager. She looked absolutely stunning. She thundered down the stairs in those shoes, and as the front door slammed behind her, it came to me—what fantasy I had finally, easily entered this Halloween.

I’d just seen Alice leave for her prom, or her first real date. I’d cheated time, flipping the calendar five or six years into the future. The character I’d played was the fifty-two-year-old mother I will probably never be.

It was effortless.

Editor’s Note: A month after Marjorie wrote this, her oncologist concluded that there was no further treatment to recommend. Marjorie died, at home, on January 16, 2005, three days after her forty-seventh birthday.

__ Reflect on the following quotation, Winston Churchill to the House of Commons, June 4, 1940:

We shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do.
…
Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender; and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and liberation of the Old.

__ Reflect on the following quotation, from Thomas Arnold, diary, June 5, 1842:

[Of reading the newspaper] “So much of sin and so much of suffering in the world, as are there displayed, and no one seems able to remedy either. And then the thought of my own private life, so full of comforts, is very startling.”

At the end of the day, look back on your list. Did you hit all the items you checked off? Do you feel happier?

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Via the Very Short List (very short, very fun, I just signed up for the daily notices), I discovered the wonderful Strange Maps, which has a wonderful collection of...strange maps. My favorite is the map of the United States, with the states renamed as countries with similar GDPs.

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Comments

[Dwayne Melancon]

That's what I needed - "just in time happiness!" Thanks for a great challenge.

[Debi]

On my "Do Good, Feel Good" list is clicking through the charities linked at at The Breast Cancer Site

http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=2

It's free and it helps fund mammograms, feed the hungry, provide health care and books to children, save rainforests, and provide food to animal shelters, and takes just a couple of minutes.

[adora]

I always find joy when I finish even the smallest home repair project. My toilet had running water noise. I got a smaller flapper and the noise is completely gone. It's strangely satisfying.

I suppose the readers of this blog aren't gamers, but LOCOROCO is worth checking out! It's got the happiest music on earth! The game is about a blob eating berries to become bigger blob to defect the invader. (OK, it sounds geeky) I always get instant boost of joy when I play the game.
http://www.us.playstation.com/LocoRoco/

[n]

Your list is interesting, but just a thought. . . it makes some assumptions: that you have friends and/or family nearby to visit/make plans with, that you are well off enough to walk around your home and find enough to fill three trash bags to get rid of, take Italian classes. buy books, CDs etc. For many people the lack of these (loved ones, money) is what causes unhappiness in the first place.

[n]

Your list is interesting, but just a thought. . . it makes some assumptions: that you have friends and/or family nearby to visit/make plans with, that you are well off enough to walk around your home and find enough to fill three trash bags to get rid of, take Italian classes. buy books, CDs etc. For many people the lack of these (loved ones, money) is what causes unhappiness in the first place.

[Gretchen Rubin]

N -- you are absolutely right. If you have no friends or family to call or visit, the very first thing on your list should be to figure out some way to connect with other people. Studies show, and common sense shows too, tht this is THE MOST IMPORTANT element to happiness -- connection to other people.

[James Soh]

Hi Gretchen,

I always feel happy when I help someone. Be it physically, via email, via my blog, a phone call or anyway possible. It just makes my day. :)

[Rabar]

Hi Gretchen:
I thought my purring exercise might be useful on your list:
PURRING TO NIRVANA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvyW3-2QSeQ

The OBEATA Project's mission (see URL above)
is basically to find the 'Universal Panacea.'
Purring works very well, but hard to do at the office unless you can learn the subvocal version.
Other possibles are listed on the website.
I would now include walking barefoot on bare earth or sand - or grass. There's a microbe in dirt - M.vaccae - that seems to have anti-depressant qualities. "Discover" Magazine's "RawData" page in their Science and Islam" issue had a write-up titled "Is Dirt the new Prozac?".
www.discovermagazine.com (July issue)

[David B. Bohl at ReflectionsCoachingLLC.com]

Gretchen,

Great post. We all need reminders.

Friends: I try to "phone a friend" or business colleague each and every day. Sometimes they're too busy to talk, and other times I ring into voicemail, but I try to keep in touch instead of falling into the "we really should get together sometime" mode.

I try to email two or three friends each day to find out what they're up to.

I try at least once a week to track down an old friend at my school's alumni site or through other friend finder sites. And I try to reach out through Cambers of Commerce and other networking organizations to past acquaintances that I might have lost touch with.

Fun: I had a wretched day yesterday, and 5:00 PM came and went. My kids, both of whom are college-aged and home for the summer, called and asked me to meet them at the new cinema house that had just opened. They asked me to trust them.

Now, I could have said "No thanks" and plodded through all the work that I couldn't get through yesterday that needed to be done, but instead I trusted them.

I found them at the dinner theater where we saw Harry Potter's The Order of the Phoenix while enjoying a nice meal. This was made extra-special by the facts that: I needed to get away from work and my kids knew it, we hadn't spent much family time together this week because my wife was out of town, I'm the guy who always sits in a crowded movie theater in front of the kid who kicks the seat in front of him throughout the movie and previews, and whose parents are oblivious to this fact, we've seen every Harry Potter movie as a family since they debuted when my youngest was 12, and my kids took the time, initiative, and action to care about and do something about all of these things.

Life is good when I simply take the time to focus on what's important.

[Tanya]

I had to agree with "n"'s comments the first time I read them...then the forced me to look at the list in a new way. Maybe we can't all afford a new book or CD but most of us can afford a few bucks at a used book store - and can gain extra satisfaction from the "recycle" process involved. And libraries are free! ...Maybe we don't all have relatives living nearby, but writing a letter to someone far away is a sadly lost simple pleasure...and if you really can't afford to find three garbage bags of stuff in your home that you don't need, how about just sitting on yout couch for a few moments and being glad you didn't get sucked into buying all that stuff that just ended up as clutter?