I hope you’re having a beautiful day. ♡
Here’s another light-filled ¤ Gem ¤
“Exercise to stimulate, not to annihilate. The world wasn’t formed in a day, and neither were we. Set small goals and build upon them.”
-Lee Haney
If you’re following the 21-day Creative Writing Challenge ii (CWCii) on my Niki Flow blog, you’ll probably recognize this quote. I’m using the same quotes as those in the challenge, but we’re two days behind because of the weekend. That will happen twice more before the challenge is over. There are 4-5 quotes in each of the five categories (Gratitude, Journaling, Exercise, Meditation and Connection). Once I have all 21 quotes, I’ll make a video. I’ve been wanting to create this challenge based on Shaun Achor’s “Five Steps and 21 Days to Happiness at Work” ever since I saw his TED Talk on happiness ten years ago. I am finally getting it done.
Here are the links and some notes about each video:
- Gratitude
https://youtu.be/_BRzsXWHOhs For 21 days, type on a document three new things every day for which you’re grateful. After 21 days pessimists start testing as low optimists. After six months, the ame people who were originally testing as pessimists test as low to moderate optimists. This teaches you to become skilled at scanning the world for positives. - Journaling
https://youtu.be/BVeQO0Fb954 For two minutes in a document, write down one meaningful experience that happened in the last 24 hours — a conversation with a co-worker, a good book, time spent with a child, a sunset. This one step is “…THE most powerful intervention that we have on record right now for raising other people’s perception of your positive charisma…” and leadership capabilities. - Exercise
https://youtu.be/IY4P5QWds9Q It’s not about the dopamine. It’s because exercise changes long-term behavior. It influences our “Tetris effect” which “occurs when people devote so much time and attention to an activity that it begins to pattern their thoughts, mental images, and dreams. It takes its name from the video game Tetris.” Many positive behaviors follow because they’re built upon the first belief: “My behavior matters.” - Meditation
https://youtu.be/DVUxATu7ey8 “Meditation helps us focus on one thing at a time and combats the wasteful habit of ‘multi-tasking.’ Focusing on two or more things at once greatly lowers performance in each. Instead, meditation trains us to sharpen focus on multiple tasks, even while switching between tasks. Those who meditate two minutes a day tested significantly higher in performing multiple tasks than the group that traditional tests highest – teenagers. - Social Connection
https://youtu.be/KTqQzTJWZUk “Every morning for two minutes, before opening our email, write a letter of gratitude and appreciation to one person. Over 21 days, this increases meaningful social support which significantly raises happiness levels. These levels begin to rise with the first letter because we remember the letter all day and are uplifted by the connection and by our words of thanks.”
That ↑ is the CWCii challenge, in a nutshell — that is — the first prompt for each day. There are three prompts daily, total. It’s never too late to join.
In the meantime, if you’re looking for prompts, all of my creative writing (ii), creative writing (i), memoir, fantasy, sci-fi, and HFY prompts on my Niki Flow blog and on my Instagram account will always be available (as well as the graphics) to anyone who wants to use them. Please just give me a link back if you do. If you do look on IG the tag is #100hoursin30daysgoal.
♥ n.f.
under1000skies 