The focus of Act Happy Week is to educate the public about purposeful actions you can take to create chemical shifts in your body that drive Positive Emotions. Here is today’s exercise: Day 1: Smile On Purpose Smiling initiates a complex shift of muscles, breath, and body chemistry (you release endorphins!) that creates a more … Read more
A few weeks ago I delivered one of my core talks, “Five Prescriptions for Living and Leading in a Turbulent World” to an enthusiastic audience. One of the participants approached me after the program to say, “Jim, I’ve been a subscriber for over a year, and I’ve never read anything about these 13 Principles of … Read more
Are you already failing on your resolutions? Here’s why: The world often places obstacles on our path to happiness in life and work. But you know what? We often do a lot more to mess up our own happiness. I see this in my coaching clients all the time, and you are probably doing some … Read more
Every day, people buy too much stuff, eat too much food, and waste away their hours chasing after happiness…to no avail. They may find excitement or satiation, but TRUE HAPPINESS still eludes them. Fortunately, happiness is really inexpensive and pretty simple to find, but that doesn’t mean that it comes easily. If you’re bold, and … Read more
Over time, fear, exhaustion and shame can dim the brightest of lights, and that is why you must, at all times, do what you can to keep that flame inside burning bright, choose the path of light and love, and allow your brilliance to be seen. Fortunately, there are plenty of tools that you can … Read more
I am a gardener. My kids got me started years ago with a few tomato and pepper plants in a small strip of ground; we have evolved to large raised beds that generate hundreds of pounds of produce annually. Over time we have battled flooding (thus the raised beds), drought (we now have a watering system), … Read more
One of my mantras is that you — and you alone — are responsible for your own happiness, that it is your decision. And if no one else can “make” you happy, it stands to reason that you cannot make other people happy either. Right? Well, sort of. Just because you can’t make someone … Read more
This video animation offers a great primer on the difference between traditional psychology and Positive Psych. In many ways, it’s taken directly from many of my talks — of course the reality is that I studied with Martin Seligman and Mihaly Czikszentmihaly and apparently learned this explanation directly from the source. The core message: Creating … Read more
How do you feed your soul? Do you grab pre-packaged Pleasure from the freezer, microwave it, and eat on the run; or do you cook up your Joy from scratch using organic, locally-sourced ingredients? Perhaps you have a saucepan of Gratitude constantly simmering on a back burner? Or do you wait for others to invite you … Read more
If you are totally organized and always know what you need to do next, always have control of your tasks, and always correctly forecast how long something will take… I am insanely jealous of your skillset. Starting last October, even as I started to declare 2013 as my Year of Happiness (my 15th anniversary in … Read more