Your Odds of Happiness Go UP

IF… you commit to a 21-Day Prison Break

Prison, you ask? But I am not in prison.

Maybe yes, maybe no. Let me ask you this. Do you get frequently twisted up in knots of indecision? Feel unforeseen waves of sadness? Spend time dodging hail size doubt? Have neck and shoulders issues that won’t go away?

Stare at the contents of the kitchen cabinet, hoping, against all odds, that a small talking creature with warm loving eyes will pop out from behind the breakfast cereal and offer you a hug instead of letting you eat your umpteenth handful of chocolate covered almonds?

If you have replied yes to any of these questions or like me, to all of them, there is a distinct possibility you are unwittingly trapped in a prison of your very own making.

Congratulations! Awareness if half the battle… sort of.

Now, how to get out.

Having spent a good deal of time recently studying mindful awareness and researching various psychological aspects of neuroscience I have discovered a few things.

Here’s one particularly captivating fact: It takes 21 days for your brain to form a habit, for your brain to rewire itself. It takes thee weeks to shift a behavior from one, which requires conscious effort to one, which becomes rote.

Neurons that fire together wire together.

The evidence is everywhere from brain studies to TED talks to best-selling books: Happiness can actually be hard-wired. This is great news. However, happiness, at least for me, is a kind of triple edged sword.

At below 63% personal confidence, when I hear someone say they are happy I think one of three things.

Either one, they’ve managed to lose ten pounds without getting the stomach flu; two, they are currently engaged in a highly creative project with brilliant, kind people for which they are being abundantly compensated with awards, praise and money; or three, and most likely, they are completely full of shit and it is all for show.

If I am feeling above 63% confident but below 74% I think this:

They actually lost the weight because of their tremendous discipline, resiliency and passionate zest for life– something I am currently lacking and may not be the kind of person that will ever be fully capable.

Perhaps they are not engaged in the perfect project BUT that is actually NOT getting them down or making them feel poorly about themselves because they truly get what matters most–

Love, health and the beauty of simply being alive. The smell of Autumn apples and cardinal song– the simple pleasures of home baked bread with fresh butter (that miraculously isn’t fattening because it isn’t eaten by the loaf).

If, and this is a rare one, I am feeling between 75% and 100% confident…

I don’t care! I hope everyone’s happy! Because I am not comparing myself to anyone! And the happier everyone else is, the less likely they are to interfere with mine.

Okay then, this is merely to point out that I am not poised at any kind of unfair advantage when I tell you what my family and I are about to test out that I invite YOU to join us on!

You can either call it… The Prison Break or The Happiness Project. Or both depending on the day.

The goal is happiness.

By happiness, I simply mean feeling kind, calm, grateful, loving and whole a tiny bit more of the time and freaked out, stressed and worried a lot less.

Less panicked you are running out of time. And more relaxed that you’ll do what you can with the time you have. And that’s totally okay.

Less afraid you are not doing, giving, producing and accomplishing enough. And more warrior-like because you are acting bravely from your heart.

Okay here’s the plan. One goal. Three weeks. Five steps each day.

ONE intention you set for the day.

We’ve done this particular experiment before and it is kind of amazing that if you set an intention for the day your mind actually begins scanning opportunities for you to take advantage of accomplishing it. Here are my family’s examples for today.

Joe: Communicate with clarity. Act with integrity.

Leo: Don’t be stressed. Feel calm. (in relation to tests and unexpected doozies)

Finn: Do whatever it takes to get my name in the good box at school (a.k.a. toy box)

Me: Try to see what is shining in what is there, (not ways it can be improved)

TWO random or conscious acts of kindness.

These needn’t be big. The point is kindness. Send an e-mail to a colleague or friend telling them how much you value them. Hold a door open for everyone going through. Buy a coffee for someone who looks they might be down.

Lie down and love your dog for a long time.

THREE examples of GRATITUDE

Again, you simply set your brain in a different mode of searching. Instead of our usual scanning for what goes wrong and how we can fix it, we scan the world for things going right, things we love, things for which we feel thankful.

This time it is what goes right and how we can

FOUR seconds of POSITIVE PAUSE

This is connected to number three. It simply means not just checking the “I noticed something I feel grateful for” box and moving on. It means not only noticing it but focusing on it for long enough that we can remember it and be able to talk about it at dinner.

This will suck a whopping twelve seconds, out of your day.

This part is neurologically vital because by taking the time to really register the event, it allows your brain to switch the memory from short term to long term which increases your positive storage tank!

FIVE minutes (or even seconds) of MINDFUL AWARENESS

The point is simply to become aware of all the craziness that goes on in your mind at one time.

Even for five seconds a day, if you become aware of what is racing through your brain rather than simply reacting to it, you realize that these thoughts are not actually the boss of you!

You can thank them for stopping by but release them back into the ether they came from and focus more often on what serves you, including the possible bliss of tuning out all thoughts and tuning into the sensory input around you– color, sounds, etc.

21 days starting tomorrow. You in?

Photo credit: Scott Hayman