Welcome!
Before You Begin
Get a sense of where you are
Reconstruct your last 24 hours: Download journal page
Take the Positivity Self-Test by Barbara L. Fredrickson, PhD: Download the PDF or take the test online.
(Save your positivity ratio in a safe place for later!)
Core Practices
Here are the 5 practices developed and researched by Shawn Achor. You will be aiming to complete these practices each day for 21 days.
How you work with these is UP TO YOU. You can work with all 5 if that seems doable, or you can pick one or two to take on for this challenge. You are also free to modify them in a way that makes this more fun and manageable for you. Have fun with it!
Get Your Things Together
This is the heart of the challenge: to complete these practices daily for 21 days. If you live with others, you can also multiply the positive effects by getting others involved. Share your gratitudes around the dinner table!
Download and print tools to help remind you of the practices and keep track of your completion: Download the Journal Page & Tracker
You can print out 21 copies of the Journal Page to write on, or if you already have an established journal, you can just use this as a reference sheet.
For the Tracker Page, you can post these practices in places where you will see them, and use the tracker to mark off what you’ve completed. If you are a perfectionist, beware! :) There’s no need to use these tools as another “to do” or a stressor. Let’s keep this easy, and fun! If it seems intimidating, pare it down, and if you miss a day, give yourself a hug and know that tomorrow is a new day. <3
If you’d like a short (3-minute) meditation to begin with, here is mine!
Make things more fun…
Add interaction & Sharing if you like!
Join in on social media
As you go, it’s fun to share your journey with friends online. If this is fun for you, post photos of your gratitudes, tell about a Random Act of Kindness that was a delight, share about how this is affecting your perspective, and so on.
And when you do, I would LOOOOOOVE to see your posts! Please use the hashtag #joyfullivingchallenge and tag me at @weflourishandbloom on Instagram, or tag me on Facebook. You can also follow my IG and FB to see my posts about my journey, and search the hashtag #joyfullivingchallenge to see what other people post.
Tell the group about it!
If you’re not so into social media, but you’d still like to share, you can also enter your gratitudes via this little form. Then you can check out all the group’s responses on this spreadsheet.
Email Me!
I’m interested in knowing how this goes, and you can always email me at hello@katiedutcher.com or just reply to emails you receive from me.
Resources & Inspirations
Podcast Interview with Shawn Achor all about the research behind these practices.
Podcast Interview with Brother David Steindl-Rast on Gratitude
Meditations from Katie:
Great Books:
Positivity, Barbara L. Fredrickson, PhD
The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor
Happiness is an Inside Job, Sylvia Boorstein
The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin
Atomic Habits, James Clear
