What went well today and why?

Brian Johnson walks through a 10-minute evening exercise from Martin Seligman's Flourish: list three things that went well today and why. Doing this for a week trains your attention toward positives and measurably reduces depression while increasing happiness.
Chapters
Hey, guys, what's up? Good morning. This is Brian with another quick video this morning. Today we're going to look at an exercise called what went well today? What went well today and why. This is from a guy named Martin Seligman, who many of you know as one of the godfathers of the positive psychology movement, which is looking at the scientific underpinnings of how we can live with more happiness and as he puts it these days, how we can flourish. So this is an exercise from his most recent book, Flourish, which we have a philosopher's note on, and I'll do a full episode on that soon. But really cool exercise. And if you remember, several days ago, we talked about gratitude, right? And the guy named Robert Emmons told us that we can get a 25% boost in our happiness by keeping a gratitude journal. Five things we're grateful for. Really powerful. One of the easiest, most simple, elegant, robust ways to boost our happiness. Well, the what went well today exercise. It's kind of like that on Yerba mate. Pick your favorite stimulant. So here's the exercise. Basically for a week, spend 10 minutes at the end of the day and think about three things that went well and then think about why they went well. So three things that went well during your day, right? Just kind of recap it at night. What went well today and why did it go well? It can be mundane things like, you know, your spouse did the dishes. Why they do that? Because they're a good person and they care about you and they care about keeping the house clean and doing things that, you know you like and stuff like that. Yesterday we had a what went well? We launched our first virtual conference with Mastin Kip. We did his daily love extravaganza. 25,000 people signed up for that. Went off without a hitch. Really proud of that and excited about that. Why did that go well? Well, our team rocked it. Maston put together a great show and the behind the scenes team with Entheos just, they worked hard. You know, we took so much pride in doing a great job. That's the why. Now, when I ask myself these questions, whether it's journaling at night, which I often do, or thinking about it right before I go to bed, which I often do, or talking about it on hikes with Alexandra, which we often do, it basically entrains your brain to look for the things that are going well in your life versus the things that aren't going well. Then you also see all the amazing kind of reasons why they're working you move from kind of a victim mentality to a creator, and you move into a deep sense of gratitude and for how these things are working well. And you also identify the things that you're doing that are helping you achieve things that are going well. So it's a really cool exercise. Super simple. What went well today and why? We know scientifically from Seligman and his colleagues, this is one of the key ways to flourish, to focus on those things that are really working in our lives and then to identify why. So give it a shot. If you're feeling it takes, take some time. Right now, press pause. Think about three things that went well yesterday or maybe so far in your day to day, from the mundane to the awesome, and think about why. And then get in the habit of thinking about these things often. Use your gratitude. Flex your gratitude muscle and just really appreciate all the things that are working in your life. So there you go. Quick video. What went well today and why? Guarantee you. And the science proves that if you did this for a week, you'd probably want to do it for a lot longer. And as Seligman says, your depression will go down, your happiness will increase, and your overall sense of well being will be magnified and optimized. So there you go. What went well today? Why? Have an awesome day. See ya.
More from Brian

Heroic +1: What’s THE Most Creative Act in the Universe?: Turning Around Glitches (#2024)









