Happiness Exercise

Try this. Ask a friend, colleague, or group to tell stories about times when they were happy. Just listen and encourage everyone else to listen. Join yourself. Then do the same about times when they and you made someone else happy. You will be astonished at how interesting, inspiring and enjoyable this will be!

We did this with some friends and found that the hard part was choosing which happy experience to share. That is an excellent problem. We also learned that making other people happy was, if anything, a better way to be happy yourself, which is exciting.

This will work just as well with a big group. Just get people into groups of four or five and proceed as above. I ran an event for fifty people from many different cultures, and it was a delight.

I used the same exercise at the start of a meeting to build relationships between people from two organisations. It worked astonishingly well. The people realised how much they had in common, and this helped them build strong cooperation and trust.

Here’s a moving story from someone who learned about this recently.

It, of course helped me too….listening with open heart….open ears….letting her ‘unfurl’…..physically she seemed to do this…amazing!

I will be using this ‘oh so simple’ idea……in my day to day life…

I loved it!!”

This is a very simple application of the principles of Appreciative Inquiry. You get what you look for.