Happy UP! Summation

We made it!....OK...I made it. I invited you to start along with me. How did you do? Did you record your 3 good things, what caused them to happen, and why they made you feel good?...every day?....for 7 little days?

You didn't, did you?

Of course you didn't. Perhaps you joined us late. Perhaps my directions were unclear or my initial invitation wasn't inviting enough...yeah, that's right. You can blame it on me. I don't mind.

But, the neat thing is....you can start anytime you like! It's not as easy as you think. The question is: do you want to increase your HQ - Happiness Quotient? I'm not talking about your FQ (watch how you say THAT)- fun quotient. Some of you have plenty of that...it's probably why you didn't bother doing the excercise!!! You were out FQ-ing all around! Anyway, fun is not the same as happy. One of my favorite sayings is, "you don't have to be sick to get better." We can all be a bit happier.

Here's some tips from the lab rat himself who performed the Happy UP! excercise upon himself:

Get yourself a notepad. Use your journal if you are a journaler. Use your daytimer if you are a daytimer. If you are nocturnal, use your nighttimer. Get something handy.

Put sticky notes or reminders everywhere that say, "Happy UP!" - it's a reminder to you to change your focus. Start looking for the things that make you happy. You walk by a million of them everyday.

Jot down the thing that brings a little happiness into your life as you come upon
it - you don't have to analyze at this point

Make a firm appointment with yourself at the end of the day - 10 minutes. C'mon, I know you can find 10 minutes toward the tail end. If you want to do it earlier, that's great.....but you might have to update if you come across something later

Look at your list during the appointment - take the top three and describe "why" they make you happy and "how" they came into your life. The how could be totally by chance. It could be that you drove a different way to work and you saw the park in a new light....because you took a different way to work.

The key - YOU HAVE TO LOOK for the HappyUP! items. The CrappyUP items (or, I guess we should say "CrappyDOWN" items stand out like a nudist in a briar patch). CrappyDOWN, left to itself, trumps HappyUP! all day long for most of us.

The commitment - 7 days. Give me 7 solid days. Then...

Comment in - right here to Nutter's Notes. Make it your goal. You can throw the comment into my most recent HappyUp! article (yes, it's going to be a reappearing guest here at the most popular blog on the blogosphere) or to any other posting I have going. Just label it "HappyUp! Alert!" All the regulars here will know what you are talking about.

Make it a goal - "Seven days from now, I am going to post a killer HappyUP comment." (Yes, you can use "killer" in the same line as "HappyUP!")

What I found - it's a change. Changes, even good ones, can be difficult. It's why most people don't do it. Then, they go try to buy fun....on their credit card...and the fun ends when the Visa statement arrives. I've been in the credit industry for 20 years. I have met tons of fun people....but it is the happy...the content ones that I remember, admire, and want to emulate. Sure, we'll have some CrappyDOWN days...but they don't need to be CrappyDOWN weeks, months, years. Maybe we can have CrappyDown hours, minutes, moments instead.

Who knows? Find out. Get excited for the next 7 days. HappyUP! What's not to like?