A Happiness Journal to Combat Unhappiness

The mindset that leads people to seek therapy is often a result of a habitual negative pattern of thinking.  Interestingly, the amount of change required to make a large impact in the way you feel is often minimal.  The hard part is having the motivation to make an initial change and then maintaining that change until it becomes a new permanent habit.  Therefore, I normally suggest that people start with a tiny insignificant change such as changing their morning coffee to tea.  While this seems like such a minor shift, it is a building point to prove to yourself that you can make change, and a very easy way to break out of your mental rut.

If you are capable of making a minor change, which everyone is despite what they may believe, I often suggest the implementation of a “happiness journal”.  Most people who feel unhappy struggle to even find the smallest positives in their day-to-day life.  They have become adept at seeking out every negative experience throughout the day and ruminating on how “unlucky” their lives have become.  I have discovered that journaling is a powerful tool in many ways.  A happiness journal is a tool that anyone can use to teach themselves how to recognize all the positive things that do occur in their day-to-day life. 

At the end of every day I suggest that people sit down and write a list of at least three things that were positive about their day. Believe it or not, this is often a struggle for people who are unhappy.  They often seek guidelines for what is acceptable as a positive item for the list and I refuse to give any.  I want them to be forced to expand their thinking to allow for all of the wonderful things that happen in their lives.  Maybe a stranger complimented your shoes. Maybe a coworker who is notoriously difficult for you to deal with was out of the office or, even better, suddenly kinder that day.  Maybe it is just that you are grateful for your spouse sticking by you even though you have not been the most pleasant person to be around lately. Maybe you saw a beautiful sunset while stuck in traffic on your way home.  I don’t really care what it is that made you feel a moment of cheer that day, I just want you to be able to recognize the positive events.

In response to this requested task, I often get complaints that people are tired and don’t want to “waste” the time at the end of their day.  Ironically, these are often the same people who struggle to fall or stay asleep.  Doing it at the end of the day is important because it allows you to go into sleep with a happier and more relaxed mindset.  It may actually help you sleep better so that you are less tired the next day.  It will also help you have a more positive feeling about a day that may have seemed overwhelmingly awful.  Another complaint is that people feel silly writing these things down.  While the goal may be that you can eventually do this in your head as you are drifting off to sleep, it is vitally important that it begin as a written exercise for two reasons.  First, writing something down will solidify it in your mind, which will have a larger emotional impact and cement something in your memory.  Second, if you have a written record, when you are feeling extremely low you can look back over previous entries to recapture some of the happiness that does exist in your life.

I know that initially this may be a difficult and time consuming task.  However, I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t find it easier in a very short amount of time and love the effect that it has on their emotions.  As you become adept at this exercise you can utilize it to boost your self-esteem by simply changing it to three things that you did well every day.  Or use it to help a marriage by coming up with three things your spouse did that made you happy that day. So pick up a pen or pencil and get started.  The only thing you have to lose is your negative viewpoint.