Living Your Best Life

Part One: Active Constructive Responding to Myself: Research on positive psychology shows that noticing and focusing on positive things that happen to you each day increases your happiness and life satisfaction. If we practice this on a repeated basis, our brain develops neuroplasticity or is rewired to see glass mostly as half full, rather than half empty. The habit of noticing the positive aspect of life may lead to better long term health, greater resilience, ability to recognize more opportunities, and increased leadership skills. Notice five things that went well each week and write them down in your journal by the end of each week. These five things might be in any aspect of life you care about: school, relationships, work, weather, sports, hobbies. Part Two: Active Constructive Responding to Others: Google managers have found out that grateful Google employees tend to have better long term job satisfaction compared with employees who are low on gratitude scale. Research on positive psychology shows that writing a gratitude letter increases one’s sense of happiness/life satisfaction. Please write a short letter or email to somebody who has supported or inspired you, overcame a challenge, did something nice for you or someone else, or just was a positive person. It might be a parent, a friend, a coworker, a teacher, a coach, a professor, coworkers, etc. Make a copy of this letter in your journal (you may change names/anonymize if this contains private information). You don’t have to send the letter/email to the recipient, but you might enjoy doing so! Choose a different person each week. Part Three: Building One’s Strategic Network Meet somebody new during the week who might become a part of your future strategic network. It might be an individual at an employer booth or career fair, somebody you met at a networking event, somebody from your place of employment, etc. It could also be a classmate or anybody who is interested in networking and connecting with you. Briefly mention what you learned from this person and what you found interesting about them.