You searched for self | Page 92 of 130

6-Step Goal-Setting Challenge

As part of Live Happy’s special series 90 Days to a Happier You, we’ve gathered top experts from around the country with unbeatable advice about how we can change habits and live better in 2016. Below, as part of an ongoing blog series, expert coach Caroline Miller walks us through the steps of successfully setting short- and long-term goals. Self-help books are popular for a reason: Research shows that more than 90 percent of us would like to improve something about ourselves. Fortunately, the research also shows that with diligence and evidence-based goal setting processes, we have much greater chances of achieving our dreams than if we just wing it and hope for the best. Chris Libby, section editor of Live Happy, is a good example of someone who wants change, but didn’t know anything about the science of goal-setting, or the ways he might be hindering himself, until we started our coaching. Follow our journey—or better, join us by interacting with us—and together we will get a good look at how a step-by-step, scientific goal-setting method can help anyone get traction in life, regardless of where you start. Here are the six steps we will take together in the 90-Day Challenge: 1. Capitalize on your strengths First, I recommend taking the VIA Strengths Survey. Studies have found that knowing your top strengths makes you happier—particularly when you have the opportunity to put those strengths to use in new and resourceful ways. If gratitude is a top strength, you might leave a hand-written thank-you note instead of sending an email, for example, and think up other ways to share your heightened sense of hope and appreciation. Homework: Write an essay called “Me at My Best.” Describe a time when you used all of your top strengths in a “peak moment,” or when others said you made a positive difference. This essay will serve as a blueprint of best practices for you as you go about setting your goals. 2. Create a daily happiness boot-up menu Research has found that success in life is preceded by being happy first, and not vice versa. If we are going to flourish and succeed, we have to do things that elicit and amplify positivity on a daily basis. There are several “positive interventions” that improve well-being, such as physical exercise, practicing gratitude, doing mindfulness/meditation activities, volunteering/giving, journaling and practicing forgiveness. Homework: Create or reinforce daily habits that increase your happiness levels, and use your strengths in doing so. For example, if “zest” is a top strength, add vigorous exercise to your day or use your energy to support someone else’s cause. If love of learning is a top strength, find ways to investigate new sources of education such as a virtual course or a TED talk. 3. Write about your "Best possible future self” This elegant journaling exercise is deceptively powerful: Mentally project yourself 10 years into the future and write about your life as if everything has gone as well as possible. Do this for three days in a row, for 20 minutes at a time. Research finds that people who complete this exercise are more hopeful, more committed to their goals and clearer about priorities. Homework: Pick at least one long-term goal that has emerged from this exercise and write down the short-term steps you are ready to commit to that are necessary to pursue this goal. Write about the obstacles that are likely to emerge as you pursue this goal and how you plan to handle them. How will you use your strengths to overcome obstacles? 4. Build a platform of psychological strength for change To carry out the steps needed to accomplish goals, you must have inner stores of self-regulation and resilience. Without willpower or the ability to delay gratification, it will be impossible to do difficult things outside of your comfort zone, which is where many of the most meaningful goals lie. We will need resilience to get up every time we are knocked down, challenged or delayed, too, and grit will be the strength necessary to carry us to the finish line of the longest, hardest goals. Homework: Take the Grit Scale test and reflect on your score. What are the hardest things you’ve ever done and how did you get yourself through them? If you don’t have a history of being resilient, how can you use your strengths to find ways to protect yourself from being pulled off-course? 5. Prime your environment for change Marketers know the science of “priming” and use it to help them sell products; sport psychologists use it to motivate athletes. We can “nudge” ourselves in subtle ways throughout the day, in every environment, by strategically putting pictures of our goals in places we are sure to encounter, by hearing songs that energize us, and by reading inspirational e-newsletters about successful people. Homework: Scan your daily environment for “negative primes” that might be de-energizing. Replace pictures, driving routes, television habits or clothing with items that will inspire and motivate you. Consider replacing at least one computer password with a phrase associated with an important goal or a character strength that you want to embody. 6. Create a positive team Many people underestimate the undermining power of being surrounded by family, friends, co-workers and acquaintances who don’t support their positive change efforts. Social contagion theory states that we “catch” moods from those around us, including loneliness, depression, happiness and even grit. Other research connects “active-constructive responding” (marked by curiosity and enthusiasm) with friendship qualities that assist in proactive goal pursuit. Homework: Create a “Web of Influence” document, with you at the center and those closest to you radiating outward. Do the qualities of those in your web match what you need to remain committed to change? If not, what can you do to deliberately pull other, more positive, people closer to you to be cheerleaders or even members of a “mastermind” group that you can create? Read Caroline's second blog here, and her final blog here. To see Caroline's recommendations in action, read coaching "subject" Chris Libby's blog, here. Want more? Listen to Caroline discuss Setting Career Goals on our podcast, Live Happy Now. Caroline Adams Miller, MAPP, is a professional coach, author, speaker and educator. Her book, Creating Your Best Life, is the first evidence-based book to connect the science of happiness with the science of goal-setting. Caroline gave an acclaimed TEDx talk on grit in 2014, a topic she will cover in her upcoming book, Authentic Grit.

6 Steps to Unplug From Work

As part of Live Happy’s series 90 Days to a Happier You, we’ve gathered experts from around the country with unbeatable advice about how we can change habits and live better in 2016. Below, in the first part of her ongoing blog series, happiness expert Christine Carter, Ph.D., walks us through the steps of successfully unplugging from work. Lately it seems like more and more of my coaching clients have been asking for guidance with one specific challenge: Help me unplug! Such was the cry for help that came from Donna Stokes, managing editor of Live Happy, as part of the “90 Days to a Happier You” project. Donna’s life was typical; she was spending most of her waking existence monitoring her email. She’d begin each day by checking email at home before breakfast, which often derailed her morning routine. Once she got to work, the emailing continued—before, during and after meetings. Lunch? She’d “catch up” on email and then maybe take a short walk—with her phone, in case an urgent email or text came in. (When I asked her for an example of what could be so urgent that it couldn’t wait 20 minutes, she couldn’t give one.) Donna’s email checking continued long into the evening, once she’d left the office. For example, she’d check email on her phone while waiting for dinner in a restaurant with her husband. Sound familiar? If so, you, too, could use an email intervention. Here are six simple steps to end your email addiction. 1. Decide what you’re going to do with all that free time If you are going to spend less time monitoring your email (and social media feeds, and anything else that is constantly nagging you for attention), what would be a more productive or joyful way for you to spend your time? Donna wanted to spend more time doing focused, intelligent, creative work during the day, and she wanted to spend more time relaxing, exercising and hanging out with her husband before and after work. You can motivate yourself to unplug by actually putting these things on your calendar. Block off time in your schedule for activities like “Read with hubby” and “Do focused writing/thinking,” or whatever will motivate you. 2. Schedule two or three specific times per day to check your messages I counsel many of my clients to check email first thing in the morning and in the late afternoon—and that’s it. Here is the key: During those times, you’ll need to block out enough time to get through new emails, and, if possible, all the way to the bottom of your inbox. If a particular email is going to take more than 5 minutes to read and respond to, put it in a folder (“to do this week”) and add whatever it entails to a task list. If you need X hours a day to deal with your email, make sure you’ve scheduled X hours daily. 3. Turn off all your alerts Unless you are actively checking your email and messages, you don’t need to know what messages are coming in because you’ll be devoting your full attention to something else. So turn off all notifications on your desktop, laptop, tablet and smartphone. Vibrate counts; turn it off. Now, do this for your text messages and all of your social media feeds. Breathe. (Note: Even if, through the strength of your iron-clad will, you are able to resist reading a message that comes in, if you see or hear or feel some sort of notification, your brain has still been interrupted by that alert. Even a millisecond-long hijacking of your attention will make you less focused, more irritable and less able to resist other temptations.) 4. Hide the bowl of candy If you were trying to eat less candy, would you carry a bowl of it around with you? Would you put it on your nightstand and reach into it first thing in the morning? And then carry it with you to the bathroom? And then set it next to you while you try to eat a healthy breakfast? And then put it on your dashboard? I didn’t think so. So keep that smartphone tucked away until you actually need it. Think of it as a tool, like a hammer, that you don’t need to pull out until one of your strategically designated times. (If you are a parent, make the adjustments you need to in case there is a call from your child’s school or another kind of emergency.) Get creative: Dig up your old-fashioned alarm clock, update your car’s navigation system, and put that digital camera back in your bag for the times when getting a call or text will tempt you even if the sound, vibrate, and all other alerts are off. See note in Step 3, above. 5. Tell people what you are doing Tell folks you are working with a productivity expert (that’s me), and she’s coaching you to find more focus, flow and enjoyment at work and in life. You’ll only be checking your email at two or three set times per day. Tell them you expect to be able to respond more thoughtfully to email this way, and that when you’re with them, you’ll be fully present. Perhaps invite them to a smartphone-free lunch. 6. Notice what happens It will not all be pleasant. Notice the difficult bits with curiosity (and maybe humor). How do you feel during the digital detox period? How are people reacting? Your tension levels will likely drop, and you’ll probably be less stressed. How does this feel in your body? Really see the people around you, now that you are looking up from your phone. Smile. Read Christine's second blog here, and her final blog here. To see Christine's recommendations in action, read coaching "subject" Donna Stokes' blog here. Want more? Listen to Christine on our podcast as she explains how to unplug from work, here. Christine Carter, Ph.D., is a sociologist and senior fellow at University of California, Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center. She is a sought-after coach and speaker, and author of The Sweet Spot: How to Find Your Groove at Home and Work.

6 Steps to Better Sleep

As part of Live Happy’s special series 90 Days to a Happier You we’ve gathered experts from around the country with unbeatable advice about how we can change habits and live better in 2016. Below, in the first part of an ongoing blog series, sleep expert Michael Breus, Ph.D., walks us through the steps of a successful sleep intervention. Wasted. Wiped out. Zonked. Knackered. If you have insomnia, then you know what it feels like to be very, very tired during the day. That’s because you simply are not getting enough good quality sleep at night. Research shows that sleep deprivation affects every organ system and can bring on severe psychological distress. In fact, in many countries it is used as a form of torture! Many factors can cause acute or chronic insomnia, including anxiety, stress, depression and physical ailments such as asthma, cancer and heart failure. In addition, noise, light or extreme temperatures can interfere with one’s sleep, as can a change in sleep schedule and many other factors. What are the symptoms of insomnia? If you have insomnia, you might have difficulty falling asleep, you may wake too early, or, like Live Happy editor at large Shelley Levitt, you may wake up many times during the night. During the day, you might feel tired, irritable and have a lack of motivation or problems with concentration and memory. You might find yourself making mistakes at work or school and having unexplained headaches or stomach pains. Not surprisingly, one symptom is worry about sleep! How is insomnia treated? The main treatment for insomnia is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, a highly effective form of talk therapy in which you counter irrational thinking with more logical thought patterns. Before we start CBT, I ask my patients to make a few lifestyle changes and sleep schedules. 1. Make lifestyle changes to improve sleep Give yourself a chance to relax before bedtime by bathing or listening to relaxing music. Try not to eat a heavy meal late in the day. Make your bedroom comfortable for sleep: Keep it dark, quiet, and not too warm or cold. Use a sleep mask to block light or earplugs or a fan to block noise. I know it’s a struggle, but try not to worry about sleep when you go to bed. You can distract yourself with reading, prayer or meditation. Turn your clock around so you won’t be tempted to constantly check the time; you may even want to move your clock across the room to resist temptation. 2. Be aware of triggers that set off your insomnia Many people have a predisposition to stress and anxiety, which may then make them more likely to fall into insomnia. Something occurs called a “precipitating event,” which can be the loss of a loved one, a divorce or a new job—anything that causes a large amount of stress. This event in turn can bring on negative habits such as not getting to bed regularly or using alcohol to help with sleep and deal with the stress. Things start to snowball and can develop into a case of insomnia. If you know you are about to encounter a stressful situation or time, try to seek ways to alleviate the stress, such as exercise and meditation, so that you do not end up falling into a negative sleep or caffeine/alcohol pattern. 3. Keep a sleep diary I ask patients to keep a sleep journal in which they write down the information below, which we then review, looking for patterns: Time you went to bed. Approximate time you fell asleep. Time you woke up. Number of times you woke up during the night. Amount of time you stayed awake during the night. If you used any medication. Any grogginess upon waking in the morning or during the day. Naps and durations. 4. Sleep restriction This technique is highly effective if done correctly under the supervision of a sleep specialist or health care professional. It is completely counterintuitive, but it really works. I ask my patients to go to bed later, not earlier. So for example, if you’ve been going to sleep at 10 p.m. but not falling asleep until 12 a.m., and then getting up at 6:30 a.m., I would ask you to go to bed instead at 12:30 a.m. This allows for only 6 hours in bed. After seven to 10 days, I usually see that the number of awakenings at night reduced and the amount of sleep consolidated. The brain is starting to know when to go to sleep and stay asleep. It is difficult, though, and the schedule must be maintained on the weekends as well. 5. Cognitive restructuring It turns out that the way you think about sleep affects the way you sleep. For example if you think, “If I don’t get eight hours of sleep, it will cause me major health consequences,” you create a level of anxiety every time you don’t get that eight hours. I use a specialized questionnaire to identify cognitive misperceptions like this one. Next we spend time investigating these perceptions to see if they are true (in most cases they are exaggerated) and what the patient can do to reframe his or her thoughts about sleep. Then doctor and patient work through these misperceptions together. (This step is an example of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.) 6. Meditation and relaxation training If the sleep restriction is working, but you are still having difficulty falling asleep when your bedtime is moved earlier, I go to specialized relaxation techniques designed to help specifically with falling asleep or waking up in the middle of the night. Read Michael's second blog here. To see Michael's recommendations in action, read sleep intervention "subject" Shelley Levitt's blog here. Listen to Michael himself explain how to overcome chronic insomnia on our podcast! Michael Breus, Ph.D., is a board-certified sleep specialist in Los Angles, California. His books include Good Night: The Sleep Doctor's 4-week Program to Better Sleep and Better Health and The Sleep Doctor’s Diet Plan: Lose Weight Through Better Sleep. Michael has made appearances on national media, including Dr. Oz, Oprah and CNN.

6 Steps to Healthier, More Productive Conversations

6 Steps to Healthy, Productive Conversations

As part of Live Happy’s special series 90 Days to a Happier You, we’ve gathered top experts from around the country with unbeatable advice about how we can change habits and live better in 2016. Below, in the first part of her ongoing blog series, communication expert Michele Gravelle walks us through the steps to more productive conversations with loved ones. Do you ever wish you could handle your most difficult conversations without getting stressed or upset? The good news is that you can learn to improve your conversational skills and understand your emotional reactions. In fact, by working on your communication “muscles” as part of your daily exercise routine, you will be able to break through the barriers you may be having in your important relationships at work and at home and experience a greater ease and harmony in yourself and your connections with others. Here is the six-step process of how to improve your difficult conversations. We’ll cover each one of these in more depth in future blogs. 1. Listen to your internal voice Your internal voice—all the thoughts, feelings, judgments and opinions you are thinking but not overtly saying—tells you a lot about yourself. Keep a journal so you can jot down what you were thinking and feeling right after having a difficult conversation. Often, the most volatile parts of a conversation are unspoken. Be rigorously honest with yourself: What might you be thinking about that is leaking into the conversation through your tone, facial expressions and body language. Think about how the other person might be interpreting what you are saying and how you are saying it. 2. Be clear, specific and over-explain yourself Don’t assume the other person can read your mind or get your hints. Explain how you arrived at your thoughts or conclusions. Remember, you are the only one who knows what you mean, so share your thought process with the other person and double check to make sure he or she understands where you’re coming from. 3. Inquire, get curious Get curious in your conversations, both about yourself and about the other person. Ask these questions of yourself as a way to prepare for the conversation: What have I said or done (or not said and done) in this situation that may have been misinterpreted? How might I have negatively impacted this other person? What do I need to own up to? Ask these questions out loud in the conversation with the other person: How do you see things differently than I do? What am I missing that you want me to know about? Help me understand what this situation means to you? 4. Understand emotional triggers We all have triggers that act as our barometer for whether we feel we are being treated well or not. When these emotional needs are not met in conversation, we get upset. And in turn when we don’t adequately meet others’ needs, knowingly or not, we are triggering them as well. (We will discuss triggering more in a future blog.) 5. Empathize One of the most powerful skills you can practice is empathy. We show empathy by asking questions to better understand the person we’re talking with. When we hear our conversation partner expressing complex emotions, we might summarize or repeat what they’ve said back to them to show that we are listening with empathy. 6. Coach the people in your life about how they can best communicate with you We often assume that the people in our lives should just naturally know how to talk to us. We will discuss in the next blog how you can proactively coach the people in your life so they will better understand how to interact with you. Read Michele's second blog here, and her final blog in the series here. Want to hear more about communicating with loved ones from Michele? Listen to her on our podcast here. To see Michele's recommendations in action, read communication coaching "subject" Susan Kane's blog here. Michele Gravelle is an experienced executive coach, communications expert and consultant with The Triad Consulting Group. She also facilitates executive education programs at the Harvard Negotiation Institute and Duke Corporate Education, and is a contributing author to the book Enlightened Power: How Women Are Transforming the Path to Leadership.

Smells Like Teen Spirit

As part of Live Happy’s special series 90 Days to a Happier You, we’ve gathered experts from around the country with unbeatable advice about how we (and you!) can change habits and live better in 2016. Below is part one of Susan Kane’s ongoing blog series as she attempts to have healthier, more productive conversations with her teenage daughter—with the help of coach Michele Gravelle. My coach, Michele Gravelle, is an expert on how two people who are having a difficult time communicating can get better at it. My issue is with my teenage daughter, Coco. Seemingly overnight, my delightful girl has become … less delightful. She’s clearly not thrilled with me, either. I know Coco still loves me, and not just in that deep-down way a mother knows. She still confides in me about important things. But too much of the time, we’re fighting. Down in the teen trenches I’m an older mom, so most of my friends' kids are already done with college, and our family also just moved to a new city about a year ago. This means I don’t have any mommy pals who are in the trenches with me. So one of the first things Michele suggested I do was to look online for sites where other mothers of teenagers compare their experiences and share advice. Eye-opening doesn’t begin to describe the information I gleaned after just a few hours of Googling around about difficult teens. My child isn’t skipping school or drinking or shoplifting like so many of the kids described by heartbroken parents. I got some basic intel on what behavior is typical vs. problematic, and Coco is clearly just a normal teenager. I’m one of the lucky moms! Another bumpy night Still, the contemptuous way Coco speaks to me has me perennially angry and stressed out. When I come home from work and greet her warmly, she responds, “I’m busy,” or, “What do you want?” If I try to relate to her then and say something about the song on the radio being pretty, she’ll say, “No it isn’t!” That’s when I get my dander up: “Coco, don’t you speak to me in that tone!” And we’re off to another bumpy night. A breakthrough When I described this scenario to Michele, she asked me what Coco was doing when I came home to greet her. That’s a time she’s listening to music and writing her stories and poems, I said (Coco wants to be a writer). Michele told me I needed to break the cycle of behavior Coco and I had gotten into. She suggested I say something like the following after Coco tells me to butt out: “Coco, I can see you’re busy now, but I’d love to connect with you later. Let me know when you have some time to talk.” I must admit I was dubious about how effective this tactic would be, but I tried it. In the two nights after I implemented that one small change, there was a huge difference. I responded as Michele suggested to Coco’s rebuffs, got out of my work clothes and relaxed a bit. We met as a family at dinner. And to my astonishment, my teenager sought me out both nights after dinner—once just to talk about her day and once about some trouble she’s having with a friend. I was so happy, and for the first time in a long time, I’m feeling really hopeful. Does this blog strike a chord with you? Read Susan's coach Michele's 6 Steps to Healthier, More Productive Conversations. Also, tune in and listen to Michele Gravelle's podcast about communicating with loved ones, available here. And come to our Facebook page to join in the conversation. Susan Kane is a contributing editor at Live Happy.

No Worries

As part of Live Happy’s special series 90 Days to a Happier You, we’ve gathered experts from around the country with unbeatable advice about how we (and you!) can change habits and live better in 2016. Below is part one of Kim Baker’s ongoing blog series as she attempts to overcome her anxiety with the help of coach Karen Cassiday, Ph.D. Heart pounding, palms sweating, breath shallow, shoulders tense … this is not a fun way to feel. In fact, thankfully, it’s rare that I get this way anymore, but anxiety is still present in my life. That’s why I volunteered to put myself out there and be part of Live Happy's “90 Days to a Happier You” project. I have worked on my worry in the past, but if I can find a bit more joy and learn to breathe and relax through life's ups and downs by working with a professional like Dr. Karen Cassiday, then I am glad to do this! I won’t worry my life away I realized years ago that I was worrying too much about certain parts of my life. I really want to live more in the present and settle my racing mind. Jason Mraz’s song "The Remedy" really struck a chord with me, and I try to keep it as my mantra: “I won’t worry my life away…” The ironic thing is, I am a fairly easygoing person who can laugh about things most of the time, but I am also very sensitive. A simple decision or ailment that would be no big deal for most people could become a time-consuming worry for me. It can be overwhelming and frustrating. Whatever the reason for my anxiety, I don’t blame it on anyone—my past, my family—or try to find excuses for it. I simply know I don’t like it and want to minimize it as much as I can. Yoga, deep breathing, exercising and spending time doing things I enjoy (hello, shopping) all contribute to keeping me on the calmer side of life. But I am always open to learn new ways and tools to help even more. What’s the use in worrying? Enter my coach: Karen Cassiday, Ph.D., president of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America and managing director of the Anxiety Treatment Center of Greater Chicago. I learned so much in our first brief conversations. We worry because we are intolerant of uncertainty. As humans it is natural and necessary to be able to think ahead so we can make life plans. But worrying incessantly about things we can’t control is unhealthy and puts us in fight-or-flight mode. Being stuck in this “high idle” mode, as Karen puts it, has kept me in a “wired and tired” state all the time. She also explained that seeking reassurance for my worry has actually contributed to it. Here I thought Googling symptoms of an illness was actually helping me; turns out it is perpetuating my worry! Facing anxiety head-on Now the tricky part: Making myself use the tools she has given me to work on my worry, which she spells out in her own blog. I have downloaded the SAM app, purchased the book Women Who Worry Too Much. But as for “Stop all reassurance seeking”… let's say I am still working on that, but I am determined! We have spoken one more time since our first meeting and worked on some “worry exposure” exercises, which is the exact thing I have been trying not to do. I have always avoided worry, or anxiety-inducing activity, instead of trying to rid myself of it. This is a challenge for me because it causes anxious feelings. But in the end it should help eradicate them. Well worth it in my opinion. After all, what's the use in worrying? Read Kim's coach Karen's blog "6 Steps to Win the War Against Worry." Want more? Listen to Kim's coach Karen explain how to manage negative thinking in our podcast, here. Kim Baker is Live Happy's art director.

Let Me Answer This Email First

As part of Live Happy’s special series 90 Days to a Happier You, we’ve gathered experts from around the country with unbeatable advice about how we (and you!) can change habits and live better in 2016. Below is part one of Donna Stokes’ ongoing blog series as she attempts to unplug from work with the help of coach Christine Carter. “Let’s hate her.” This was the message a co-worker accidentally sent to “All,” including me (“her”) in the first week of my first newspaper copy-editing job in the 1990s. The curmudgeonly slot editor had just loudly demanded to know why the new girl was the only one on the desk working. Since then, my pronounced work ethic has won me more friends and job opportunities than enemies, but after 26 years of wearing the “workhorse” yoke, it’s time for a fresh approach. Admitting you have a problem is the first step, so I volunteered to overhaul my unhealthy work habits—and hopefully help you to do the same. Always on the job Work email wasn’t a problem until I got my first smartphone five or six years ago. My parents and husband didn’t say a word on our family vacations when I carried it in a plastic bag on ski-boat rides because the reception was better in the middle of the lake, though I’m sure they thought I was nuts. I muttered “in case of emergency,” but I still think they were on to me. I finally recognized my behavior as compulsive this year during morning commutes, where the buzz of texts and emails trickling in taunted me to start sneaking peeks at every stoplight. (Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about; I see you out there doing the same thing!) Addicted to email Enter Christine Carter, Ph.D., author of The Sweet Spot: How to Find Your Groove at Home and Work. While I saw my actions as the diligent behavior of someone who loves her job, Christine smelled a rat. “Remember Skinner’s rats?” she asked. “There’s a glitch in our reward systems (and rats’) related to variable ratio reinforcement. If every email in 20 you get good news or praise, it drives your brain toward those checking behaviors.” The rats tested with variable ratio reinforcement went crazy trying again and again to find their reward, and I wasn’t far behind. “You are not fulfilling your potential,” Christine said. “Change is uncomfortable, but I will coach you through it.” Thanks to my first session with Christine and a schedule to follow, for one week now I have limited email checking to certain times of the workday. It may be beginner’s luck, but I am feeling much more relaxed and focused at home, work and in between. Just this morning, instead of hunching over my phone at a stoplight, I made eye contact with an elderly Labrador retriever in the backseat of the car next to me. I swear he gave me the nod of approval. Read Donna's coach Christine's "6 Steps to Unplug From Work" Want more? Listen to Donna's coach Christine explain how to unplug from work on our podcast! Donna Stokes is Live Happy’s managing editor.

Goals … What Goals?

As part of Live Happy’s special series 90 Days to a Happier You, we’ve gathered experts from around the country with unbeatable advice about how we (and you!) can change habits and live better in 2016. Below is part one of Chris Libby’s ongoing blog series as he attempts to set goals with the help of coach Caroline Miller. Drifting through life ... I have never really relied on goals to map out my life, and it has seemed to work out for me so far. I imagine a lot of people are just like me: believers in serendipity, too busy to stockpile feats for our lifetime highlight reels. Who has time for that? When I discussed this 90-day project with my wife, a goal-setting go-getter, she was puzzled that I don’t set goals for myself. “Every morning when I wake up I set my goals for the day,” she says. “What is the first thing that you do when you wake up in the morning?” “Open my eyes,” I reply. And therein lies the problem. I need to look at goal setting from the right perspective. As Martin Seligman says in his book, Flourish, one of the key ingredients to a life well-lived is the accomplishment of great things for the sake of doing them. In his theory of well-being, my life aligns well with his PERMA acronym: I recognize my positive emotions; I try to fully engage in the activities that I enjoy; I have great relationships; and I look for meaning in everything I do. The one letter that has eluded me so far is the ‘A’ for achieving. Without the A, I just have PERM. Self-reflection time Yet, I have achieved things, right? Self-reflection time: I somehow convinced an amazing woman to spend the rest of her life with me; we have a great kid; I like my job as the section editor for an innovative magazine; I own a home, and so on. These extraordinary things just happened as I walked through my life without bothering to make plans. Now, when presented with this challenge, I find that there is a better way to live my life and improve my happiness at the same time. My first step, find a coach. Caroline Miller, a Masters of Applied Positive Psychology grad, author of Creating Your Best Life and a world-renowned speaker/expert on goal setting agreed to work with me. Great! If anyone can help me with goals in my life (or lack thereof), it’s her. We connected by phone, and I immediately felt at ease telling a complete stranger about all the things I haven’t done. As we walked through Chris Libby’s Easygoing Guide to Life, we found that I may be a “be-er” and not a “do-er.” I live in the present, yet need to ensure I’m not limited by procrastination or fear. I’m a curious person who treats people fairly, but I am not much of a risk-taker and may not approach life with the greatest amount of enthusiasm. That’s fair, and I also don’t have the energy for a rebuttal. Kicked from my comfort zone At Caroline’s suggestion, I took the Character Strengths survey from the VIA Institute on Character. The results were spot-on with what Caroline had told me about myself: humor, curiosity and kindness are among my top strengths, while bravery, zest for life and purpose showed up toward the bottom of my list. Man, no wonder she is so successful. What a reality check. It’s time to take a whiff of the smelling salts and get out of my comfort zone. So, at Caroline’s suggestion, for starters I’ll write an essay about a time when I believe I was at my best. Over the next 90 days, I plan to turn myself into a bona fide goal-oriented guru, and by chronicling my journey here, I hope others can benefit as well. I am excited about this new adventure, and if the goal is to live my best life possible, then onward I must go! Read Chris's second blog here, and his final blog here. Chris Libby is the section editor at Live Happy.

People clinking wine glasses at a party.

Self-Care

10 Ways to Enjoy the Season Without Regrets

Holidays are a lot of fun, but for many of us, our enjoyment of happy times can be marred by feelings of remorse about what we’ve had to eat or drink. So, what are some ways to stay in control of holiday indulgence? Here are some of the idiosyncratic methods I’ve used over the years to help keep my holidays happier by controlling my eating and drinking: 1. Make tempting food inconvenient Put gingerbread cookies in a hard-to-reach spot; set the freezer to a very cold temperature so it’s hard to spoon out ice cream; store goodies in hard-to-open containers. 2. Use smaller plates and bowls Research shows that we eat less when our place settings are smaller. 3. Dish food up in the kitchen Don’t bring serving platters to the table (except vegetables). 4. Don’t get seconds I pile my plate with everything I intend to eat and stop once that food is gone. 5. Wear snug-fitting clothes 6. Skip the add-ons When my family goes out for a holiday meal, I tell the waiter that I don’t want the side of fries. I feel like Sally from When Harry Met Sally as I quibble about how my food should be served, but oh well. 7. Don’t eat food you don’t like No one cares if I have a serving of asparagus or cranberry sauce. 8. Signal when you're done eating I brush my teeth, clean up the kitchen and turn out the lights. 9. Realize that some things are not better in moderation “Abstainers” are people like me: We’re all or nothing. We can have none, or we can have a lot, but we can’t indulge in moderation. “Moderators,” by contrast, do better when they indulge a little bit. But while moderation works for many people, I’ve learned that it’s far easier for me to skip cookies, bagels and chocolate than it is to have a sensible portion. 10. Pass on the hors d’oeuvres When tempted, I remind myself, “I might get food stuck in my teeth, it might make my breath smell, and I might spill on my clothes.” A friend said to me, “That’s no way to enjoy the holidays! Live a little. Life’s too short not to eat a candy cane.” But I’ve realized that to live a happier (and healthier) life, sometimes I choose to say “no” to something, or to ask more of myself, to get the most happiness over the long run. While it can seem festive and carefree to indulge in lots of treats, in the end I feel guilty and overstuffed. Which doesn’t make the holiday happier. It’s a secret of adulthood: By giving myself limits, I give myself freedom. Gretchen Rubin is the bestselling author ofThe Happiness Project, Happier at Home andBetter than Before. She is considered one of the most influential writers on happiness today, and has become an in-demand speaker and keynoter.You can read about Gretchen's adventures atGretchenRubin.com.

Illustration of a woman knitting a heart.

Practice

Giving From Heart and Hands

Two steps into the little yarn shop on Third Street, and I simply laughed in delight. To a woman with a passion for knitting, Knit Culture in Los Angeles is a whisper of heaven. From floor to ceiling, baskets, shelves and cubbies are stuffed with a thousand skeins of yarn from a thousand farms all over the world—neatly arranged by texture and color. Bamboo yarns from Sichuan Province in China. Silk yarns from a plantation in India. Plumped-up wooly rastas from sheep farms in Uruguay, cashmere from goat farms in Mongolia. Soft baby alpaca yarn from Vermont. And the colors! Passionate purples, demure beiges, moody sea greens, curried yellows, rich creams and wild oranges all reflect the warm California light from the store’s front window—judiciously aided by halogen spots that allow the colors to glow with energy. Reverently, I reach out a hand to touch the delicate yarn of a baby alpaca, and I’m deftly caught in the eternal question of the passionate knitter: “What can I make with this?” Cast on! Somewhere around 28 million of us now regularly gather in yarn shops, knitting retreats and neighborhood knitting circles, so people are beginning to get used to us crazy knitters ooh-ing and ah-ing over a pile of yarn as though it were a baby. Today we knit everything from Christmas stockings to sweaters for family and friends. But according to the Craft Yarn Council of America, a whopping 49 percent of those who knit in the United States also spend time creating hats, socks, scarves, mittens and shawls for those who are ill, bereaved, abandoned, homeless and without hope. The payback for our generosity is immediate. Knitters have found that soft yarn, rhythmic movements and yarn-besotted friends counter the hard stresses, isolation and frantic pace of daily life. And studies back us up. At Harvard Medical School, for example, one study suggests that knitting drops us into a relaxed, meditative state that reduces blood pressure, lowers heart rate and mobilizes the 40,000 genes in the body to induce changes that counteract the effects of stress. Another study, this one published in the British Journal of Occupational Therapy, found that 81 percent of study participants diagnosed with depression reported feeling happier after knitting—and half of them emphasized that they were “very” happy. Knitting may cause the brain to release the feel-good neurotransmitter serotonin, explains Dr. Carrie Barron, a psychiatrist at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York and a knitter herself. What’s more, there’s some suggestion that engaging in any activity that releases serotonin on a regular basis can, over time, “train” the brain to release more of it, thus suggesting that a simple hobby like knitting can have a long-term effect on our happiness. “We need more research,” Carrie says. “But I think we have a real need to make things. And knitting for others takes the effects of knitting on our psyche to a whole other level. It connects us to others in a very deep way.” Save the babies Few understand the deep connections knitting makes better than former Washington state social worker Jackie Lambert. Jackie is the caring woman who spends 40 hours a week knitting hats and sweaters for children who need them—particularly the Syrian children who now live in refugee camps in Jordan and throughout the Middle East. Of the 3 million men, women and children who fled the brutality rampant in Syria over the past two years, nearly 740,000 ended up in Jordan only to find that winter in the desert manifests its own kind of brutality. “Millions of people left Syria with just the clothes on their back,” Jackie says. “Now they’re living in tents in the snow. Every child needs a hat, a sweater and a blanket, and nobody has socks.” The U.N.’s World Health Organization stresses the need for hats to prevent life-threatening heat loss in babies, which is one reason why knitters around the world have had their needles clicking since the first wave of refugees left Syria. Two women from Ireland and an artist working with Save the Children in Syria launched a group called Save the Babies: Hats for War-Torn Syria, then put out an online call to knitters. The response was amazing. One newspaper reported 4,000 hats have been sent to Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp alone. “You hear horrific things on the news, but this is something you can do something about on a one-to-one basis,” Jackie says. “For every child who gets a hat and a sweater, that’s one kid who isn’t getting cold.” Handmade Especially for You! While some of us knit to keep people warm, others knit to bring them comfort. And that includes California transplant Leslye Borden. Leslye had always loved knitting, so when she retired from running her own photo-sourcing agency in New York, she figured she’d spend her time sitting in the sun with a pair of needles and a ball of yarn. “I made the most gorgeous things for my three granddaughters,” she chuckles. “Beautiful sweaters, skirts, legwarmers, mittens, muffs—wherever they went people would stop them and ask, ‘Where did you get that?’ ” But as her daughter finally pointed out, how many sweaters, leg-warmers and mittens did the girls need? And where were they supposed to store them all? So Leslye looked around to find others who might need her gifts. She stumbled across an organization in Chicago that asked women to knit scarves for women who had been raped. “I had no idea when I made them what the scarves could do,” Leslye says. “I thought they’d be like a security blanket—something to hold on to.” But abused women told Leslye that the scarves felt like a hug around the neck and gave them a lift. And that’s all it took to yank her out of retirement. “I was amazed by the response,” Leslye says. She founded Handmade Especially for You, a nonprofit organization based near her home in Rancho Palos Verdes, and decided to make whimsical, wildly colorful scarves for women in California who had escaped abusive situations. In 2008, she approached yarn shop owner June Grossberg, who’d opened Concepts in Yarn in Torrance, California, and got enough donated yarn to knit a trunk-full of scarves—plus space to hold a scarf-knitting group every Wednesday night that continues today. Other yarn shops began sending Leslye yarn, knitters all over the state volunteered to help, and the next thing Leslye knew she was bagging yarn to send to knitters and shipping or delivering 12,000 scarves a year to 60 shelters throughout the state—each scarf with an attached tag signed by the knitter that says, “Made especially for you!” “My husband and I used to have a beautiful home,” Leslye says, chuckling. “Now everything is yarn or scarves—bags of yarn waiting to be wrapped, boxes of yarn waiting to be shipped, and boxes of scarves waiting to be opened.” She laughs. “I just love it!” A mother bear on the loose Leslye is not the only knitter to find herself launching an organization in response to someone’s need for nurturing. When Amy Berman, a Minnesota sales representative and mother of two young children, read a magazine story on virgin rape in sub-Saharan Africa some years ago, it made her sick. The story revealed a cultural myth that having sex with a virgin—including toddlers and infants—would protect or cure men from AIDS. The result was a practice that had left shattered children across the region and an increase in HIV and AIDS. “It was the most horrible thing I could think of,” says Amy, a former volunteer rape counselor. “Something that hurt kids and spread AIDS as well?” She shudders. “I had to do something.” Researching her options online, Amy found that South African police were asking for small gifts that might bring a tiny moment of comfort to the children touched by sexual violence. The image of her own kids cuddling the small, stuffed bears her mother had knitted for them flashed into her mind. The bears had comforted her kids when they were little. Could a group of knitters make them for children in Africa? Amy spoke to her mother, Gerre Hoffman, who was on board in an instant. The two worked out four bear patterns, and gave them to anyone who could knit. Amy went to a yarn trade show to spread the word, her mother started giving knitting lessons, a newspaper did a story and, within weeks, 3,000 requests for patterns came pouring in—followed in short order by package after package of colorful hand-knit bears, each with personal touches added by its knitter. Amy chuckles. “The bears took over my house!” Friends, family and knitters flocked to help. Big red hearts were sewn onto each bear because Amy wanted kids who received the bears to feel that there was someone, somewhere, who loved them. Knitters also added a tag hand-signed by the “mother bear” who made the bear. Amy made contacts in Africa, set up a distribution network, rented some storage space, and—borrowing the “mother bear” nickname with which her son had tagged her when he was a toddler—she named her emerging organization the Mother Bear Project. She also expanded the project to include those who had been orphaned by AIDS. Today more than 110,000 bears made by more than a thousand knitters from all across the globe are carrying a mother bear’s love to children touched by HIV/AIDS. Ripples of love While small bears bring comfort to children in Africa, prayer shawls—made as the knitter prays for the recipient and weaves her blessings into the gift—bring comfort to adults who are hurting around the world. Few of the knitters realize that the idea to knit prayer shawls was hatched by two women who were attending Hartford Seminary in Connecticut nearly 20 years ago. Janet Severi Bristow and Victoria Cole-Galo saw the comfort a shawl touched by prayer brought to a grieving classmate whose husband had died. They launched “The Prayer Shawl Ministry” as both a spiritual practice for knitters and a source of comfort for those who received the gift of their work. Today, 3,000 prayer shawl groups around the world have made an uncountable number of shawls, and Janet and Vicky feel humbled by the work they were led to do. “It’s all been a surprise,” Janet says. “The emails, the [four] books we’ve written, the gatherings.…” She shakes her head in amazement. “It was truly out of our hands. It was nothing about us. It was what we were meant to do.” Thinking about the 200 or so knitters who gather each November at a Hartford church to celebrate their work, she adds, “It touches me deeply that the love exhibited in that [church] ripples out to the world through the work of their hands and the prayers of their hearts.” Listening to Janet, I look over at the tumble of colorful yarns tucked in a basket near my chair, and I realize that with a half-dozen balls of that yarn and a pair of bamboo needles, I can make my own ripples and give someone who is half a world away the sense of being wrapped in love. Slowly, I get up from my chair and move toward the basket—feeling my heart lift with joy. Ellen Michaud is a Live Happy editor at large based in Vermont.