Praise Song for the Day: Creativity Matters: Five Ways to Develop a “Writing Happiness” Practice

(Mount Tamalpais)

Friday, March 30, 2021

Taking time away from your normal hustle and bustle to recharge your batteries, seeing your life anew is one of the best ways to wire your brain for happiness and success. I don’t think of happiness, or success, in a material way. I see success as being happy with what you have now and who you are in this moment. Washington University in Saint Louis happiness expert Tim Bono says that even the happiest people are only happy about 70–80% of the time, which means that no one can be happy all of the time. Let’s talk more today about creating happiness and tomorrow about creating success. Here goes!

I wouldn’t necessarily count myself as one of those 80-percenters, but I do tend to exist in a more generative and “sure of mind” place.

Here are five things that I do to increase my happiness output.

1. WRITE EVERY DAY: That’s correct. Put what you are thinking down on the page. Why is this important? The most important part of getting out of your head, which is a place that I like to live and love to dream, is because it moves you from thought to action. The simple act of writing moves you to a place of action and more certainty. More certainty means, typically, more happiness. Write every single day.
2. DONT EDIT: If the goal is to get things out of your head, editing your thoughts and ideas, which kills creativity, means that you are censoring yourself, even if some of those thoughts are bleak. Make sure that you get the keys or your hand flowing. When you do, go back and look at what you wrote to decipher what you are doing, thinking, and feeling. Make sure that you are totally honest with yourself, even if those thoughts are about someone else. There are mountains of journals and Moleskins in my office that are those unedited thoughts — just for me. Write on and in something that brings you joy.
3. BURN WHAT AILS YOU: Okay, this seems almost contradictory to “don’t edit” above, but hear me out. Whenever I want something in my life to shift, perhaps it’s just a bad patch at work or school, I write the offending idea down on a plain white sheet of copy paper, I go to a well ventilated and usable fireplace or somewhere outside that is safe to have flames, and I light those thoughts I want or need to be transformed into ash. Release the negative and invite in the positive.
4. LOVE YOURSELF: On the page and in real life, nothing beats writing yourself a little love note. Many of us have so many negative self-talk words and phrases. You know them and you have said them. Stop! Be kind — to you. Isn’t it nice to know that the most important person in the world loves you? You are worthy. You matter. You mean the world to someone, and that someone is you. We often beat ourselves up with how we talk to ourselves. Write the kindest note that you can to yourself. See your own best qualities and imagine a current and future state of general and good self-regard.
5. CREATE GRATITUDE: You get to have gratitude in your life because you write it down, every day. Praise Song of the Day is my own gratitude list. I take it seriously and I breathe life into it at least once a day. Even when I don’t post, I live the creation of the things for which I am grateful. Make what you are grateful for real in the world. Express it daily and watch what happens.

Indeed, I am grateful to everyone who is brave enough to focus on their own happiness by writing it out. That, in and of itself, is success. My heart is full thinking about the wonderful things that flow through people who take pen in hand, or fingers on the keys, writing what makes them see the world as a gorgeous place to live. Again, writing about what brings you joy in this world does not have to be Facebook or Instagram fabulous. Remember 70 to 80% is fine. Heck, some days 5–10% is okay. Find it! Live it! Love it!

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Like a daily gratitude practice, Praise Song for the Day will be a way of appreciating what we know we know in a different and perhaps even profoundly deeper way. This column takes its name from a poem of the same title by Elizabeth Alexander called “Praise Song for the Day,” delivered twelve years ago at the Inauguration of the 44th President of the United States. Clap back if you dig the piece.