Day 14: Happiness Scale

7 Cups has an exciting therapy update to share this month. To celebrate, we’re doing 25 days of Gratitude, Self-Care, and Personal Growth. Read more here.

Hi everyone! I hope you are well. Today as part of the therapy events I want to talk about a very interesting way of measuring and improving the quality of our lives and just adding more joy and happiness. 

Long ago I came across the concept called the Happiness Scale. It is a very simple but effective way of starting where you are, working what you have, and doing more of what brings you joy. I would love to link you to the video I watched but I can’t find it! So if this post reminds you of a video and you can find it please send me it so I can link it. 

Here is how the happiness scale works!

Make a list of everything you do in your day-to-day life, you are especially looking for small tasks/routines and rate it on a scale of 1-10 where 1 means it brings you no joy and 10 means it brings you great amounts of joy/happiness. Lets assume Ben is making a list, here is what it can look like: 

Once we have a rating of what each of our routines/tasks rank on the scale, we will highlight the ones that rank 7 or higher. You can even do 5 or higher if you don’t have many 7s and higher. We will work with what we have.

Once we know which tasks/routines rank high, we will actively try to do more of these every day. For example, in the above example, Ben will ensure he does not miss his morning cup of coffee, takes time out to walk his dog, make an effort to schedule time with friends, make time for his book of choice, ensures he can be home in time for dinner with partner. It would not be realistic for Ben to do all this in one go! He can select 1-2 things to do more of those and then work on the next item. 

Today that is what we will be doing for ourselves!

1. Write down your repetitive tasks/routines, ideally the ones that are daily and those that are frequently a part of your life (For example, a walk maybe daily but meeting friends/family maybe weekly or even monthly). Try to get as many daily tasks noted as you can. 

2. Once you have rated the tasks, highlight all that you ranked 7 and above (5 and above if you have barely any in the 7 and above category)

3. Select 1-2 tasks from the highlighted category that are easy to do more of and that are mostly in your control. 

4. Share with us which task/routine you will be doing more of?