10 Simple Ways to Experience Outrageous Joy, Guaranteed!

1. Participate in activities you loved as a third grader. Were you in the class play? Take an acting class! Did you love basketball? Join a basketball league. No excuses, simply do it!

2. Take a mid day break everyday with a Gratitude Partner. Get outside, get moving, and be grateful together as you eliminate whining in your workplace or family or neighborhood. Watch the subtle changes of people observing your Gratitude Partnership.

3. Borrow a child (or if you have your own, its even easier!) and take an afte
oon off for unstructured, unscheduled play in the park. Don't just watch him play, get on the swings, the slide, climb on the Monkey bars!

4. Purchase a big pad of newsprint and mount it on the wall along with plenty of art supplies of different types: markers, paints, chalk, crayons. Create colorful images of all sorts when you are "blocked" in your "ordinary" work. See what this simple creativity time can do for you!

5. Send flowers to your child/parents/siblings/neighbor. You might even want to pick some flowers from your garden, arrange them into a bouquet, and leave them at the door of that single person down the street who never has many visitors. Wait to see their reaction as they pick them up!

6. Schedule a personal retreat day each month. Set this day aside as sacred. Use it to intentionally create your life as one where joy reins and creativity abounds.

7. Find a nightclub that specializes in music of the time when you were in high school or college. Go there and dance the night away with reckless abandon!

8. Set aside one of your lunch hours each week, say Tuesday, to be "Building Friendship Lunch Day". Invite a different friend to lunch each Tuesday with the intention being to intensify your friendship. Follow up lunch with time at the gym or at a group gathering. Watch Your circle of friendship grow in depth and width!

9. Attend free, outdoor concerts in the park. Bring along a picnic dinner as you learn to enjoy different types of music. Really listen to the different instruments as they play. Feel the breeze as it blows. Smell the food as you serve it. Create a multi-sensory concert event.

10. Learn and practice the fine art of storytelling. Begin with scenes from your life, and tell your stories to a young relative. Not only will they love helping you grow and embellish your stories, you will be passing along your history and life to them in the process. Focus at first on legends and tales of joyfulness within your family. Weave your legacy and connection to the future!