The Art Project

Creating art makes our souls sing. It is how we communicate on a soul level. As children, we knew this instinctively and would draw and color on paper, on walls, in the dirt—anyplace we could imagine. At some point in time, most of us lose our connections to art, unless we happen to be blessed with natural artistic talent. This lost connection usually starts around the time we begin to worry what other people think. We are worried that our art projects aren't good enough, don't measure up to our friends who have natural talent, or aren't pleasing to our parents or someone else important in our world. When we decide we will never be Michelangelo, we drop art like a hot pan, and unless we have children we have to help with an art project, art becomes something we look at when we visit a museum.

This week, give yourself permission to create art. If you think you aren't any good, give yourself permission to create bad art. By art, I mean pencils, crayons, markers, oils, acrylics, watercolors or another kind of medium you put on canvas or paper.

You can freehand, but you don't have to. If you want to go to the dollar store and get a coloring book and a box of crayons, that works as well as anything. (Treat yourself to the biggest box of crayons, so you have lots of color choices.) Mandalas are great to color, and you can print a number of different designs off the Internet.

Try to spend thirty minutes each day on your art project. If you have to work on it while you are on a phone call or doing something else, do so, but if you can, allow yourself the luxury of thirty minutes daily to play and concentrate on the art without any distractions.

If you have children, they may want to participate, and this is fine. Just make sure they do their own separate project while you do yours.

You can spend the week working on one big project or complete one smaller project each day. It's up to you!

Give yourself freedom to create and step outside conventional boundaries. Think of yourself as an abstract artist, and allow yourself to create something other than the real world your eyes see. If you decide that today the sun should be green and the grass yellow, allow that to be okay. Don't worry what anyone else thinks. You can do anything you want with your project when it is complete, and you never have to show anyone else. Or it can be a piece of art you decide to frame and place centrally in your home.

The important goal is to connect with your soul, to put on paper what you feel, and to allow your emotions and creative spirit freedom of expression.

The Phone Call

Each day this week, call someone you care about. It can be an acquaintance, family member, former coworker you haven't seen in a while, mentor, teacher, or anyone who has had a positive impact on your life. It does not have to be a long conversation or a conversation at all if you get voicemail.

Before you make the call, sit quietly for a moment and reflect on what this person means to you. Plan ahead what you will say if you get their voicemail. It can be a simple message just to let them know you were thinking of them, and you can ask them to call you back or not—whatever feels right to you.

If you get them on the phone, tell them you were thinking about them and wanted to touch base, hear their voice, let them know they are loved—whatever is important to you that they know. Speak from your heart, and give them the gift of knowing they are important in your life. Where you take the conversation from there is up to you, but here are some things to consider:

• Tell them how they impacted your life in a positive way.

• Share the event or memory that brought them to your mind if it is a positive one. (Obviously, a death of a loved one would not be a thing you want to bring up in a call designed to make you feel happier.)

• Make a date for lunch or to have coffee if you want to see them.

• Offer your love and support if they need it, or even if they don't. It's always comforting to give someone permission to call you if they need help or an emotional boost.

It is easy to cop out and do this with a text message, but make the effort to call. Texting isn't a substitute for hearing a loved one's voice. The call is like a handwritten thank-you note. It says you care enough to put extra effort into your relationship.

Of all the Joy Charges, this is the one my test group said had the most impact on them. It can easily be done every day. There is no reason anyone cannot find five minutes to make a phone call. It is a Joy Charge for you and for the person you call. In some cases, my testers hesitated to make the call because they felt guilty they hadn't called before. This is a little silly; if you put the call off one more day, it won't make you feel less guilty, so go ahead and call!

Do Something Completely Different

Each day this week, do something completely out of the ordinary for you.

Some examples:

• Wear your hair a different way.

• Wear an outrageous hat.

• Eat something you have never tried before.

• Drive to the country and watch the sunset.

• Buy dinner for a homeless person.

• Volunteer somewhere new.

• Take a tennis lesson.

• Take a tango lesson.

• Try a method of exercise you have never tried.

• Learn a few phrases in a foreign language.

• Wear two completely different earrings.

• Polish your nails a color you would never have considered wearing because it was too weird.

• Take a bath instead of a shower.

• Drive a different route to work.

• Listen to opera instead of rock.

• Read a book instead of watching TV.

• Visit a museum or local tourist attraction you have never been to.

• Try a new restaurant.

• Watch a really silly TV show if you normally only watch documentaries.

• Watch a documentary if you normally only watch silly TV.

• Play a game with your kids instead of watching TV.

• Cook a new recipe.

• Try something you have wanted to try but keep putting off.

• Take a walk in a park you haven't been to.

• Change the spot you normally sit at the dinner table or in the living room.

• Go to a store and ask for a recommendation from a complete stranger (grocery store—ask for a good recipe; bookstore—recommendation on a book, etc.).

• Try a new craft.

• Sing in the shower.

• Rearrange the furniture or your office.

• Change your ringtone.

• Buy a lottery ticket and dream about the first vacation you will take when you win.

• Go to an amusement park.

It can be anything, as long as it's outside your normal routine and comfort zone. The point is to give yourself a new experience this week. You may decide you don't like it; that's okay. Sometimes, we get stuck and forget we can choose something different. This charge expands your life a little each time you do it. It moves your comfort zone farther out, so you begin to feel free to experience new things that may have once seemed frightening. Have fun with it, and challenge yourself. Some people challenge themselves to do or experience one new thing each day. This pushes the boundaries of your creativity while it broadens your experiences!

Ask for Help

Happy people don't mind asking for help. Happy people don't worry about paying back someone who has helped them. In general, people who are happy by nature know that payback for any good deed always comes somewhere down the line. People today are often afraid to ask for help. They are afraid that asking for help is a sign of weakness. They are afraid that they will be somehow obligated to the person who helped them. Neither is true. People who ask for help are much stronger than people who try to do everything on their own. The quote "No man is an island" is quite true, even more so in this day and age when we are connected to others through technology almost every waking minute of the day. Asking someone for help is asking them to do a service for you, and there is no higher calling than to serve.

Trying to do everything without help simply puts unnecessary pressure on you to be some kind of superhero. The only one who expects you to be superhuman is you. Get past that notion! It's not necessary, and it can be a major cause of stress in your life. This exercise should help with breaking the superhero mind-set.

This week, make a practice of asking someone—anyone—to help you with something. It can be big, but it can also be as small as holding a door for you when your arms are full of packages. When the task is completed, look the person in the eyes. (Ask their name if you don't know it; I'll use Steve for the example.) Say, "Steve, thank you so much for your help. I truly appreciate your kindness." Or something equally heartfelt. Use of their name is to acknowledge their value as a human being while thanking them for whatever task they completed for you. Know that even if it was just holding open the door for you, you have asked for and gotten help and acknowledged the act of service and value of another human being. Do this often enough, and it will not only lighten your load but also brighten the day of another person because they had the opportunity to serve.

Quite a few of my women testers reacted to this. Especially those raised in the baby-boom generation who had to compete with men for the corporate jobs and struggle to open new career options for women. Admitting we can't do everything ourselves perfectly all the time is for us an admission of failure. Frankly, that is dumb and the world has moved on. We need to move on too. We aren't superwomen, and we have caused ourselves no end of trouble trying to be. It's time we got over it and admitted life would be much easier if we stopped trying to do it all. Ask someone for help today!

Cards and Notes

Each day for the next week, write and send a card or note to someone expressing your appreciation, gratitude, and/or love for him or her. This activity will take you less than five minutes to do, but it will make someone's whole day—and maybe whole week—brighter.

The person you choose can be your significant other, one of your kids, your boss, an employee, the barista who makes your coffee every morning, or the person who cleans your office at night; anyone who makes your life easier or better is a candidate. Leave one for the waitstaff at a restaurant where you had great service—along with the tip. Hand one to the dental hygienist, your doctor, or the manager of a store where you got great service. Drop one in the mail to a parent, a teacher, or someone who greatly impacted your life.

It is important to handwrite these notes. Texting and e-mailing are okay, but knowing you went to the extra effort to handwrite a thank-you says something about you and your level of appreciation for someone who blessed you in some way. You can't easily keep a text or e-mail in a special place. But handwritten notes are often kept for a long time. Looking at them again can bring on a smile and a good feeling.

Imagine yourself the recipient of such a note. What would you want it to say? How would you want to feel when you received it? Take those things into consideration when you are writing the note. You are giving a gift to someone else and the gift to yourself of the feeling of gratitude. How can it get any better than that?

The Success Log

Keep a success log. Keep a pen or pencil and a small notepad with you all week. Every time something good happens, write it down.

Your success criteria are up to you, but as you go through your day, try to pay attention to all the "wins" you get that we usually just brush off and ignore. And yet, they are cause to celebrate a success. Try to find ten successes each day, and if that is too easy, look for twenty-five.

Successes can be any number of things: finishing a book you were reading, doing a chore you have been putting off, making good progress on a project you are working on, cleaning out your in-box, working out, not eating a candy bar when your energy got low, cooking a healthy meal for the family, going to bed on time, getting a new client, etc. They are all wins for the good guys—us! When one happens, take a second and write it down.

At the end of each day, review your success log for that day and add anything you might have missed. Review the prior days as well. At the end of the week, review your entire success log for that week. See how much you accomplished when you thought you were running like a hamster on a wheel? Does that make you feel better? It should! We have lots of successes every day of our lives, and we need to celebrate them with a little leap of happiness rather than brushing them off like they didn't happen.

Let Go

This week, let go of something or someone in your life that is a chronic irritation. This can be easy to do, but depending on what you decide to let go of, it can be very difficult. Whether it is easy or difficult, at the end of the week, you will be better off. You will have lightened your load.

This task may be as simple as throwing away a plant you have been struggling to keep alive. It may be difficult in that you may have to tell someone you no longer want them in your life.

You may need to let go of a project that does not seem to be working out no matter what you try. It may be a client who is never satisfied despite your best efforts. Maybe you need to give up on being supermom and accept that the house isn't always going to be neat and tidy. Whatever you choose to let go of, make it something that has added stress to your life.

You may want to write a letter telling someone exactly how you feel. The person can be living or dead. It's not important that you send the letter, just that you write it. The letter you write may be to yourself, telling yourself to let go of some emotion you have been holding onto, something you have been stuck in for a long time.

I got stuck in a book once. I did not enjoy reading it, but I kept plodding slowly page by page while trying to finish the book. I suddenly realized that I could choose to quit reading the book and move on to one I would enjoy more. It seems silly, but some belief I held (maybe from doing book reports in school) kept me trying to read that book for the longest time. I now have a great sense of freedom about books. If I read twenty-five pages and hate it, I don't mind tossing it in the resale pile and moving on! What freedom!

Do a ritual to release the thing from your life if it is particularly difficult. Burn the letter you wrote and have a little letting-go ceremony. Bless a helium balloon with whatever the irritation is and perform a ceremony; release the balloon. Rituals are powerful things. We hang onto cultural rituals because they have so much meaning in our lives. Give your own personal ritual your all, and then let go of whatever you don't want anymore. Be creative, and make it count! Afterward, notice the relief you feel at having this nagging thing removed from your life. You may feel more energy because it is no longer dragging you down.