Introduction

The dirty side of psychological and behavior change research: It’s hard to make things stick. 

Six months down the road, most people aren’t still doing a gratitude practice or going to the gym. Moving from state to trait is hard. Experiences (states) are easy, internalization of them (traits) is hard. 

Knowing about well-being is only a small part of actually cultivating well-being.

Deep change and growth requires much more than knowledge of concepts.

Change (toward greater well-being, in this case) requires deeply applying the knowledge and concepts to your own life — through deep reflection, intentional practices, behavior change, shifts in thinking patterns, and sometimes even bigger changes. 

The experience of well-being – and all of its multi-faceted components – is unique to every individual. Generalized practices and suggestions, while a good starting point, aren’t going to work long-term for most of us. We have to translate the information about well-being into targeted practices that are then tailored to your unique life and well-being goals.

The Task

The following lessons are geared toward helping you set effective goals (and stick to them!) related to your well-being. In order to make these lessons as useful as possible:

1. Pick one small area of well-being to work on. 
   1. Review your reflection question responses from throughout the course so far: What is/isn’t working in that area of your well-being?
2. Pick 1-3 key practices for cultivating that area of well-being.
   1. Review the practices for that area of well-being: What feels doable for you? What are you drawn to?
3. Learn about creating effective goals and behavior change, applying that to the area of well-being we hope to work on.
   1. That is what is coming next! Including:
      1. Tips for setting actionable and achievable goals related to your well-being.
      2. Structures for sticking with the practices that cultivate well-being. 
      3. Guidance for how to reflect – throughout your process of growth – on what's working, what isn't, and shifting accordingly to keep growing.
         
         

Alternative: make a pick-list of small practices across all three areas of well-being that you could choose from each day.

Experiment, see what sticks, and see how you feel when you practice different things.