Practical Bliss Bonus Exercises!

For our purposes, we’ll define bliss as the point where purpose, mindfulness, and pleasure meet (see image). In other words, “bliss” is achieved when your life has purpose, you’re actively engaged with the world around you, and you incorporate pleasure into your life experiences.

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The “Ladder of Life,” exercise taps into present and future happiness.

Imagine that the top of the ladder (the tenth step) is your best possible life, and the bottom (first step) is worst. Identify which step of the ladder you’d say you stand on right now. and which step you believe you’ll stand on five years from now.

**Please see Practical Bliss, Chapter 3, for more information on scoring this exercise and increasing your level of well being.

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Try This: Look at each area of your life as represented in the Wheel of Life Inventory and shade in your satisfaction level in each of those areas of your life. Note that areas closest to the center indicate lower satisfaction and areas furthest from the center indicate higher satisfaction levels. Use this inventory to help determine where you may have development opportunities.

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When thinking about what your purpose may be, start by looking for clues and patterns in your personal and professional life.

Take a look at this example to see how past or present "roles" may help you discover a theme that relates to your purpose.

For example: As a middle child you may have kept everyone happy. As a mediator, you work to keep everyone in order. As a hostage negotiator, you kept everyone calm. The theme may indicate that your purpose is "to be the voice of reason."

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When thinking about what your purpose may be, start by looking for clues and patterns in your personal and professional life.

Take a look at this example to see how past or present "roles" may help you discover a theme that relates to your purpose.

For example: As a babysitter you cared for children, as a school counselor you provided guidance, as a Red Cross volunteer you provided support and care. The theme may indicate that your purpose is "to care" or "to nurture."

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Try this: See "Clues" examples 1 and 2, and then use the spaces in the column on the left to list a few of your past or current “roles” (in your personal and professional life) that may help you discover a pattern or clues as to what your purpose may be. In the spaces on the right side, write down what you believe to be the clues and the overall theme.

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Exercise: Not sure whether you’re prone to perfection? Use this simple self-quiz to determine where you fall on the scale. Be completely honest with your answers, add the sum of your answers, and place your total in the box to the left of the “total” box. Use the guide below to see where you fall on the scale.

––Totals points range from 13-91
––65 or higher are Maximizers
––40 or lower are Satisficers
See Practical Bliss, Chapter 4, for more information on Maximizer and Satisficer descriptions.

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Use these spaces to capture what your purpose may be. You may want to list additional notes and clues here as well. See Practical Bliss, Chapter 4, for more information on uncovering your purpose.

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Exercise: Use this opportunity to identify your known and yet-to-be discovered opportunities for passion. This exercise is all about you, so don't hold back on what really has the potential for bringing more of what you love into your daily life. Additionally, avoid the temptation to try to figure out how or if it’s even possible to accomplish your wish list––we’ll get to that later! I’ve included sample categories to help inspire your exploration.

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Using the Passion Pulse exercise, were you able to capture a few things you know you’d like to do or try? How about a few things you think you might like to try? If so, use this space to set your intention to do at least three of the things you’d most like to do within the next thirty days.

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Be sure to complete the Ch.5-1 and Ch.5-2 exercise before completing this exercise.

Now you’re on a roll! Use this stretch exercise to further challenge your growth.

See Practical Bliss, Chapter 5 for more information on adding more passion to your everyday life.

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When you’re engaged in passion that demands a highly focused mental state, you may reach a state of “flow,” also known as being “in the zone.”

Use the "Flow Chart" to help illustrate why you might feel the way you do when you're working or playing. Notice how it’s possible to move from boredom to high interest, and even flow state, simply by increasing the challenge level (provided you have the coordinating skill).

See Practical Bliss, Chapter 5, for more information on achieving "Flow."

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Take a look at Ch.5-4, the Flow Chart, and then use this exercise to examine an area of your personal or professional life where you experience flow. Additionally, pinpoint an area of your life where you'd like to increase your passion.

For more information on "Flow," see Practical Bliss, Chapter 5 Go With the Flow.

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Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman, leading researchers in the science of positive psychology, have identified 24 Character Strengths through compiling and reviewing thousands of pieces of scientific data from around the world. A true “Character Strength” is something that is morally valued and benefits others when it’s displayed.

See Practical Bliss, Chapter 5, for more information about identifying and utilizing your character strengths.

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This exercise is designed to help you "pull together" and implement the information you've gathered by completing all exercises up to this point.

See Practical Bliss, Chapters 1 - 5 for more information on how to determine and utilize your purpose, passion, and character strengths to bring more joy and meaning into your everyday life.

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When you think about shifting your life around in order to include more purpose, more engagement, and more pleasure, I’m willing to bet you have a few reasons for believing (and perhaps even insisting) that incorporating these elements isn’t something you can achieve.

Use this exercise to purge all that noise and doubt from your head by putting your obstacles onto paper, where we can start to sort through the tidbits of information.

Do not try to "solve" your obstacles––at this point we are only taking inventory.

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Review Ch.6-1 exercise, Purging Your Closet, and review your answers. Use this exercise to sort your answers into "themes," using this table as your guide.

Once you have an understanding of the themes, you can start to develop possible strategies for overcoming your doubts, fears, and obstacles.

For more information, see Practical Bliss, Chapter 6 Stepping Off the Edge.

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When you’re living your life in alignment with your purpose and passion, happiness becomes a set point that isn’t dependent on the positive feeling or experience that happens to you in any given moment.

Notice that when you combine general happiness with a positive feeling or experience, you may culminate pure pleasure.

For more information on how to overcome "fear of happiness" see Practical Bliss, Ch.6 Stepping Off the Edge.

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When it comes to Living in Bliss, you’re going to need to find room in your days, weeks, and months to include the events and things that truly make you feel good, and weed out the stuff that doesn’t.

Use this exercise to help you determine common activities, tasks and projects that occur in your personal and professional life.

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Complete exercise Ch.6-4, Weeding Out the Waste, and then transfer your answers to the appropriate quadrants in this exercise.

*Note: All items in the bottom right box (Optional Stress) can and should be weeded from your daily routine!

See Practical Bliss, Ch.6 Stepping Off the Edge, for more information on how to determine where you can start saying "No" where you need to in your life.

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We’re smart people, and can generally come up with great plans to help our employees, co-workers, clients, spouses, kids, and friends out when they need it, right? So let’s take a few minutes to come up with a solid plan for productively dealing with the mandatory stress for ourselves.

This image will give you examples of how you may be able to change your opinion and develop strategies to overcome stressors in your life.

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See Ch.6-6, S.O.S. Examples, and then use this exercise to develop your own strategy for overcoming stressors standing in the way of your bliss.

See Practical Bliss, Ch.6 Stepping Off the Edge, for more information on how to change your opinions and develop strategies to help you bring more of what you love into your daily life.

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Take a look at this image, which maps out the process of identifying 1) who you are at your core/your character, 2) the trauma or failure you experienced, 3) the resulting feeling you experienced, 4) the deep-rooted parts of you that sprang to life to help you cope and protect yourself from having it happen again, 5) what you gained as a result of utilizing these newly discovered parts of your character, and 6) what’s left to process as a result of the incident.

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See the examples in Ch.6-8 Circle of Experience Examples.

Try this: Think about the last failure you experienced, the feeling you had, the part of you that acted as your protector, and what you gained as a result. Use this image to chart your experience.

Use this exercise to help ground yourself the next time you “fail,” and see if it doesn’t help you stand up and dust yourself off with dignity. See Practical Bliss, Ch.6 for more information on using your past experiences to increase your future bliss.

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When the brain fears that it might be in danger, our fight or flight instinct kicks in and all bets are off. However, we can train our brains to control our responses and be more positive, which will in turn create more positive consequences and contribute to a more blissful existence.

Spoiler alert: both columns contain the exact same number of positive and negative words.

See Practical Bliss, Ch.7 Making It Stick! for more information on training our brains to think more positively.

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The "right brain" understands every word except the word “not.” Meaning that when you hear or think things like “We do not have a problem," you may still find yourself becoming defensive or assuming something is going to go wrong or already is wrong. With that in mind, we have to program ourselves to start thinking a whole lot less about what we do not want to do or do not want, and think a lot more about what we do want to do or want more of.

This image offer some examples of how to train your brain to think more positively.

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Are you on the "learner" or the "judger" path? Scoring: Give yourself 2 points each for checking #2, 3, 7, or 8 in the Agree column. Give yourself 2 points each for checking #1, 4, 5, or 6 in the Disagree column. Add the sum of points in the Agree and Disagree columns and record your answer.

Results: 8-12 points: If you scored between 0-12 points, you may lean more towards the fixed/judger mindset. 13-16 points: It appears you may lean toward growth/learner mindset.

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Strive to begin or end each day with noticing where you have gratitude for your current life, and where you have gratitude for what is to occur in the future.

Use this exercise to capture and really "feel" the emotions behind your gratitude.

For extensive information on this exercise, see Practical Bliss, Ch.7 Making it Stick!

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Complete Ch.7-4 Gratitude is an Attitude exercise and then move on to the bonus questions in this exercise to identify where you may have contributed to creating the things for which you have gratitude.

For extensive information on this exercise, see Practical Bliss, Ch.7 Making it Stick!

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Follow the steps in this exercise to help you determine the potential for yourself.

Read Practical Bliss, Ch.7 Making it Stick!, Potential is Personal for extensive information about completing this exercise.

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As you look at your overall life now, compared to when you started this process, where do you see evidence that you’re reaching your goals? Are you more aware of simple pleasures? Do you invest in more quality time with those you care about? Are you dashing and scurrying less and purposely striding more? Do you find more joy and meaning in your daily life? Do you notice that you’re more positive and less negative? Do you experience moments of pure pleasure? In what areas of your life do you see that you’ve increased your satisfaction?

Use this exercise to note your progress.

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Look at each area of your life as represented in the Wheel of Life Inventory, and shade in your satisfaction level in each area of your life. Note that areas closest to the center indicate lower satisfaction and areas furthest from the center indicate higher satisfaction levels.

Compare your current inventory to the inventory you completed in Ch.3-2 to review your progress.

See Practical Bliss, Ch.8 Maintaining Your Momentum for more information on this exercise.

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Researchers Stephens, Heaphy, and Dutton refer to "HQCs" as quality connections. HQC relationships are based on a mutual admiration for each other's best interest, and are positive and even playful at times.

Use this exercise to assess the relationships you have in your life and determine whether you have at least one friendship that meets the HQC standards.

See Practical Bliss, Ch.8 Maintaining Your Momentum for more information on the power of high quality connections.

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Look at the next two, three, or four weeks on your calendar and block out time to invest in your bliss (before you schedule other things). Then let your other responsibilities revolve around those “Bliss Blocks” of time.

Bliss Blocks can include exercise, hobbies, practicing mindfulness, being in nature, getting together with your HQC, trying new recipes, or doing any of the things that bring you flow—as we identified earlier. Look at this sample calendar, and then add your own "Bliss Blocks" to your calendar!

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Congratulations! You've unlocked a hidden resource, the Choice Map. This tool is one you can use to help you think differently in the midst of frustration, disappointment, or anxiety.

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When you hit those moments in life that bring up feelings of hurt, anger, disappointment, frustration, loss, or other such emotions, it can bring up the urge to retreat and perhaps even shame yourself into shaking it off and moving on. This illustration is designed to remind you to practice the art of self-awareness, self-compassion, and self-care to help you move to a healthier state of centering and balance.

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