Create Happy

Historically, we’re all a mess. None of us has had a perfect life: bad decisions, bad relationships, imperfect families. On this week’s episode, we explore the power each of us has to reframe a difficult experience into something useful—maybe even something positive. We use the Revisit and Reframe worksheet available at desgin.org. Ward shares an experience from his school days and how it’s affected him. Shawn talks about a traumatic night when he was fourteen and how it propelled him into music, poetry, and theater. What about you? What past experience in your life can you reframe into something useful? It’s your story. Make it whatever you want. Learn more about creativity and mental wellness at design.org. Go make something. Create happy!

Write down 30 things that you love about yourself. To make this exercise work, you have to go big. And you know what? That’s hard. A lot of us struggle coming up with three things we like about ourselves. Catch us on a bad day and we have a hard time coming up with one. Why is that? Ward and Shawn work through the Learn to Love Yourself exercise from design.org to find out. They learn how lists like this can alleviate things like writer’s block. They talk about how positive self-recognition (noticing who we are) can inspire us to make our next masterpieces. Learn more about creativity and mental wellness at design.org. Go make something. Create happy!

Can being grateful make you less anxious and more creative? We think so. On this episode, we put that theory to the test and make a list of 100 things we're grateful for. Then we talk about how it made us feel before and after. Ward shares insight about what happens to the way we think when we stop and appreciate the world around us, especially when we do it first thing in the morning. Make your own list of 100. It only takes 10 minutes to do it. What's on your list? What are you grateful for? Learn more about creativity and mental wellness at design.org. Go make something. Create happy!

What gets you fired up? What are you passionate about? And if you don't know the answer to those questions, how can you find the answer to those questions? In this episode we review the Light Your Fire exercise from design.org. It's an exercise designed to help you identify your passions and work through any road blocks keeping you from pursuing them. You can't do everything you want to do. There's too much. Focus on the things you love to do. When you know what your passion is, you’re much more likely to take action. Learn more about creativity and mental wellness at design.org. Go make something. Create happy!

Create Happy is a mental wellness podcast for creative professionals and people who want to be creative. Are you an artist? A designer? A writer? A singer? A dancer? Maybe you work in tech. Maybe you're a product owner or you focus on UX. Point is: does your job or your passion require you to come up with new ideas and new ways of doing things? Does it require practice, patience, and discipline? If it does, this is the show for you.----In each episode, we review a simple exercise that can help you stay on your creative path, regardless of doubt, anxiety, depression, and addiction. We talk about hope, belief, action, and purpose. We talk about what it takes to create happy.----Go to deisgn.org for more information.