×

We use cookies to help make LingQ better. By visiting the site, you agree to our cookie policy.

image

Happiness, 2.15 (V) Week 2 Video 12 - The 2nd happiness exercise - Expressing gratitude

2.15 (V) Week 2 Video 12 - The 2nd happiness exercise - Expressing gratitude

[MUSIC] Aloha! Here we are at the end of the second week already. I hope that you're continuing to enjoy the lectures. I definitely am enjoying delivering them. In this video, I'm gonna give you the instructions for the second exercise, which is expressing gratitude. Your task in this exercise is very simple. First, I'm gonna show you a video that tells you how being grateful can make you happy. Then, I'm gonna actually turn to our lead TA for the course, Catherine Zavio, to give you the instructions for the exercise. First, here's the video that I want you to watch. » What makes you happy? Having fun? Hanging out with friends? Delicious food? Making money? Well, consider this. Psychologists have scientifically proven that one of the greatest contributing factors to overall happiness in your life is how much gratitude you show. Yeah. Think about that. Go ahead and marinate on it for a second. You can thank me later if you want. It'll make you feel better, according to this study. You can go ahead and click on it and read it if you want. Or, you can keep watching, because we read it, and we thought it might be fun to test out for ourselves. We gathered a selection of volunteers to act as our subjects. First we gave them a test. They didn't know what we were looking for, but it gave us a pretty good idea of their current level of happiness. We asked them to close their eyes and think of somebody who was really influential in their lives, somebody who did something really amazing or important for them. We had them write down as much as they could about why this person was so important. Now, a lot of them thought at this point the experiment was over, until we really put them on the spot, and tried to get them to call that person, and read what they wrote about them. Thank you Jessica. We're going to have to have you call your mother. So who is that right person for you? » Person is my sister Erica. » We're going to give Erica a call. » [LAUGH] Okay. » Who did you end up picking? » A friend of mine Craig Anes. » Her name is Dora. » My college accounting instructor. » Really? Is this somebody you're still in touch with today? » No, I'm assuming that he's passed on. » That's a shame. » To the great beyond. » You up for it? » Yes. » What would you say if we called up Dora? » Oh we can try, but she lives in Britain. » In Britain? » I don't know her number by heart, dude. This is awful. » That's fine. I don't know my mom's number by heart. » If it's true that those who go on are looking down on us, maybe he read my chicken scratch. [LAUGH] » [SOUND] Hey sweetheart. » Hey, how you doing? » Yeah. » You got a second? Where you at? In the hotel? » I am, I'm in the hotel. You scared me, when you asked, I had to check if something's wrong. » No, I'm on this little TV show and they told me to talk about the person that influenced me the most. And I picked you and they're making me call you. » Oh, wonderful! [SOUND] » Hi, you've reached Craig. I'm not here right now. » At the tone, please record your message. » [SOUND] Oh, come on. [SOUND] » Hello? » Hi. » Hi? » Erika? It's me. » Alright, so I've got to read you this paragraph. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Go ahead sweetheart. » All right, the person that influenced me the most would be my mother, Milo Dawson. She is a single mother of two. She is a very hard worker and dedicated to her family. » Hey Craig, this is Loie. This is gonna be a funny little voicemail so I hope you enjoy it. I'm so sorry for calling you at four o'clock in the morning. [LAUGH] » I have to read this to you, okay? And you can't say anything, or I don't know. You can respond but I probably will just keep going. [LAUGH] Okay? » Is everything okay? » Yes, but I have to read this out loud to you. » The person who has had the biggest impact on my life, outside Jesus Christ, who is responsible for my existence, was my college accounting instructor. He had a joy and enthusiasm for his job like no other teacher I have ever known. » I love her to death, and she keeps me going with positive talk. She is a woman that knows what she wants and won't give up until it is achieved. » Oh, I don't know what, I'm about to cry because that's so beautiful. » I have to say, that's just wonderful. » I first met Craig on an independent feature film set in Whitefish, Montana. I recently have been sending Craig a lot of positive thoughts, as he suffered a series of health problems. Despite his medical problems, he's continued to work and take pleasure in the small things in life like sitting sitting quietly with his wife Jeanine on the porch. » Erica is my older sister and my best friend. Sometimes it even feels like we are twins. She's my number one fan and my number one supporter. She makes me happy because despite all my mistakes and my decisions she still loves me no matter what. » Your friendship is everything. And you are one of the most important person in my life. » Even when she has a kid and many children I will love her more than her kids. Okay. Maybe not. I will never forget when she flew 3,000 miles at the drop of a phone call to save me from a breakup. » I'm being blessed by having a friend like you. I love you. » Bye. [MUSIC] » Why did you do that thing? » [LAUGH] I don't know because they made me do it. [LAUGH] » Thank you for picking up. Bye sweetie. » And then they're like here, you're gonna write this letter. Then I wrote like this whole long ass letter which I don't write, and then all of a sudden they're like hey guess what, now we're gonna call her and you're gonna read her this letter, and I was like what the [BLEEP]? [MUSIC] » Before we let them go, we gave our subjects one more happiness test. Now, we mixed up and rephrased the question so they didn't know they were taking the same test twice. For those who took the time to actually write something down but couldn't make the phone call for whatever reason, we saw happiness increase between 2 and 4%. Good, but not exactly mind-blowing. Now, for those who actually picked up the phone and personally expressed their gratitude, we saw increases between 4 and 19%. So either way, expressing your gratitude will make you a happier person. But you want to know something really interesting? The person who experienced the biggest jump in happiness was the least happy person who walked in the door. What does that mean? That means if you're having a particularly tough time, trying this out will more likely have a greater impact on you. Trust me. I'm in a lab coat. » I really hope you enjoyed the video, it's one of my favorites and my students generally tend to really love it. I think the people at Soul Pancake rock. Now, Catherine wants me to shout out and hand over the stage to her, Between you and me, I think she has a little bit of first-stage hunger. So that's what I'm gonna do. Over to you, Katherine. Come on over. » Hi, all. Great to see you again. I'm very grateful to have the opportunity to give you the instructions for what else? The Gratitude Exercise. Which is the second exercise in this course. The exercise has seven steps which might seem like a lot but that's only because we have broken down the three main steps in this exercise which are: thinking of someone to write your letter of gratitude to Writing and conveying the letter, and finally, writing about how you felt when you felt when you conveyed your gratitude letter to the recipient, into many, many steps. At the end of this video, you will see a link to a website, like this one, appear on your screen. You will be taken to the next page in which you will be asked to enter your first and last name, and your e-mail ID. After providing those details, click on the Get Started to Go to Step 01 button, which will take you to the first step of the exercise, watching the gratitude video by Soul Pancake. If you have already seen the video, which of course, you have, click on the Go to Step 02 button at the bottom of the screen. This will take you to step 2 of the exercise, which is to think of someone who has had a positive influence on your life. This person can be someone from any time in your life, your teacher, parent, mentor, friend, etc. It's ideal if you can think of someone who is still alive. If you prefer to wrote your gratitude letter to someone who's passed on, that's fine, too. Once you have thought of someone to write your letter to, enter their name on the website, and indicate whether the person is still alive or not. Note that if you want to write your letter to someone who's passed on, you will be asked to provide the name of someone else with whom you can share the letter. So for example, if you want to write your gratitude letter to an uncle who's passed on, you could read the letter to that uncle, son, or daughter. Once you have done all this, click on the Go to the next step button on the bottom of the screen, which will lead you to step 3 of the exercise. Now think of all the reasons why this person had a positive influence in your life, and then write down your thoughts in the space below. Each sentence should be typed on a separate line in the box. Once you have listed all the reasons why the person you wish to thank had a positive influence on you, click on the I am Done- continue button, which will lead you to the next page, on which you can see all the reasons that you just typed up. Using these reasons, write out your letter of gratitude. This is step 4, and the most important step in the exercise. Make your letter a relatively long one, but not too long. You should aim to write three to four paragraphs. Note that it's best to avoid saying anything that has a chance of being construed as negative. Scan your letter to see if it contains something that could be interpreted negatively, and if so, consider removing or revising it. Once you have written your letter, click on the Next button. You will be able to see the letter that you just wrote. If you're satisfied with the letter you can click the I am satisfied, go to the next step button. Once you click on the Next button you will be taken to step 5 of the exercise, which involves choosing one of the three options for contacting the recipient of your gratitude letter, and conveying your letter to them. That is, choose whether you want to meet or call the person and read out your letter to them, or email the letter to this person. After you make a selection, click on the Next button. You will see the following message on your screen. Yay, that's great. Click on the Next button below once you have finished conveying your letter to its recipient. If it takes you some time to complete this step, don't worry. You can log off now, and the next time you log in, you will be brought back to this screen. Once you have conveyed your letter to the recipient, and that person has responded, and you've clicked the Next button, you will be asked to respond to two questions, which is step 6 of the exercise. The two questions are, who was the person who had a positive influence on you? Mention the name, relationship to you, and how did he or she influence you? After you have answered this question, click next to see question 2. Question 2. What did you feel at various stages of this project, when writing the letter, when conveying the information to him or her, or to the person who knew him or her, and when you were conversing with that person? Once you respond to this question, click on the Next button, which will take you to a screen where you can see and edit your responses if you wish. If you are happy with your responses, go to the next page to download PDF. Of course, if you want to revise your responses, you can always do it by clicking on the Go back, I'd like to revise my answers. Clicking on the Go to the next page to download PDF will take you to the last and the final step of the exercise. See this Download PDF link here on this page? You'll simply have to click it to download a document that contains your answers to the questions on the gratitude exercise. That's it for this exercise, folks. If you are like me, I'm sure that you would love to hear how the gratitude exercise, worked out for the other students taking this course. So don't delay in completing the exercise yourself. Click on the link that's going to appear on the screen in just a moment and start the exercise. With that, let me wish you goodbye for now, and see you next week, when I will be giving you the instructions for the third happiness exercise. » Well, thank you, Catherine. That's about it for this video. Adios, and see you next time in the final video for this week. [MUSIC]


2.15 (V) Week 2 Video 12 - The 2nd happiness exercise - Expressing gratitude

[MUSIC] Aloha! Here we are at the end of the second week already. I hope that you're continuing to enjoy the lectures. I definitely am enjoying delivering them. In this video, I'm gonna give you the instructions for the second exercise, which is expressing gratitude. Your task in this exercise is very simple. First, I'm gonna show you a video that tells you how being grateful can make you happy. Then, I'm gonna actually turn to our lead TA for the course, Catherine Zavio, to give you the instructions for the exercise. First, here's the video that I want you to watch. » What makes you happy? Having fun? Hanging out with friends? Delicious food? Making money? Well, consider this. Psychologists have scientifically proven that one of the greatest contributing factors to overall happiness in your life is how much gratitude you show. Yeah. Think about that. Go ahead and marinate on it for a second. You can thank me later if you want. It'll make you feel better, according to this study. You can go ahead and click on it and read it if you want. Or, you can keep watching, because we read it, and we thought it might be fun to test out for ourselves. We gathered a selection of volunteers to act as our subjects. First we gave them a test. They didn't know what we were looking for, but it gave us a pretty good idea of their current level of happiness. We asked them to close their eyes and think of somebody who was really influential in their lives, somebody who did something really amazing or important for them. We had them write down as much as they could about why this person was so important. Now, a lot of them thought at this point the experiment was over, until we really put them on the spot, and tried to get them to call that person, and read what they wrote about them. Thank you Jessica. We're going to have to have you call your mother. So who is that right person for you? » Person is my sister Erica. » We're going to give Erica a call. » [LAUGH] Okay. » Who did you end up picking? » A friend of mine Craig Anes. » Her name is Dora. » My college accounting instructor. » Really? Is this somebody you're still in touch with today? » No, I'm assuming that he's passed on. » That's a shame. » To the great beyond. » You up for it? » Yes. » What would you say if we called up Dora? » Oh we can try, but she lives in Britain. » In Britain? » I don't know her number by heart, dude. This is awful. » That's fine. I don't know my mom's number by heart. » If it's true that those who go on are looking down on us, maybe he read my chicken scratch. [LAUGH] » [SOUND] Hey sweetheart. » Hey, how you doing? » Yeah. » You got a second? Where you at? In the hotel? » I am, I'm in the hotel. You scared me, when you asked, I had to check if something's wrong. » No, I'm on this little TV show and they told me to talk about the person that influenced me the most. And I picked you and they're making me call you. » Oh, wonderful! [SOUND] » Hi, you've reached Craig. I'm not here right now. » At the tone, please record your message. » [SOUND] Oh, come on. [SOUND] » Hello? » Hi. » Hi? » Erika? It's me. » Alright, so I've got to read you this paragraph. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Go ahead sweetheart. » All right, the person that influenced me the most would be my mother, Milo Dawson. She is a single mother of two. She is a very hard worker and dedicated to her family. » Hey Craig, this is Loie. This is gonna be a funny little voicemail so I hope you enjoy it. I'm so sorry for calling you at four o'clock in the morning. [LAUGH] » I have to read this to you, okay? And you can't say anything, or I don't know. You can respond but I probably will just keep going. [LAUGH] Okay? » Is everything okay? » Yes, but I have to read this out loud to you. » The person who has had the biggest impact on my life, outside Jesus Christ, who is responsible for my existence, was my college accounting instructor. He had a joy and enthusiasm for his job like no other teacher I have ever known. » I love her to death, and she keeps me going with positive talk. She is a woman that knows what she wants and won't give up until it is achieved. » Oh, I don't know what, I'm about to cry because that's so beautiful. » I have to say, that's just wonderful. » I first met Craig on an independent feature film set in Whitefish, Montana. I recently have been sending Craig a lot of positive thoughts, as he suffered a series of health problems. Despite his medical problems, he's continued to work and take pleasure in the small things in life like sitting sitting quietly with his wife Jeanine on the porch. » Erica is my older sister and my best friend. Sometimes it even feels like we are twins. She's my number one fan and my number one supporter. She makes me happy because despite all my mistakes and my decisions she still loves me no matter what. » Your friendship is everything. And you are one of the most important person in my life. » Even when she has a kid and many children I will love her more than her kids. Okay. Maybe not. I will never forget when she flew 3,000 miles at the drop of a phone call to save me from a breakup. » I'm being blessed by having a friend like you. I love you. » Bye. [MUSIC] » Why did you do that thing? » [LAUGH] I don't know because they made me do it. [LAUGH] » Thank you for picking up. Bye sweetie. » And then they're like here, you're gonna write this letter. Then I wrote like this whole long ass letter which I don't write, and then all of a sudden they're like hey guess what, now we're gonna call her and you're gonna read her this letter, and I was like what the [BLEEP]? [MUSIC] » Before we let them go, we gave our subjects one more happiness test. Now, we mixed up and rephrased the question so they didn't know they were taking the same test twice. For those who took the time to actually write something down but couldn't make the phone call for whatever reason, we saw happiness increase between 2 and 4%. Good, but not exactly mind-blowing. Now, for those who actually picked up the phone and personally expressed their gratitude, we saw increases between 4 and 19%. So either way, expressing your gratitude will make you a happier person. But you want to know something really interesting? The person who experienced the biggest jump in happiness was the least happy person who walked in the door. What does that mean? That means if you're having a particularly tough time, trying this out will more likely have a greater impact on you. Trust me. I'm in a lab coat. » I really hope you enjoyed the video, it's one of my favorites and my students generally tend to really love it. I think the people at Soul Pancake rock. Now, Catherine wants me to shout out and hand over the stage to her, Between you and me, I think she has a little bit of first-stage hunger. So that's what I'm gonna do. Over to you, Katherine. Come on over. » Hi, all. Great to see you again. I'm very grateful to have the opportunity to give you the instructions for what else? The Gratitude Exercise. Which is the second exercise in this course. The exercise has seven steps which might seem like a lot but that's only because we have broken down the three main steps in this exercise which are: thinking of someone to write your letter of gratitude to Writing and conveying the letter, and finally, writing about how you felt when you felt when you conveyed your gratitude letter to the recipient, into many, many steps. At the end of this video, you will see a link to a website, like this one, appear on your screen. You will be taken to the next page in which you will be asked to enter your first and last name, and your e-mail ID. After providing those details, click on the Get Started to Go to Step 01 button, which will take you to the first step of the exercise, watching the gratitude video by Soul Pancake. If you have already seen the video, which of course, you have, click on the Go to Step 02 button at the bottom of the screen. This will take you to step 2 of the exercise, which is to think of someone who has had a positive influence on your life. This person can be someone from any time in your life, your teacher, parent, mentor, friend, etc. It's ideal if you can think of someone who is still alive. If you prefer to wrote your gratitude letter to someone who's passed on, that's fine, too. Once you have thought of someone to write your letter to, enter their name on the website, and indicate whether the person is still alive or not. Note that if you want to write your letter to someone who's passed on, you will be asked to provide the name of someone else with whom you can share the letter. So for example, if you want to write your gratitude letter to an uncle who's passed on, you could read the letter to that uncle, son, or daughter. Once you have done all this, click on the Go to the next step button on the bottom of the screen, which will lead you to step 3 of the exercise. Now think of all the reasons why this person had a positive influence in your life, and then write down your thoughts in the space below. Each sentence should be typed on a separate line in the box. Once you have listed all the reasons why the person you wish to thank had a positive influence on you, click on the I am Done- continue button, which will lead you to the next page, on which you can see all the reasons that you just typed up. Using these reasons, write out your letter of gratitude. This is step 4, and the most important step in the exercise. Make your letter a relatively long one, but not too long. You should aim to write three to four paragraphs. Note that it's best to avoid saying anything that has a chance of being construed as negative. Scan your letter to see if it contains something that could be interpreted negatively, and if so, consider removing or revising it. Once you have written your letter, click on the Next button. You will be able to see the letter that you just wrote. If you're satisfied with the letter you can click the I am satisfied, go to the next step button. Once you click on the Next button you will be taken to step 5 of the exercise, which involves choosing one of the three options for contacting the recipient of your gratitude letter, and conveying your letter to them. That is, choose whether you want to meet or call the person and read out your letter to them, or email the letter to this person. After you make a selection, click on the Next button. You will see the following message on your screen. Yay, that's great. Click on the Next button below once you have finished conveying your letter to its recipient. If it takes you some time to complete this step, don't worry. You can log off now, and the next time you log in, you will be brought back to this screen. Once you have conveyed your letter to the recipient, and that person has responded, and you've clicked the Next button, you will be asked to respond to two questions, which is step 6 of the exercise. The two questions are, who was the person who had a positive influence on you? Mention the name, relationship to you, and how did he or she influence you? After you have answered this question, click next to see question 2. Question 2. What did you feel at various stages of this project, when writing the letter, when conveying the information to him or her, or to the person who knew him or her, and when you were conversing with that person? Once you respond to this question, click on the Next button, which will take you to a screen where you can see and edit your responses if you wish. If you are happy with your responses, go to the next page to download PDF. Of course, if you want to revise your responses, you can always do it by clicking on the Go back, I'd like to revise my answers. Clicking on the Go to the next page to download PDF will take you to the last and the final step of the exercise. See this Download PDF link here on this page? You'll simply have to click it to download a document that contains your answers to the questions on the gratitude exercise. That's it for this exercise, folks. If you are like me, I'm sure that you would love to hear how the gratitude exercise, worked out for the other students taking this course. So don't delay in completing the exercise yourself. Click on the link that's going to appear on the screen in just a moment and start the exercise. With that, let me wish you goodbye for now, and see you next week, when I will be giving you the instructions for the third happiness exercise. » Well, thank you, Catherine. That's about it for this video. Adios, and see you next time in the final video for this week. [MUSIC]