Practical Personal Development

Happiness Advantage

The Tetris Effect

I love the book “The Happiness Advantage” by Shawn Achor. One of his topics is the concept of the Tetris Effect. Something interesting happens to people who play Tetris for hours on end — their brains literally see Tetris shapes everywhere they look. I can say the same happens to me when I do a lot of repetitive art for Oracle Cards or some other art project. My brain starts seeing objects everywhere.

As Achor explains it — it’s not just a vision problem — playing hours of Tetris literally rewires your brain to warp the way you see real-life situations.

Similarly, when our brains get stuck in a pattern that focuses on stress and negativity, we are setting ourselves up to fail.

The good news is that we can retrain our brains to spot patterns of possibility, so we can see opportunity every place we look.

When we intentionally look for the positive in situations instead of the negative, we unlock three magical gifts — happiness, gratitude, and optimism.

The best way you can kick this into high gear is to make a daily list of the good things in your life — some people call this a gratitude journal. By reminding yourself of the good in your life, you’ll start to see more of it…