 There's no shortage of ways to try and be happier in life, but in my opinion, the easiest way is to do a 30 day flow test. Now this idea was pioneered by a guy named Mihai, Chick sent me high and I want to share it with you here today. What's up guys? Alex Hein here over at Modern Health Monk. Now before we jump into this idea on flow testing one on one, I've put together a free journaling worksheet that can help you figure out what you want from life and how to design your dream life going forward. So you can check it out. It's the first link right below this video and you'll also get a weekly email on how to use journaling to improve your life. So when are people really the happiest and when are you actually the happiest? It's interesting because Mihai, chicks at Mihai, I think identifies as a positive psychologist in some general category. But what was interesting was that in his research for his book, Flow, he found that most people were more happy, honestly at work than not at work, but happier in a very specific way. What he means by that is in flow. So what he mentions was a study that he did that he featured in his book Flow. And he said that what he did was he had people throughout the daily course of their lives basically get buzzed or notified at random intervals. And throughout the day, they would have to track what they were just doing and what they were just feeling. So imagine you're in your nine to five life, you're an office worker or a factory worker or a salesperson walking around door to door and a little buzzer goes off and you have to do this little exercise, what I was just doing, what I was just feeling. Okay. And then you go home, you leave your nine to five, you do a little commute, you drive home and now you're watching TV and the buzzer goes off. What are you doing? What are you feeling? You're cooking dinner. The buzzer goes off. You're watching Netflix at night. The buzzer goes off. So you get the point of the study. And the point was really to see objectively when people were actually in flow, the most, when were they the most engaged, when were they the most at peace and the least restless, but primarily when were they the most engaged, right? His whole book is called flow. And he really pioneered this modern concept of flow. So what he found was that ironically, if you ask people, when are they the quote happiest? Most people will say in their free time, their leisure time, right? When I'm not at work because work sucks. But when you test them scientifically, objectively, what he found was that most people were more engaged when they were at work and less engaged, i.e., less in flow when they were not at work, for example, at home. So this was paradoxical because most people said that they felt happier and more in flow, not at work, at home, when they finished their day to day duties. But his science and his little study found that the opposite was true. So for me personally, I ran this experiment for 30 days during a really tough phase in my life. I had just moved back from living abroad. I had no friends where I was at home. I was moving, actually living back in with my parents and didn't have a job, didn't have money, didn't even know what I wanted. So basically I was in a new place, ground zero, rebuilding everything in my life from effectively nothing. And it was a six month window of my life where I really was unsure about what made me happy. Went to these little pickup gigs I did to earn some money, ate dinner with my parents, came home, watched a show with them, rinsed them repeated and spent the morning looking for jobs. And in general, I didn't really feel much happiness at all on a daily basis for six months and more depressingly, I couldn't even find anything that I look forward to. So I thought, OK, I read this dude, Mihai, sent me his book, Flow. Let me try a flow test in my own life. So for 30 days, I did a very simple experiment and I wanted to describe the results first and then show you the experiment you can do on your own. So what I found first and foremost was that there were a few areas in my life where I actually found myself being happier than I thought. Like, for example, one of the things I would do every day was I would take my parents dog for an hour walk just in the neighborhood around sunset every day. And when I did the flow experiment, when that timer went off, I found that I was pretty at peace in that moment. You know, I was in beautiful suburban area in Connecticut. The leaves were changing at that time of year. It was very peaceful. And even though it was not the most fun moment of my life, I was actually pretty content and it was actually a flow producing moment where I felt at peace with my life, at least for that hour. The other time when I felt in flow was exercising. So I found that working out was actually one of my main in flow activities where I felt good during and I felt good after. And the third was that on the rare scenario, the rare situation when I actually met up with an old college friend, that was definitely in flow. So I found out from this 30 day test that there were three experiences that I could try to do every day in my life that made me feel happy and in flow. Walking the dog, meeting up with friends and exercise. And so all I did was for the next 30 days, I made sure I did each of those things every single day. And I found that my life was a lot happier and a lot more in flow. And before those 30 days, these weren't things that I knew about myself. They were things that I thought were boring, like, oh, I'm just going to go to the gym because I have nothing to do and I want to be healthy or I'm going to walk the dog. Because again, I have nothing to do and my mom wanted me to help. But in reality, these things actually made me happy. So I want to introduce you to this little index card exercise, right? When I first did this experiment, I just started with a little piece of paper like this. And all I did was I set a timer for every hour. Not on the hour, but let's say 3.30, 4.30, 5.30, 6.30. So I set basically 20 timers throughout the day. And every time that timer would go off, at the top of the sheet, I just put the activity and what I was feeling. So from there, I basically made a list of things and I made a column. So let's say the first time the timer went off was 8.15 a.m. Activity, what was I doing? Let's just say brushing my teeth. I'll make this next one smaller so we can see it here. And what was I feeling? Just bored, OK? And then the next time I said it to go off was 9.15. So I'll make this a little bit smaller here. 9.15, what was I doing? I was looking for jobs on indeed.com. How was I feeling? I was feeling pretty bored yet again. All right, and then let's go up further in my day and let's go to 11.15. What did I do at 11.15? What was I just doing when that timer went off? OK, this time I was in the gym, I was at Crunch Fitness. How was I feeling? Let's just say positive. All right, I was feeling inspired at that moment. Let's go later in the day and let's go to, let's say, 3.45. Right, keep in mind I was unemployed then. I was working odd jobs, trying to find a full-time job. So I had free time and let's just say. I went to a park with the dog, all right? And I had some pleasant interactions with some people. The dog was running around and let's just say I was content. All right, let's skip further up and we'll go to 7.15. And we'll say dinner with my parents. And how was I doing? We were talking and had a glass of wine. We got into a good life talk about my cousins, etc. And then we'll also say content. And then let's go later in the night, we'll say 10.15. And let's say watching the show for two hours. And then how was I honestly feeling right then when that alarm went off? Just kind of blah, right? Kind of bored. I mean time was passing, right? I wasn't having the best time of my life and I wasn't having the worst time. But I definitely wasn't smiling. I was sort of just being lazy on the couch. So what happens is you do this even just for a week and you're going to notice trends. And the point of this is picking up what are the trends in your life for when you are in flow and what are the trends for your life when you are not in flow. But mostly when are you in flow? And from doing this, I learned, you know, the gym I feel good. When I take the dog out to the park or walking around, I feel good. Having dinner with my family or even having dinner with friends, I feel good. And then by the time you've done this for a week or even 30 days, you have a ton of data for your life that you can use for the rest of your life about when you are actually the happiest and when you're the least happy. And also when you're the least and most in flow. And to me, and I think to Mihai, Chicks and Mihai, often when we are in flow, we feel the strongest feelings of euphoria like life and the wind is at our back or in our element, things are going well. And that we're really happy with the way things are going. So try this 30 day flow test, see how you feel and what you pick up from that. And then go under this video and do that journaling worksheet I've included, which will help you figure out exactly what you want from life and how to design your dream life going forward guys. Alright, check it out, those two other related videos too right there and I'll see you guys soon.