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30A Yishun Central 1, #01-04
Tzu Chi Humanistic Youth Centre (HYC Co-Lab)
Singapore 768796

happinessinitiative.sg

We translate the science of happiness and well-being into actions you can take 😊
Get to know us & more 👋:

Meet Francesca Wah! An educator by profession and

Meet Francesca Wah! An educator by profession and a social worker by conviction, Francesca is the founder of non-profit Bringing Love to Every Single Soul (BLESS).

BLESS engages the community through various programmes to help low-income families and children residing in rental blocks. Francesca founded BLESS in 2014, spurred by a desire to make reading programmes more accessible for less privileged children, and has since received multiple awards, including the Singapore Youth Award in 2019 for her leadership and spirit of service.

Join this Thursday's session to understand how her experiences shaped her passion and the influence of your environment on YOUR #passion!
Register now! Link in bio~
#happinessinitiative #happiness#webinar

Passion is not a new idea, but do we actually know

Passion is not a new idea, but do we actually know what it entails? 🤔 Passion is basically a strong liking for an activity, object or concept. But a passion involves more than just interest.

There are 3 important ingredients that are important for passion to ignite - INTEREST, IMPORTANCE and INVESTMENT of time & effort. Beyond interest, the activity has to be important to you, and you must invest significant time and effort into it. Eventually this activity becomes a part of your identity, and that's when you know you've found your passion 🔥

There are various benefits to having a passion, such as experiencing increased positive emotions, state of flow and even increased life satisfaction 😊

If you haven't discovered your passion yet, here's some steps you can take!

☝️ Develop your INTEREST 🔎 - Start by trying new things, be open to experiences. One good way to go about this is to volunteer. Choose organisations that pique your interest and try volunteering there to see if it is really your interest.

✌️Ask if it’s IMPORTANT to you 💭 - Once you've found things that you're interested in, reflect on how valuable and important the activity is to you

👌🏼 INVEST time and effort 🕞 - Deliberately spend time on the activity and practice

Discovering your passion can be a trial and error process, but with some effort, it's possible!

For more on how factors in the environment can influence your passion, be sure to tune in for next week's webinar!

👉 Link in bio!

#findyourpassion #happinessinitiative #passion #wellbeing #mentalhealth #motivation #inspiration #learnsomethingnew #scienceofhappiness #choosehappy #followyourpassion #reflect #weekendvibes #explore #singapore #sgevents #sgwebinar #instagood #lifeadvice #passioninlife #passionatelife #wellbeingseries #youthsg

To kick-start the Well-being Series, we asked Dann

To kick-start the Well-being Series, we asked Danny Koordi 🎧 ( @fablproductions ), Clarence Ching 📖 (@access.sgp ) and the Zhuang brothers ☁️(@weavingclouds) how they ended up on the path of passion 🔥 and the insights they have to share from their journey so far 🤓! Here's a summary of what happened on Thursday during our panel discussion~ ✨👀

Many thanks to @benjaminawisterra from @en_hyphen for lending their artistic skills to capture the discussion!

This is just the beginning of our Well-being Series 🙌, organised in partnership with @nycsg ! If this piques your interest, be sure to tune in for our next webinar, where we will delve into exactly how YOU can discover your passion.

Link in bio! 👆👆👆

#happinessinitiative #webinarsg #nycsg #youth #mentalwellbeing #passion #findyourpassion #livingmybestlife #explorepage #graphicrecording #animation #followyourpassion #learnsomethingnew #scienceofhappiness #wellbeing #mentalhealth #onlineevent #podcastsg #artists #careerdevelopment

In our previous posts, we covered the downside of

In our previous posts, we covered the downside of being unrealistically optimistic about our goals 🙃
A practice that can help close the gap between our dream future and reality is to set goals with implementation intentions ✨

𝑻𝑯𝑬 "𝑰𝒇-𝑻𝑯𝑬𝑵" 𝑷𝑳𝑨𝑵
How many times have you set an ambitious goal, romanced by the ideal self in your mind's eye? 😍 Perhaps you vowed to have a six pack in six months only to disappoint yourself when you end up nowhere near even a two pack in a year 😞

When we set a goal, we can't only settle for a vague intention to pursue it. Hitting our goals requires specifying the when, where and how 🔍. Research on implementation intention has simplified this idea to the phrase: "𝙄𝙛 𝙓, 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙄 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙔"

For example, to get that coveted six pack, you could decide "If I want to eat pizza, then I will do 60 sit-ups!" 💪 This helps keep us motivated in chasing our goals, avoid distractions, and create behaviours that replace the bad habits holding us back.

All this being said, we all struggle with different ideas of what a realistic goal is. 🤔 There may not be an easy solution, but “if-then” plans can help us be optimistic while still grounded in reality 👍

#happinessinitiative #insightful #settinggoals #goals #fitspo #inspo #learnsomethingnew #instagood #instadaily #lifeadvice #mentalwellness #achieveyourgoals #target #cuteart #motiongraphics #videoedit #socialgood #socialenterprise #singapore #sgyouth

"Look at the positive side..."🌞 has long been u

"Look at the positive side..."🌞 has long been used as a response to life events that we'd rather avoid. Research does show that optimism is very beneficial in coping with stressful situations and even encourages us to put in more effort to achieve our goals. 🎯 A positive outlook in our daily lives is even linked to overall better health and longevity ❤️

𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐒𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐨𝐨 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐚𝐧 𝐇𝐮𝐫𝐭
However, there is such a thing as being too positive - to the point where we might become unrealistically optimistic 😬 This happens when being relentlessly optimistic results in a skewed idea of how situations will turn out.

Hence, even when something we've been worrying about turns out to have a positive result, we can still feel let down by the outcome falling short of what we were hoping 😔

For example, slaving over a hot stove for a potluck 🍖 with friends and ending up feeling let down because your friends liked the dish you prepared, but they didn't quite LOVE it 😑

It's even worse when we don't get what we want at all 😢 With our hopes dashed, we are left with only the negative emotion of crushing disappointment.

𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜
How then do we maintain a positive mindset, while still staying realistic? 🤔 While our friends' reactions to our culinary skills might be out of our control, what we can focus on is setting out to perfect that dish before the potluck, and accepting that they might not LOVE it even after all our efforts.

☝️But the optimistic goal of creating a stunning dish has to be accompanied by achievable actions, and a realistic buffer of the outcome.

Learn more about hitting goals like these using implementation intentions in our next post - coming out Saturday! ✨

#passion #happinessinitiative #wellbeingseries #findyourpassion #lifeadvice #learnsomethingnew #wellbeing #mentalwellness #mentalhealth #wellnessjourney #instagood #explorepage #singapore #youth #sgevents #mondaymotivation #instadaily #inspiring #choosehappy

We'll be kicking off the series with Passion 🔥!

We'll be kicking off the series with Passion 🔥!

Have you discovered YOUR passion? Why do any of us need passion in life anyways?

There is a science behind developing one's passion. Get inspired by others who found their passion by joining a panel discussion 💬! Perhaps find and develop YOURS by learning the science behind passion in our webinars, done in partnership with National Youth Council Singapore!

Find out more and register at the link in our bio~

#passion #happinessinitiative #wellbeingseries #findyourpassion #lifeadvice #learnsomethingnew #wellbeing #mentalwellness #mentalhealth #wellnessjourney #instagood #explorepage #singapore #youth #sgevents #mondaymotivation #instadaily #inspiring #choosehappy

In our previous post, we learned that watching ani

In our previous post, we learned that watching animal videos decreases negative emotions such as anxiety, annoyance, sadness and guilt, while increasing positive emotions such as hope, happiness and contentment ☺️

Though hours of @kittenxlady, @pennybritishblue (thanks for the rec @keetyeng25 !) other amazing cat accounts may make you feel better in the moment, we need to take care not to cross the line into procrastination 🙌🏻

𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐫-𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐈𝐑𝐋

Instead, we should find deeper ways to connect with our love for the furballs ❤️ in a more long-lasting manner.

Our obsession with Internet Cats 😻 and the way some of us genuinely becoming happier through watching and sharing animal videos and photos hints at a greater potential of PET THERAPY and the stress-relief effects that animals have on us ✨

𝐏𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐏𝐘 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐬!
It's okay if you don't have the resources to care for your own fur-friend. Here are some other things you can do that'll still bring you the benefits of PET THERAPY 👍 , with a few additional benefits to the animals too 🐾 :

- Volunteer at an animal shelter 🐶 (comment below if you have recommendations for the rest of us)
- Support organisations who raise awareness for animal rescue/help 🐒 (tag your favourite animal welfare societies in the comments below)
- Visit a cat cafe 🐈 for a relaxing afternoon
- Buy a can of cat food and feed a stray 🐱 (safely, of course, they can be temperamental and cautious)
- Visit a friend with a pet! Studies show that even patting a friendly cat or dog can relieve stress 😌 (and you can catch up with your friend at the same time 🤗)

Show a little love to our fur-friends who make us so happy without lifting a paw 😍

#insightsandinterventions #happinessinitiative #insightful #pawsitivevibes #positivity #cats #pettherapy #animaltherapy #dogs #catsofinstagram #cute #cuteanimals #puppiesofinstagram #loveanimals #animalshelter #wellbeing #mentalwellness #mentalhealth #instagood #explore #adorable #lifeadvice #learnsomethingnew

We often try to find answers and remedies to our s

We often try to find answers and remedies to our suffering. Here's a different angle - let's look at what makes life worth living 🌈

Done in partnership with @nycsg , the Well-Being Series explores this notion by diving into four themes.

Engage with the inspiring stories of individuals who pursued and gained from passion 🔥 , purpose 🎯, relationships 💞 and altruism 🤝. Find out how you can discover and develop these areas in your life for your happiness 😊

Four months. 12 webinars. We hope to see you there 👋

More info can be found at the link in our bio!

#happinessinitiative #scienceofwellbeing #wellbeingseries #choosehappy #insights #learnsomethingnew #art #webinar #singapore #scienceofhappiness #positivevibes #selfimprovement #development #mentalwellbeing #mentalwellness #wellbeing #mentalhealth #howtobehappy #health #lifeadvice #purposefulliving #purpose #passion #altruism #relationships

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