Sculpting project: What Went Well and Why? WWWW Week 1

What went well today? #1. Pierre relocated to a new home.

Pierre has been living here a few weeks. Though I don’t particularly welcome his presence I’ve tolerated it. That is, until he developed a taste for our young chickens. So I moved the young chickens into the adult night coop, baited our live-trap with a marshmallow and set it in the chick coop. About 9:30 PM my nose alerted me that Pierre had found the marshmallow. This morning Evan and I took Pierre for a ride to lands more remote than ours. Pierre had pulled the release string into the cage and chewed it off, so Evan created plan B with a stick and gingerly released the trap’s door. Pierre stepped out. He lingered to look at us longer than we expected and finally scampered away to his new land. The first words out of my mouth were, “That went well.”

Why did this go well? Many possible answers. This time I’ll go with: Because I was diligent to set the trap well and because Evan was skilled in his release method.

A daily practice of asking What Went Well and Why (WWWW) is a clinically proven way to lower depression and promote well-being. The positive effects of this practice grow over time. Assessments performed 3 and 6 months after beginning the WWWW exercise determined that depression rates continued to lower each month. Developed by Dr. Martin Seligman, this What Went Well and Why practice has moved beyond the clinic and is now being used to promote well-being in schools.

I am really skilled at noticing the bad. My WWWW is What Went Wrong and Why. When I get in the truck after attending or leading an event the first thoughts out of my mind are ‘What went wrong?’ This is not an entirely bad practice because it helps me improve my skills and the events I am attending. But after reading about Seligman’s work I decided to expand my review thoughts.

This week every time I finished an event when I would have usually asked my ‘What Went Wrong?’ I choose to first ask, ‘What went well and why?’ The effect has amazed me. The first event I tried it on was a music rehearsal. At its conclusion I got into the truck and asked myself ‘What went well?’. My mind began to remember and take delight in all the good things that occurred. About half-way home I thought, ‘OK, enough of that, now what went wrong?’ My mind was strangely quiet. After a while I began to laugh out-loud. I couldn’t think of anything wrong. I kept trying and finally found one minor thing. I moved my mind back to reviewing what went well and why and arrived home in a happy state of mind.

Most of us are quicker to notice and dwell on the bad than the good. Our brains have been built with this bias and it useful in helping us avoid harm and better our world. But this negativity bias is not the whole picture. To even the playing field we need to make intentional effort to notice the good. Paul, when he was sitting around in prison, wrote a letter encouraging us to step out of this negativity bias. After repeatedly telling us to choose to rejoice he suggested topics to direct our minds to greater well-being.

‘Whatever is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, of good repute, excellent, worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.’ (Philippians 4:8 Paraphrase)

Sculpting Project: What Went Well and Why: Week 1

Each day this week name 3 things that went well and what caused then to go well.

This can be done by yourself or with someone else. It’s a great dinner time practice.

Today’s #2 What went well: I was asked to lead a retreat for a small group (something I love to do). Why: One reason was that I took a risk a few years ago and created a retreat to connect some local women in need of community.

#3 Our adult chickens are free-range with a coop for shelter at night. They put themselves to bed. The young chicks I released to join them had not been trained to know this adult coop as home. What went well?: Tonight the chicks put themselves bed in the adult coop. It has never gone this smoothly before. Why: I call it the miracle of the chicken coop. A gift from God.