TECHNIQUES

10 things that make me happy

This is a great exercise to find out what matters the most to people. We like to kick off research processes and team building by asking participants to make a list of ‘10 things that make you happy’ and then bring it to life.

Written by

Gioel Gioacchino

Edited by

Denisse Albornoz

Developed by

We love doing this exercise to open up workshops. We found out that in some groups, for example, everybody lists ‘spending time with my family’. In others, families are rarely mentioned and people emphasize specific activities like ‘swimming in the river’. How people spend their time can tell you a lot about culture.

What are we trying to understand about the community/group?

We are trying to understand what matters the most to people and how they like to spend their time. What moves people, what gives them comfort, what makes them shine. We learn about community values, and about how people interact with them. We learn about people’s vibes. Some people interpret the list exercise making bullet points, others are more poetic.

Why is it important for the community’s/group's development?

Doing exercises that connect us with our individual and collective joys is a way of engaging with care. We need to also have these moments of connection to give the group the closeness and courage to later brave the hard conversations.

At what stage(s) of the research cycle is this method used?

Community building; Group formation; Data Collection.

What do I need?

A pen and a paper. Ideally some relaxing music.

How long does it take?

This exercise takes no preparation. Depending on the group size and how you decide to play with it, it might take between 20 minutes to 40 minutes.

Get people into a circle and tell them this is an invitation to think about the things that give them joy. Ask them to close their eyes.

Play relaxing non-distracting music in the background (low). Ask them, with their eyes closed, to think about the things, people, places, activities that make them happy.

After a minute, tell them to open their eyes. With the sheet of paper and pen in front of them, ask them to write a list of the 10 things that make them happy (give them 2-3 minutes).

At this point, depending on the size of the group, they can get into smaller groups to share or share with the entire group (in the case that it’s small).

In the smaller groups, ask them to collectively come up with a list of 5 things that give them happiness. Everyone in the group must agree with the final list.

The exercise can end here or you can continue by asking each group to select one of the words in their collective list of 5. Without telling any other group what that word is, the group is asked to create a frozen image of their word.

When the group is presenting the frozen image, the others are invited to walk around this sculpture garden and give life to the statues by going behind them and speaking a word or phrase that they feel represents the image.

This exercise allows participants to reflect individually and collectively on happiness. It is a great way to connect participants to one another and find common ground. We’ve found it to be a good stepping stone to building trust and forming new relationships in the team.

Not everyone has the same idea of what gives them joy, but this is part of the challenge. Some of the things that make people happy are harder to represent in an image, but people get creative!