IN an online mass last year, I remember the priest saying in his homily: “In a crisis, you become either chaotic or creative.”
Last year, in November of 2020 to be exact, when the stringent quarantine restrictions made the prospect of celebrating Christmas seem bleak and inappropriate, someone thought of a brilliant idea on how we could make our agency team think happy. Monique Buensalido, our AVP for Account Management and Digital, simply asked each one of us to focus on what makes us happy. She called her proposed project: “21 Days of Happy.”
As a holiday team exercise that would culminate in a simple yet meaningful online or virtual celebration last Christmas 2020, Monique encouraged everyone in Buensalido PR and Communications to find something outside of work that made them happy every single day for 21 straight days.
Monique said: “I read somewhere that it takes 21 days to build a habit, so each of us should build a habit by making time for any of the following: passion, joy, creativity or gratitude. Being creative boosts enthusiasm, energy, and well-being.”
Unfortunately, during such a time of upheaval, most of us—to put it understatedly—felt that our energy and enthusiasm had been greatly depleted.
Creativity was defined as “coming up with new ideas, expressing one’s self in an original way, or engaging in artistic pursuits.” But this time we were not going to demonstrate creativity for work. For a change we would do it for ourselves!
Gratitude, on the other hand, builds resilience and willpower, according to an article entitled “Resilience and the Practice of Gratitude” in Psychology Today.
We challenged our team to come up with something that makes them feel good and share this with the rest of us at the end of 21 days. We told them they can do anything that will take their mind off work and give them a sense of joy, something that can hopefully uplift the rest of us once they reveal what they have done.
How did we do it? We were given four simple steps to follow:
Choose your happy. It can be whatever comes to mind but make it positive and make it count. Find something you haven’t done or need to do more of. Take this as a sign to start something new or take a leap!
Do it every single day from December 1 to 21—for a total of 21 days.
Document it. We were encouraged to post about it everyday, or create a new social-media account for it. We were asked to use the hashtag #Happy 21.
Share it. On December 22, everyone was given five minutes (and one slide or visual) to share how the 21 days had gone.
We were given some sample ideas on what to do: Start working out. Connect with some friends. Start a blog (or Tiktok!). Whatever would give us a serotonin boost.
The challenge was accepted and the 21 days went by too quickly. We didn’t know what to expect as the idea was to make our staff de-stress and relax. The project’s outcome was a delightful surprise for all of us, not only because it allowed us to gain more insights into each other’s psyches; it also affirmed Monique’s idea that the habit of happiness can be built in only 21 days.
Just to give you an idea what happy and creative activity each one of us presented during our virtual Christmas gathering: Tina and Marivic became instant plantitas as they showed us the lush plant collection they had put together; Andy proudly related that he had taught his two young children how to pray; Honey shared with us interesting food discoveries she had carefully curated during the pandemic; Clifford submitted four aquascapes he had designed on his computer; Tessa showed us a couple of fashion sketches she had ventured into with a new app; Trisha presented some personal essays she had written during the 21 days; Marion started cooking and baking, while Heather read self-help books; Guia unveiled for the first time the paintings that she had been working on in her limited free time; JV also revealed her artistic side as she showed us several of her colorful collages of textile and visual pegs; Monique took us through some of her favorite coffee discoveries from her travels.
As for my own contribution, I showed them photos of selected gifts I had given a few recipients, which gave me a sense of happiness. I had also written a pandemic poem but not only for 21 days.
Realizing that our fun project had uncovered unique and highly creative pieces, the idea cropped up that we should share the results of our 21-day activity with others—not only because these made each and all of us happy, but also because sharing our happiness journey could inspire others to start their own.
I wish I could include snippets of what every body shared but space constraints allowed me to choose only a batch of those art pieces that we have now put into a desk calendar for 2022. Called 365 Days of Happiness, this personally crafted calendar will be our precious gift to our partners, our friends, our families, and to our immediate community.
We also captured some carefully selected quotations to go with the visuals so that for each of the twelve months of 2022, we may be inspired by words such as “…happiness can be found in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” —J.K. Rowling
Please allow me to share here some of our team’s original artistic creations that we hope will bring positivity and happiness to every day of 2022.
PR Matters is a roundtable column by members of the local chapter of the United Kingdom-based International Public Relations Association (Ipra), the world’s premier association for senior communications professionals around the world. Joy Lumawig-Buensalido is the president and CEO of Buensalido PR and Communications.
PR Matters is devoting a special column each month to answer our readers’ questions about public relations. Please send your questions or comments to askipraphil@gmail.com.