The commitment to happiness exercise. Research shows that when we do things out of love and passion, and that fit our values, we tend to be happier and healthier. This exercise is used in Tyrone's Executive MBA subject on organizational behaviour and students respond to this very favourably. The exercise is designed to help you do more of what's important to you. Do each part of this exercise on your own:

a) List everything that you can think of that is important to you. Be specific and honest. These things can be extrinsic or material (money, car, guitar, etc.), intrinsic or intangible (love, family, friendship, happiness, etc.), spiritual (God etc.), ... really whatever you think is important to you.

b) Now, you must choose the top five things that are most important to you and rank them from 1 to 5. This is difficult, but it is to help you to sort out your priorities. Once you have listed the top five things you must also write three things that you currently do each week which prove that the things you have listed are the most important to you. For example, let us say you said financial wealth is one of those. Then you should be able to say: 1) I put money into my savings account, 2) I personally contribute money each week to my retirement fund, 3) I own property, and so on. If you cannot list three things that you do each week that contribute directly to your financial wealth then maybe it's not as big a priority as you think. Do this for each of your top five.

c) Now, if you cannot list three things that you currently do for each of your top five, on a piece of paper write down three things you will start doing right away to show that your behaviour is consistent with what you list as most important in your life.

d) Once you have verbalized your commitments to what you say is important to you, start a journal and keep track of how you show your commitment to what is important to you. Remember that sometimes we cannot always commit to things as much as we would like, so it would be unrealistic to commit every day. In addition, some days are harder than others, so look more for a general commitment over a period of time. However, by keeping the journal we start being more realistic and honest with ourselves.