The Journal Canvas was put together by Timothy Thai (CAPP - Certificate of Applied Positive Psychology). These ideas are gathered from leading experts in Health, Sociology, Psychology, Design Thinking, & Business.

The Canvas consists of 14 sections that you fill out as fast as possible! (or at your own pace) everyday for 23 days to help broaden your scope of awareness. After we reflect, map, & redesign.

1. Goals
2. Intentions / Word of The Year
3.What Was The Best Thing I Did Today? (Last Week? Month?)
4. Inspiration
5. 3 Grateful Things
6. Looking Forward To
7. Ideas / Thoughts

Part 2: Resilience
8. Quit 1x A Week
9. Setbacks, Adversities, Stress
10. Fears
11. Failures
12. Forgiveness
13. Well Being / Nourish
14. Act of Kindness

Each section plays an important role as described below:

1. Goals
(The How Of Happiness: Sonja Lyubomirksy)

Written goals are important - it gives you focus, clarity. it gives you direction. by rewriting your goals you not only reaffirm what your goals are, you may also find new insights that bring more clarity and focus to your goal and life.

A written goal is also a powerful reminder that you can use to keep yourself on the right track when you feel stressed and may consider making hasty decisions.

If we don't have a goal, we'll never get to where we want to go. And if we don't stop and evaluate where we are, we'll never know if we're there.

Goal pursuits provide us a sense of purpose and a feeling of control over our lives. It gives us something to work for and to look forward to as well as adding structure and meaning to our lives.

2. Intentions / Word Of The Year
(The Better Life: Claire Diaz Ortiz)

''The Idea is to choose a word each and every year that represents the year you have in front of you. Choose one single word that imbues the type of year you wish to have, one word that can serve as a guidepost for what you want in the season to come. A singular word you can always harken back to in moments of darkness and doubt. One word that informs your decisions, crystalizes your passions and priorities, and embodies you - The New You! - In the moments ahead.

Depending on the type of year you seek, there are many words that can do the trick. Words like Move, Pause, Breathe, Dance, Less, Family, Health, Travel, and Choose all hold a certain special sauce. But the key is that the word brings together everything you fervently hope to live and breathe in the year to come. One word to inform and synthesize the year you have ahead of you. One word to mean everything you want the year to be, and one word that will help serve as a guiding light when times get tough and you're not clear on where your priorities are. 

___________________________________________________________

This next section focuses on improving our positivity ratio: 

When we are happy, we are more creative and motivated, more productive and skilled socially because blood flows freely to our prefrontal cortex, allowing us to make better decisions.

When we are stressed, our vision narrows, allowing us to focus only on the threat or approaching danger. But when we are happy, we can see the bigger picture. Frederickson calls this the ''Broaden and build'' effect of positive emotions.

Happiness broadens our perception in the moment and builds our resources over time. It becomes an upward spiral of productivity and positivity. Peoples whose ratios of positive to negative emotions are lower than 3:1 often ''languish,'' as researchers call it. Their performance at work suffers, they are more likely to be depressed (and not recover), their marriages are more likely to fail - and they arent happy. Languishing people become rigid, predictable, and they tend to feel burdened by life.

Fortunately something remarkable often happens when our ratio of positive to negative feelings hits or passes that 3:1 mark. We flourish. Flourishing people, are happier and more resilient. They are high functioning individuals who score well on things such as self acceptance, purpose in life, environmental mastery, positive relationships with others, personal growth, creativity, and openness. Not only that, but they feel good and they do good. They are highly engaged with their friends, their work, their families, and their communities.

Everything we do in life changes our brain in some way. Whatever we repeatedly sense and feel and want and think is slowly but surely sculpting neural structure. Day after day, our emotions shape our experiences and our brains. This section below is to help us improve our ratio.

3. What Was The Best Thing I Did Today?
(The Better Life: Claire Diaz-Ortiz)

If you ask yourself these simple questions, you're bound to find out some unexpected and illuminating things about yourself and the ways you spend your time. Most important, you'll see some guideposts to how you should be better spending your time in the future. 

By expanding and looking at the whole months worth, we learn even more. How am I really spending my days and how do I want to be spending them better?

Simple tracking can lead to simple changes

4. Inspiration
(The Sweet Spot: Christine Carter) 

Another positive emotion we can actively create in ourselves is inspiration.

We often forget that inspiration, along with its cousins elevation and awe, are positive emotions that make us feel more content, joyful, and satisfied with our lives. 

Watch videos that inspire and move you, read quotations, poems, hike, go to church, doodle, play soccer, do yoga, whatever it is that floats your boat!

5. 3 Grateful Things
(The Sweet Spot: Christine Carter) 

One of the most powerful positive emotions we have is gratitude. We have reams of research indicating that gratitude is part of the happiness holy grail.
Gratitude is a skill, like learning how to swing a  bat, it can be taught, and it needs to be practiced consciously and deliberately. Just count the things in your life that you feel thankful for. Do it in a way that works best for you; one size does not fit all with gratitude practices.

Sometimes good things happen, but we don't actually register the positivity in a way that we'll benefit from. Being really aware of your feelings when something is going right. Savoring can strengthen your relationships, improve mental and physical health, and help you find more creative solutions to problems. In other words, savoring creates the physiology of ease, along with all the benefits.

(Hardwiring Happiness: Rick Hanson)

(Gratitude Works!: Robert Emmons)

6. Looking Forward To?
(The Sweet Spot: Christine Carter)

Dream about the future! Optimism, hope, faith, and confidence, are all positive emotions about the future that can dramatically improve our ratios. 

7. Ideas / Thoughts
(The Crossroads of Should And Must: Elle Luna)

Write down your must. Look for patterns, connections, and recurring themes. Prefer to work in pairs? Hate sitting all day? Find sensory stimulation important for your process? Take note when connections begin to happen between seemingly disparate activities.

As new ideas pop up, add them. As hypotheses emerge, grab them. Then go out and experiment and play with what you're learning. Share your insights with trusted peers. Integrate their feedback and repeat until you start to home in on your Must.''

(Steal Like An Artist: Austin Kleon)

Carry a notebook and a pen with you wherever you go. Get used to pulling it out and jotting down your thoughts and observations. Copy your favorite passages out of books. Record overheard conversations. Doodle when you're on the phone.

See something worth stealing/Noting? Write it down. Need a little inspiration? Open up and look back on what you've written.

<--- Continue to Part 2