Today we’re kicking off the 20-day happiness challenge for Fedability! Each day, you’ll have one activity to perform that should take you less than 10 minutes to complete. Today’s activity is to give positive feedback to an administrative assistant that you work with.

If you read last week’s blog post that introduced the 20-day Happiness Challenge you know that I identified 5 different activities. These 5 specific activities are chosen because of the impact they will have for you. And a positive impact on the person that’s receiving the benefits of your action. To make it easier to do the challenge, we’ve created a 20-day calendar for this challenge. You get the calendar for FREE if you sign up for the FedFan newsletter.

Rather than the usual blog post, I wanted to talk to you a bit more personally about this challenge. Take a listen:

In summary, the research on happiness shows that by doing random acts of kindness, people experience a helper’s high. This helper’s high improves your mood and will increase your satisfaction with your relationships. Acts of kindness also have a positive impact on your health according to the research.

Since today is day 1 of the challenge, you’ll start in the top left corner of the calendar that has a number one in it. The activity for day 1 is to give positive feedback to an administrative assistant. This one is first because admins are the hub of any office. It’s typically a pretty thankless job and if they get feedback, it isn’t usually positive.

So pick an admin you work with and give them some positive feedback. Remember, for that feedback to be effective it has to be specific and timely – meaning it has to be about something they’ve done recently. It can’t be general. And, it needs to be genuine!

Now, the hardest part of keeping on track with a challenge is the accountability and support to keep on going. I hope you’ll follow along with me and the other Fed Fans that are participating. I also hope that you’ll share your successes with us either on twitter #happieratwork or on the Fedability facebook page. You can find me on twitter @danaesims_iopsy. Or, you can leave a comment in the space below.

I look forward to hearing how your first day challenge goes!

Ready to go on to the Day 2 Happiness Challenge? Let’s get happier by showing gratitude through a Thank-You note!