an adventurous life holds the key to unlocking positive emotions.

Play is our first energiser. Life is stressful. Play makes it fun. If we can integrate the spirit of play into our lives, we’ll feel better – and do more too.

‘the psychological function of play is to restore the physically and mentally fatigued individual through participation in activity which is pleasurable and relaxing.’

Brown, S. L. (Penguin, 2009). Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul.

based goal would home in on the end result – ‘Lose 5kg by the end of the year’, ‘Hit the bestseller list with my book’ – an input-based goal would focus on what we can do in the here and now – ‘Go for a ten-minute walk everyday’, ‘Write 100 words each morning for my novel’. Controllable: We want to focus on goals that are within our control. ‘Spend

My preferred method doesn’t involve fixating on an external outcome or destination, but instead emphasises the feel-good journey. It’s based on what I call NICE goals. Near-term: Near-term goals ensure that we’re concentrating on the immediate steps we need to take along our journey. They help us avoid being overwhelmed by the bigger picture. I

My twist on Toyoda’s method is to use the five whys not only to explain mistakes, but to determine whether a task is worth doing in the first place. Whenever somebody in my team suggests we embark on a new project, I ask ‘why’ five times. The first time, the answer usually relates to completing a short-term objective. But if it is really worth

Commander’s intent is rooted in the German military tradition, dating back to the Prussian Army of the late nineteenth century. German military strategists realised that no battle plan could ever predict the chaotic realities of war. ‘No plan survives first contact with the enemy,’ as Field Marshal Moltke the Elder put it. (To be precise, he said,

Gable and her colleagues found that responding to good news in an active-constructive way makes the sharer of the good news happier, and makes the relationship stronger. Indeed, in a 2006 study, researchers videotaped seventy-nine couples who were dating10 to examine how they discussed good news and bad news with each other. It turns out that how