360 Living: craft a life you love, in every direction

A fresh (re)start for us. Want to join?

Wed, 19 Jan 2022 12:54:54 -0800

When we, the co-founders of 360 Living, came together a few years ago to bring an idea to life, we weren't exactly sure what it would bring or where exactly it would go. We launched into action anyway, progress being better than perfection, with the creation of the 360 Living guide as a resource for reflecting on and intentionally improving each main area of life. And then, as lives sometimes do, our own got busy.

So now, after a period of hibernation following its launch, we're excited to pick up on the message and the mission laid out for 360 Living, to help people in the day-to-day adventure of living, and living well.

With this new beginning, or perhaps more precisely this continuation, we're excited to bring you more regular updates, inspiration, reflections, and resources in alignment with the 360 Living guide and principles.

And because we also recognize the value of human creation, input, and perspective, we'll also share from a personal place in some cases. We'd love for this publication to grow as a blend of reliable, objective information and diverse individual sharing, each element building on and supporting the other to create a fullness of experience with each read, each dive in.

So to kick things off, we're very glad to showcase some thoughts and a recommended resource for the new year (yes, still new...think about it, we're not even 1/12th of the way in!).

Whatever your feelings toward the traditional practices and rituals that come with this time of year, we hope this can be of use to you as a support for reflection and intention planning in 2022. And perhaps as this post comes partway into January, the ideas below can serve you without any feeling of heaviness or pressure or obsession over perfection. Because while it's still "that time of year," there is no countdown hanging over your head to start 2022 in a state of stress...Read More

You will be surprised to find out what we can learn from 100,000 happy moments

Wed, 02 Jan 2019 14:41:07 -0800

HappyDB is a database of 100,000 happy moments crowd-sourced via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.

In this survey, each worker responded to the following questions:

What made you happy in the last 24 hours?
Which events made you happy in the last three months?

We applied machine-learning algorithms to extract key insights from these happy moments. The conclusion of this study tells a lot about who we are, what makes us happy and the power of classification algorithms to profile who we are.

Let's start first with the Machine Learning (ML) classification algorithm

What is a ML classification algorithm? Essentially, classification means that the algorithm determines the "right categories of a new observation on the basis of a training dataset containing observations whose category membership is known". Let's look at the following example:

Write a small text describing what makes you happy.
Using the known training dataset, the ML classification algorithm will determine with a 65% to 80% accuracy from which country you are, if you are a man or woman, if you have kids. And even if you are married, single or divorced.

With a precision of 65% to 80%, ML classification algorithms learn from historical training data, and predict who we are, simply by analyzing a couple of sentences we write.

Imagine how such a powerful tool can be used - and misused - by marketing firms, political parties or employers. On a more constructive note, how can you think of an application in our workplace to transform the way we run our business?

The next takeaway from this study reveals new insights into our happy moments

Right graph below: the top five keywords quoted by women as their source of happiness, are husband, daughter, son, home and family (sorted by frequency). The next one is friend; job first comes in the...Read More

Looking for authentic happiness? Start on a solid foundation with ASSESSMENT

Sat, 14 Jul 2018 07:19:36 -0700

When it comes to building a balanced, authentically happy life, a solid foundation can be our best friend. Sure, we can go about randomly implementing tips and strategies that we hear about online, from friends, etc. But is this approach really efficient?

We think you know the answer.

Trying to build happiness without a solid foundation is like trying to put together a puzzle with all the pieces upside down.

Sure, you could put it together if you spent enough time. Who are we to judge -- maybe you just like a challenge? Like...a nearly impossible challenge.

But if you're actually interested in making progress, why not just flip the pieces over first? You know, get a better picture of how they fit together.

Likewise, when your approach to happiness is based on random tidbits thrown at us in daily life, you might make a few centimeters of progress, but it's unlikely to lead to significant change. Especially when we're so bombarded with messages from every direction. It's difficult to know who to trust, and even once we have figured out who to trust, it can be difficult to actually find the time and motivation to put the pieces into place

What will help you make significant progress, though, is to take the time to understand all the particularities of your own life, and how they contribute to your happiness. By assessing our happiness in various areas of life, we get a clear picture of what needs to change. Even if you don't know how to change those things, that first step of evaluation is an incredibly valuable launchpad for remarkable change.

That's why we created a tool for assessment with the Authentic Happiness Survey, and it's also why we expanded that free survey and guidance even further in Read More

"How to be happy" (probably not the answer you thought)

Fri, 06 Apr 2018 02:24:18 -0700

We’re all seeking it in one way or another. Chasing dollars, pining for love, obsessing over health…so how on earth do we actually find happiness?

Well, friends, we have good news and bad news.

First, the downer: there’s no single answer. We’re all unique, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to happiness.

But now the good news: there are lots of ways you can start building happiness, day by day. “How to be happy” isn’t the right question to ask. Rather, you should be asking “what needs to change in my life,” because that’s how you determine your personal starting point. It’s the basis for creating meaningful positive improvement, and it could lead you in many different directions.

Finding your personal version of how to be happy

Finding authentic, lasting happiness is about understanding the various directions and focus areas which need attention in your own life. Your journey will never look just like the journey of someone else, and thank goodness for that! How boring would life be if we all just had to follow the same formula to “win”? If we could just type in the right “cheat codes” and fast-track ourselves to happiness, we’d miss out on so much learning and adventure.

Even the dark days in our lives play an important role in fueling our drive toward better days. For example, 360 Living co-founder Jacquelyn hit a phase of burnout after an overload of work and school and additional commitments. It was that low point which drove her to take definitive action for her happiness, quitting her job and leaving her comfort zone to go backpack around Europe.

It doesn't have to be drastic, though. Whatever struggles you’re facing, the low points can be clues for you to start making change. Maybe for you it’s more about minor adjustments to your daily life. Or perhaps it would take a major step that scares you. In any case, we can use the low points as a springboard for positive...Read More

Great books to change your life & kickstart happiness

Fri, 23 Feb 2018 04:07:33 -0800

Personal growth depends on the effort you put in

Here at 360 Living, we're big fans of continual learning, and reading is a great way to do that. Building authentic, lasting happiness is an ongoing journey, and it involves balance between many different areas of life.

Sometimes, though, we find ourselves in a rut. Maybe we're burnt out from work, or surrounded by the wrong crowd of people, or neglecting our physical or mental health.

There's a long list of factors that affect our happiness and overall well-being, so how do we get from "stuck" to "rolling"? Here are some of our favorite books to catalyze positive change in your life, get out of a rut, and find inspiration and fuel toward better living.

Must-read motivational books to change your life

The Miracle Morning, by Hal Elrod

If you start your days dreading the alarm, or having a hard time dragging yourself out of bed, or simply feeling uninspired, this book will put some pep in your step. It's based around a simple concept of habit-stacking, and it's based on the author's own personal experiment with incorporating a series of known life-improving practices. Author Hal Elrod, now a world-renowned speaker and entrepreneur, talks about how he hit a serious rut in his own life after a serious accident. He tells the story of how the Miracle Morning routine helped him pull himself up out of that and transform his life to something truly fulfilling and impactful. The activities in the Miracle Morning routine are pretty easy to remember, thanks to the handy acronym SAVERS: silence (meditation), affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing (writing).

In fact, I followed this routine for awhile before adapting it to my own...Read More

Foundations of Happiness

Sun, 11 Feb 2018 00:49:09 -0800

Happiness is a driver for our success in life. Without it, we have a hard time getting up in the morning to do what we must do (buy groceries, go to work, make food), and what we want to do. So in reality, the question of happiness goes much deeper than simple, fleeting emotion. It's a critical element of our lives.

But how do we get there? With our many obligations and stressors, it can be difficult to think of happiness as a real priority. It gets shuffled to the back burner because of the many more pressing priorities. Family, work, fitness, house repairs...there's always something else pulling on our attention.

It's easy to start feeling like we're drowning in a sea of obligations.

360 Living aims to draw focus to be a lifeboat in this situation. It outlines a set of foundations that together can make or break our happiness. We know that those stressors and other priorities won't go away. But by creating a detailed and focused list of priority areas, we're better equipped to stay on track with them. We stay more accountable to the really important areas.

Dumping loads of energy into one area of life may help us to attain great gains in that area, but if it means neglecting the other areas, it won't lead to authentic, lasting happiness. Eventually our neglect toward the other areas will fester and overpower any satisfaction we found in the one area of focus.

The concept of 360 Living is not to try to tackle everything at once, nor to focus obsessively on any one area at a time. It's about balance. There's a certain order which dictates our ability to find happiness. It ties back to that trusty old psychological framework Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. This pyramid-shaped concept gives a visual representation of how we must fill basic needs (i.e. safety) before focusing on more complex needs (i.e. relationships).

360 Living is a matter of...Read More

Launching 360 Living

Thu, 08 Feb 2018 12:39:15 -0800

Welcome to the very first 360 Living blog post. We're excited to fill this online space with many resources, insights, and features to help you live your best life. To start off we figured we'd give an introduction to what 360 Living is all about and how it came to be.
So who exactly is "we"?
Jacquelyn Salvador and Yvon Dalat founded 360 Living out of a passion for living life in the best way possible, and for helping others do the same.
Yvon was seeking to share the results of the Authentic Happiness Project, which had been helping people evaluate and improve their lives all over the world through a survey and a set of customized reports. Jacquelyn happened to be seeking writing work at the time, so when she read about Yvon's project and saw its alignment with her own interest in living life in the best way, it seemed a perfect match.
An agreement was forged with Yvon crunching the numbers and gathering data, and Jacquelyn weaving them together into an actionable guide to help people find the good life. As they say, the rest is history. You can click here to read more about us and how 360 Living came to be.
Now that you know a bit about who we are, let us just say at this point that we're grateful you're here! We know there are a million other places where you could be directing your attention, and we'll do our best to make every moment here worthwhile and jam-packed with inspiration, empowerment, and engagement.
We're now excited to share the results of those many months of research and resource-gathering as we launch the book and the site.
We're also eager to share those resources and messages of 360 Living elsewhere, too. 360 Living is a result of the work and messages of many others who have worked on elements of living the good life, and we want to continue working...Read More