9 Lessons From 365 Days of Spotting Things That Bring Me Joy, and Sharing Them Publicly

It was December 23, 2023, and I was in a dark place. Sitting on the bed in the guest room, I realized I hadn’t consciously felt joy in a few days. I’m not talking about the happiness of seeing my family or the love I feel for them, but the joy that feels like the sun landing on your face and suddenly making everything brighter.

I decided then and there that I’d look for at least one Little Thing of joy each day, and to keep myself accountable, I’d share these Little Things on my Instagram stories.

As I’m writing this, it’s December 23, 2024. I haven’t missed a day since I started – although I did post late once or twice – and a friend suggested I’d share what I learned from this project.

Things I Learned From 365 Days of Noticing Joy

If I’d put my professional content writer hat on, I’d write this article from a more general perspective, sharing the lessons one/you could learn from 365 days of spotting joy. But these are the things I learned, and I don’t want to claim they’d be valid for anyone else.

1. I can do something every day of the year, even when it’s hard.

Sharing something that brought joy once a day through an Instagram story isn’t exactly a hard thing to do, but I am choosing to see it as a sign of discipline. Before my burnout, I was perhaps a bit too disciplined, doing things because I’d planned them even if my body needed something else. Since my burnout, my brain’s been a lot more frazzled and it’s been harder to be consistent with things.

2. Doing something publicly is a powerful way of creating accountability for yourself.

I’ve had accountability partners in the past and that has rarely been consistently successful for me. The only time it has worked, was when my accountability partner wanted to be consistent with the same thing I did, that thing was a frequent topic of conversations, and we both knew we’d be so much better off if we kept it up.

I started sharing my Little Things on Instagram because I knew that if I’d label them as “Little Things, Day 1”, “Little Things, Day 2”, etc., people could see when I missed a day and I wouldn’t want that. Even though I think few people (or maybe even nobody) would have cared if I actually missed a day, the idea of that “public failure” was enough to keep me motivated.

3. It’s incredible when your words have a positive impact, even if it’s on only a few people.

Most of us want to feel like we’re making a difference and achieving that is a lot easier when taking action on a small scale than if you’re trying to solve the big problems of the world.

Throughout the course of my first Little Things year (I’ll continue the project!), multiple people have complimented me on it both via Instagram and in person. The most powerful comments came from people who told me how the series had made a difference in their lives. They would tell me how my Little Things brought them joy, or how they had started looking for Little Things themselves.

While hearing things like that definitely is an ego boost, they mostly made me feel empowered. They made me feel that even if it was small, I could have a positive impact on someone.

4. People are lurkers.

I’m too lazy to look up numbers right now but I believe that across social media channels, most people are passive consumers. They scroll, watch, and read without liking, commenting, or sharing.

I’ve felt the same with this series, although I also need to say that I haven’t tried getting more engagement like I would have if this were a business project.

5. You never know who will reach out.

Following the previous point, it was interesting to see who did comment on the series and who didn’t. I was particularly surprised and extremely grateful for the few people in my social circles who came up to me in person to tell me they appreciated my Little Things.

It takes some courage to do that.

6. Sharing my Little Things late at night made it easier to be consistent and feel a positive effect but was worse for my phone use.

I’m not happy with how much time I spend on my phone when I’m home in the evening and because it does take me some time to share my Little Things, I briefly tried sharing them the next day during my lunch break instead of on the evening of the day I spotted them.

That didn’t work well.

Not only was I more likely to forget sharing them, I also found it harder to recall the joy I’d felt during those Little Moments when I wrote about them a day later.

7. I’m bad at counting.

Even though Instagram keeps an archive of your stories so it was possible for me to go back and check which day I was at, I somehow miscounted by 10-ish days at some point and ended up sharing “Little Things, day 352” when really I was at day 363. Oh well.

8. I could find joy in every day, even though some days I had to look harder.

This lesson is the reason I wanted to write this post from the “I” perspective. There are people going through things that are indescribably hard, in situations that are indescribably painful. I don’t want to claim that they’d be able to find joy every single day.

I did have days when nighttime came and I was stumped about what to share as my Little Things for that day. Sometimes because that day had seemed very bland. Other times, because I was in a rough place.

Having to share at least one Little Thing forced me to look for the positive in my day and try to sense the joy in whatever popped up. Our brains are biased toward the negative and having this practice was especially important on the harder days.

9. Having a daily thing to show up for was beneficial for my mental health.

The past two years have been challenging and many days still are. Having to publish something that other people would see every day helped me maintain a sense of positivity and motivation.

What’s next?

I’ll continue sharing daily Little Things on my Instagram account to train my brain to spot the good and give myself a daily mood boost. I hope the series will also continue to inspire others to look for their own Little Moments of joy each day.