21 Smile Salute

Categories: Blog, Press RESET, Smile, FeelGood, Pressing RESET Dec 19, 2022

I’ve started a new routine over the last few weeks. I decided I would perform 21 smiles every day when I’m doing my Daily 21s. Normally, I would hold a smile for 21 breaths, or I would include a smile at the end of my Lion’s Yawns. So while I try to smile daily, there is just something different and addicting about performing 21 individual smiles in succession. 

For one thing, it’s hard. I don’t mean that it is hard to smile, though there are some mornings that seem to need more coaxing to get the smiles going. It’s hard to perform 21 successive smiles. Somewhere between smiles seven to eleven, something pretty wonderful happens; I don’t want to stop smiling. Seriously, about midway through, my smile just wants to be held, and it’s hard to let it go to perform the next “rep.” 

And this amuses me. Almost every time, I’m trying to count my smile reps, and then I find myself counting, but I’m holding the same smile. Which means I just find myself counting. It’s funny to me and makes me smile even bigger, which then feels even better. 

That’s the other thing; for some reason trying to perform 21 smiles in a row just feels ridiculously good. It totally lightens my mood, and also, it totally lightens my body. Inside and outside, I just feel lighter and brighter. Especially when I start laughing because I don’t want to drop my smile so I can force my way to 21 repetitions of smiles. 

I’ve also discovered that I now smile more throughout the day. To be honest, I am working on having more gratitude, and maybe that makes me want to smile more, but it is also possible that my 21 smiles are what have spurred my desire to work on having more gratitude. I’m not sure what is causing what, but what I do know is that I just feel better throughout the day, and I find myself naturally smiling more. 

I don’t really know why I started doing this. I just had the urge one morning, “What if I smiled 21 times after I do my 21 pull-ups?” So I did. And it felt great. And so now I keep showing up to smile in the morning. Because I want to feel great.

What if you tried this? We could broaden my sample size of 1 person. We would have more data to know if 21 smiles made you and others feel amazing, too. I’m betting your smiles will yield similar results. After all, a smile is real, even if it is created without a genuine emotion of happiness. In fact, a smile forced, faked, offered, or repped out is a real physical movement that creates a huge effect. It generates positive emotion and feel-good chemicals that change a person from the inside out. There are no fake smiles. There are only smiles. 

Anyway, this is worth trying. What if you could change your life, and therefore the lives of all the people that you interact with, by trying to perform 21 smiles every morning? I used the word “trying” because you may find it difficult to let go of your smile to rep another one out. This is totally an experiment worth doing, especially if it helps you find your genuine smile that just doesn’t want to leave. 

If you try this, PLEASE let me know what you discover. 

OH, OH, OH! And have a Great Christmas and a Happy End Year!!! 

---