Unit Assessment Write

 

If I were to choose one person in my life to help by creating a happiness plan it would be my little brother. In many ways he lives what would be considered a healthy and fulfilling life. He follows his heart and does what makes him happy even if it isn't common ( he is a competitive dancer), and he surrounds himself with friends who don't judge him his hobbies. Ideally, he would also be self confident and as carefree as possible. He would not be burdened by society's views on appearance. Unfortunately this is not all true of my little brother.

He has a tendency to be very self conscious about his weight and he lets this get in the way of his amazing personality. When he first began gaining weight he was only slightly bothered by it, but more recently he has begun to let it interfere more with his personality. He is very careful about what he wears and always asks if he looks chubby during the day. I believe that this change has come from a growing realization of the way our society views being overweight. He never cared much before because he knew that his weight didn't make him a different person. However, now that he has started middle school, he has begun to see that when he meets new people they make snap judgments based on appearance, even if they don't mean to. He is visibly gloomy and upset by how he looks and I would like to help him to lead a happier life, unconcerned with his appearance. 

 In order for my little brother to live a happier life he needs to shed his insecurities and learn to accept how he looks or lose weight while still being comfortable with the way he is. I have learned from personal experience that even though people do make judgments on appearance, those judgments can be influenced by confidence in one's image. If you are happy with the way you look, people are less likely to notice the feature it is you are insecure about. I would want to teach my little brother how to think positively about himself and how to ignore the voice in his head that tells him he isn't perfect. Hopefully then he wouldn't be so concerned with the way he looks and what other people say about his appearance. 

The main happiness strategy that I would teach my little brother would be cultivating optimism. I believe that this strategy would be most effective for my little brother because hopefully replacing his negative thoughts about his body image with positive ones would boost his self confidence and make him more comfortable with the way he looks. I would instruct my little brother to take any negative thought he has about the way he looks throughout the day and replace with a positive one. He would have to say the positive comment to himself three times for every negative comment he thinks. He would also only be allowed to use a scale once a week and any time he looked in a mirror he would have to think something positive about the way he looks. I would also give him  inspirational quotes to carry around in his pocket that he could look at when he feels sad (I have already done this). Hopefully this would become less forced over time and he would start to think positive things about himself without prompting and on a regular basis. I would be able to enforce my happiness plan at home with him and be able to help with positive feed back. 

I believe that the biggest struggle my little brother would face in his happiness plan would be when he was at school. However, I think that keeping inspirational quotes with him could help him stick with the plan through the school day. I would also be able to help by adding positive notes into his binders and lunches, something my friends have done for me before that I have found very beneficial. In time I think my little brother would find himself to be happier and more comfortable with how he looks by following my happiness plan.