1: “Lately, I feel joy when I do burpees.”
That’s what Christina, a 43-year-old poet from Kingskettle, Scotland, said when asked what brought her joy.
“A burpee is a physical exercise that involves dropping to the ground and getting back up again,” Kelly McGonigal writes in her new book Joy is a Risk Worth Taking.
Burpees are tough and exhausting. Who actually enjoys doing burpees?
But for Christina, Kelly writes, “the fact that burpees are hard is part of what brings her joy.”
Why? Because a year earlier, Christina had developed an autoimmune condition.
“She went through a period of time,” Kelly writes, “when the most basic things, including walking and sleeping, were painful.”
“My body stopped working, and I did not know if it would ever work again,” Christina says.
“So to be able to do a burpee now is just the most amazing thing. To be able to do things that you thought you might never manage, that’s joy. It’s a signal that you can do so much more than you think.”
Christina’s appreciation for doing burpees reveals something important about joy.
Joy comes not just from what you experience, but from recognizing why that experience matters.
It’s the difference between a joyful moment and a “fleeting sense of pleasure or relief,” Kelly writes.
“People who are able to appreciate positive experiences—to recognize their value and feel good about them—report more joy in everyday life,” she notes.
2: You can experience more joy by learning to recognize what Kelly calls the “pleasure-meaning loop.”
“This means,” Kelly says, “alternating your attention between savoring feelings of pleasure or relief and noticing the thoughts, emotions, or feelings in your body that mark the moment’s significance.”
What does this look like? Let’s return to Christina and her burpees.
Imagine you are in the middle of a challenging round of ten burpees.
“As you finish the seventh burpee,” Kelly writes, “you feel a jolt of pleasure realizing that you are going to make it through all ten.
“A thought occurs to you—This time last year, I couldn’t walk without pain. You feel a swell of gratitude.”
As you begin the eighth burpee, you feel gratitude in your body.
“You sense your arms pushing you away from the ground and your legs propelling you to standing,” Kelly observes.
“These physical sensations get wrapped in a pleasure gloss of meaning—It’s amazing that my body can do this. As you rise out of the last burpee, your heart is racing from the effort.”
Remembering what it felt like to lose your strength makes you appreciate having it back.
“After the last burpee, you take a moment to rest, basking in a warm glow of accomplishment and thankfulness,” Kelly explains.
If you are exercising with a partner, you might give a high-five and seal the meaning by saying, “Good work!” or “We did it!”
3: What’s happening here?
In the pleasure-meaning loop, “your attention shifts between what’s happening, thoughts about what’s happening, what you sense in your body, and positive feelings such as gratitude, pride, love, hope, or relief,” Kelly writes.
This is a skill. Something you can learn to do intentionally.
“If you aren’t used to allowing an initial good feeling to develop into something more meaningful, your brain might not enter this positive feedback loop so easily,” she explains.
Another obstacle? Not paying attention to how pleasure and positive emotions actually feel in your body. “Your brain relies on sensory information, not just thinking, to fuel the pleasure-meaning loop.”
This week, you’ll learn how to turn everyday pleasures into moments of joy.
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: When something brings you pleasure, do you pause to consider why that moment matters to you?
Action: The next time you experience something enjoyable, pause and notice how it feels in your body. Then ask yourself what makes that moment meaningful.