Delight Hunting
Deliberately register and share small good moments to make them stick
- Difficulty
- Starter
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 80%
Delight hunting counteracts the brain's bias toward the negative and the unfinished. Because we're wired to remember what's left undone and to let beauty pass through us unfiltered, positive moments have to be caught on purpose. The practice is simple: actively notice a small good thing, name it, write it down or sit with it for several seconds, and share it with someone. Boardman links this to Rick Hanson's point that dwelling on a good moment for about ten seconds helps lay down the neural traces that make gratitude easier over time. Sharing turns a fleeting sensation into a lasting imprint. Repeated daily, these registered positives form a scaffolding of positive emotion that buffers against the everyday hassles and micro-stressors flying at you.
Origin
Boardman attributes the term 'delight hunting' to a University of Chicago philosopher and connects it to Rick Hanson's 'Hardwiring Happiness' work on savoring good moments.
Core principles
- 01The brain remembers the undone and lets the good pass through unfiltered
- 02Positive emotions must be effortfully registered to leave a mark
- 03Sharing a delight imprints it beyond the fleeting moment
- 04Accumulated positive emotion is a buffer against daily hassles
How to run it
- 1
Go looking for delight
Deliberately scan for small beautiful or interesting things, a cool bird, food that tasted great, rather than waiting to notice them.
Watch out Left unregistered, these moments pass through you and are never filtered into memory.
- 2
Register it consciously
Pause and name the delight, or write it down, so attention actually lands on it.
Pro tip Even a one-line note is enough to shift a passing moment into a registered one.
- 3
Sit with it
Dwell on the good moment for roughly ten seconds, long enough to lay down the neural traces Rick Hanson describes.
Pro tip The bad things last long on their own; the good need this deliberate lingering.
- 4
Share it
Tell someone else about the delight, which imprints it beyond the fleeting moment and turns it into an uplift.
Pro tip Sharing is what converts a private flicker into a durable positive memory.
In the wild
During lockdown many people felt they'd accomplished nothing, fixating on unlearned Mandarin and unwritten screenplays while ignoring real wins. Boardman's counter is delight hunting applied to the day's ledger: ask what you checked off, whether you spoke more with your kids or deepened your relationship with your spouse, and register those. Naming and sharing a small good moment, a good meal, a striking bird, shifts attention off the undone and builds a positive buffer against the accumulating daily hassles.
→ Attention refocuses from what's unfinished to what's genuinely good, buffering mood.
Common mistakes
Assuming good moments register on their own
Unlike negatives, positives don't stick automatically; without effort they pass straight through you.
Keeping the delight private
Skipping the sharing step loses much of the imprinting effect that makes the moment durable.
Is it for you?
Best for
People who ruminate on shortfalls and rarely clock the good in their day.
Not ideal for
Acute crises that need practical intervention before any savoring practice.
From the transcript
“he calls it delight hunting. And unless you're actually registering things that are beautiful... they'll just sort of pass through you”
“if you even just write it down... and you share it with somebody else, it does shift, it becomes this uplift”
From the episode
Positive Psychology's Lessons For Coping With Stress - Dr Samantha Boardman - #358
Dr Samantha Boardman