How about a dose of positivity during the lockdown? Check out this Kochi guy's Instagram challenge

The 21 days of quarantine is definitely a mandate. There is absolutely no excuse from that. So, why not use it to create positive vibes around you? If you're up for that, you must probably check out the '21-day challenge' by NLP practitioner Safal Adam. 

This 24-year-old Kochiite kickstarted the challenge on March 25, asking the Instagram community to take up the initiative and become part of a series of self-developmental activities. All that one must do is repost Safal's post and leave a WhatsApp message to him. Every day, they're sent a new activity which helps them be grateful to their life.

For instance, picture this. The message on Friday read, "A huge positive change is coming your way. Share the mental image you had upon reading this sentence." Soon, Safal's inbox was filled with messages. While some wrote poetry, others shared photographs and paintings. "Where we live like flowers, wild and beautiful and drenched in sun," reads one of them. 

Content with the responses that he's been receiving for the past couple of days, Safal says, "I had recently done a course in NLP and could see how it affected my life positively. I wanted others to experience this too and this seemed like the perfect time. Everybody is home and the world is much quieter." Keen to let people derive something meaningful out of the lockdown, he says, "I thought this practice will work better as a challenge." While on the first day, people were asked to write down five things that they love about themselves, on the second day, they had to share a photo of someone who was a constant in their life.

"I've read somewhere that if you practice something continuously for 21 days, it becomes a habit. I wanted to inculcate positivity in people that way," he says. Now Safal agrees that it is not a scientifically proven fact and is mostly a placebo effect. "But you're not doing anything wrong or harming anyone," he says. 

A former design professional, Safal says that he is overwhelmed by the number of responses he's been receiving. "People across age groups are taking part in this. Initially, I was expecting a participation of a maximum of 50 people. But the numbers are actually quite high," he concludes.