FindGoodDaily started during a hard season in our family.
Someone we love was struggling with anxiety and depression. Life felt heavy. There were downward spirals, and we wanted to find tactics to drive the upward spiral instead.
The Upward Spiral became our family's framework. Four pillars, written on the fridge: Positive Thinking, Gut Health, Therapist, Sleep. She got the help she needed for the other pillars. We went looking for a tool that would help with Positive Thinking. Something that would help us notice the good around us, and help her start to find it herself.
We couldn't find anything that fit. So we built one together.
The brain science that made us build it
Dad read everything he could get his hands on. Books and articles about depression, anxiety, neuroplasticity, memory, attention, and how repeated patterns can shape the brain over time.
Three brain systems kept coming up in everything Dad read. The hippocampus, which helps form and retrieve specific memories. The amygdala, which tags experiences with emotional weight. And the basal ganglia, which run habits and default reactions. The bigger lesson was neuroplasticity. The brain is not fixed. With attention and repetition, the patterns we fall into can shift over time.
(Our Why Finding Good Works page covers all of this in depth.)
None of this means an app can treat depression. It cannot. But it does mean the brain can change, attention can be trained, and small repeated practices can matter.
That is why we built FindGoodDaily.
Search for the good
We've always believed you find what you're looking for. Search for bad, you'll find it. Search for good, you'll find it. Why not search for the good?
That's the practice behind FindGoodDaily. Search for the good. Log it. Share it. Remember it. Actively, not passively.
And not every day is going to be good. But the center of FindGoodDaily is the good.
What we didn't expect to find
We built this for our small crew. Along the way we noticed things we hadn't planned for.
Sending good felt good. When we sent a good moment to someone we loved, they often sent one back. A small flywheel of good built up around us.
Working On became a motivator. Stating what you're working on in your own words, and seeing it every day, was a friendly reminder of what we wanted to be intentional about.
Memory turned into one of the top unexpected finds. Old entries pop up and we re-share them all the time. That brings the feeling of connection.
It gave permission to send appreciation. Dad isn't great at sending appreciation texts on their own. FGD made it feel natural to send good to friends, coworkers, and family that might have felt awkward as a standalone text.
One important reminder
FindGoodDaily is one tool. The Upward Spiral has four pillars, and this app only supports one of them. A real mental health journey needs the others too. A therapist, eating well, sleep, exercise, and sometimes medication. Use this app alongside those things, not instead of them.
If you are in a crisis right now, please reach out. In the U.S., call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, free and confidential, 24/7. In the UK, the Samaritans line is 116 123. We mean it: this app is not enough on its own when things are dark.
We started BringGoodLabs with one objective: bring good. FindGoodDaily is one tool toward that. We hope it helps you the way it's helped us.
— James, Brooke, & Alyssa - BringGoodLabs