Every day presents its own new and unique challenges.
Some days it’s easy to feel happy. Others you would happy shoot the next person who tells you to “cheer up”.
One of the easiest ways to consistently increase your “HQ” or “Happiness Quotient” is to keep a journal of the (genuine) reasons you feel happy each day. It doesn’t matter if you can only think of one. No matter how bad your day has been, there has to be one reason for you to feel happy.
If you write it down, you’re telling the part of you that manages how you think and feel that happiness is what you most want to focus on. The impact that can have on your thoughts, feelings and actions is profound – it’s like retuning the radio.
Here’s a video blog I did this evening with my personal 3 reasons why I’m feeling happy today. [Read more…] about 3 Reasons to feel happy today
I was taking part in an important, 15 person conference call from home (UK) with people in The States. The schedule meant the call would clash with what we lovingly call “The Witching Hour”- the hour before the kids’ bedtime. But I arranged our day so they would be calm and Theo would probably sleep through it. Louis is generally good at amusing himself if needed with a few good jigsaws and his train tracks. So all was looking good.
I was reminded last night of a quote I love:
I vividly remember an exercise we did at school on “Stream of Consciousness”. It’s amazing I can remember something so clearly from so long ago as my remaining post-children brain cells often struggle to cope with what day of the week it is nowadays, so it must have made an impact on me. The teacher got us to write down everything we were thinking, for 5 minutes, completely unedited.
Letting it go is easy to say, particularly when we feel stuck. Yet it can make a profound difference to our state of mind – and our day in general.
Isn’t it weird how it can be so hard to start writing on a blank page (or computer screen!), yet once the first few words are down, it seems to flow much more easily.