The Top 3 Things In Your Day
The Top 3 Things In Your Day
If you have been finding lately you are reaching the end of your long days and feeling that things have not gone well for you, I would like to offer you a little tip that may help change your outlook on life. It is really simple to do. It requires that you have with you a small notepad, something to write with and the willingness to be perceptive to notice when something positive happens to you.
Make it a goal to note the top 3 things that happen to you during the day. However, instead of waiting until the end of the day and trying to think back, keep track as you go along. Start from as early as getting up in the morning. Perhaps you had a refreshing shower, a good breakfast and heard a song you really liked on the radio on your drive to work. Those immediately become your top 3 best things in your day. As the day goes along and other good things happen, evaluate them at the time they have occurred against your current top 3. If the new happening is better than one of the previous ones listed, remove from your list that earlier happening that no longer fits as one of your top 3 and include your new one. If you continue this pattern until you go to sleep at night, you will both have a meaningful top 3 for the day, but the history of the good things that happened to you during that day.
Keeping track of your top 3 is a way of keeping a gratitude journal for yourself. At a recent presentation I attended hosted by a researcher from the University of California – Riverside, increasing our happiness is something which we can control to some extent. While 50% of our happiness can be attributed to genetics, and 10% to our environment, 40% of our ability to be happy is directly in our control and is based on how we choose to view what has happened to us. Further research found that people who kept gratitude journals of the good things that happened in their life increased their happiness significantly over those who did not do such an activity. Admittedly, while happiness is subjective to the individual, those keeping journals were able to more instantly recall the reasons for their happiness.
Whether you decide to use a journal to keep track of those things that have happened to you that make you happy or grateful, one of the biggest boosts that journals provide for you is awareness. Being aware helps one to realize those things which are draining their emotions. Your emotions and attitudes impact how you see your world and react to the happenings around you. You and you alone have the power to raise both your awareness and response to the happenings in your life. However, it is up to you to be committed to doing so, and tools which help you build that awareness are a way to start on changing your perceptions of your world.
