Be a Badass Positivity Surfer; my own ten day challenge

TL;DR

• Focusing on positive values and hopes is an essential part of maintaining optimism and resilience during tough times.

• Using a “habit tracker” can be a great tool to sharpen your vision of your own values and goals, and to maintain action in living that vision. This is how I am using mine!

• There is a distant wave of positive changes forming and coming from the horizon; it’s time to get your own surfboard out and ride it like a badass positivity surfer!
  
  

Are you feeling wearied from this Dumpster Fire that we call 2020? Is it hard to maintain a positive attitude?

Let me flip the question 180 degrees and ask: 

How will you end this year better than you started?

How will you emerge from the pandemic stronger than you started?

This week is a great time to think about both questions!

Today is the solar equinox.  The shortest day is today, so starting tomorrow, there will be a little more light to illuminate us every day.  There are   29 days left until we install a new President, and welcome voices of unity and hope into our national conversation and policy. Two effective Corona virus vaccines have emerged; as a frontline physician, I will receive my first dose on Wednesday! It will be so exciting to reduce the anxiety and grief of COVID-19!

Can you feel the optimism rising? Can you sense the shift in the energies around you? Can you imagine a better time rolling towards us like a distant wave forming out in the horizon of the ocean?

There are TEN days left in this year.  We are all looking forward to saying good bye to 2020, an undeniably tough year for this nation, this entire world that we are a part of. Yes, 2020 has been wearying, and has challenged our energies, our resilience, and our ease.

This is a great time to switch from  negative, anxiety-driven mindset to a purposeful and optimistic or positive mindset. 

How can we catch that positive wave and ride it like badass positivity surfers?  

Finding and defining our positive hopes and values, and choosing to focus on them affirmatively, is part of a focus on building resilience and optimism. “Positive psychology” is not just an eye-rolling, feel good catch phrase.  There is good data to support that emphasizing positive thoughts and emotions, and creating positive experiences, is more beneficial to mental health than just digging deeper into our emotional muck. I utilize a positive approach in my coaching whenever possible - because it WORKS.

I believe that if we step back and view ourselves, our suffering and anxiety and isolation during this pandemic, with clarity, we can see the loss and stress as a distillation - what we grieve or miss tells us a lot about what we really value.  If we look at what still remains in our lives and what we hope to reattain, we see a reflection of the best of who we are, what we value, who we want to be.

How can we sharpen our vision of that?  How do we use that reflection to guide our path forward, so that we begin 2021 with a positive vision to move towards with purpose?

In my coaching, I use each client’s strengths and “ways of knowing” to help them find a clarity of vision and intention. It’s the joy of the work, and unique to each client. But sometimes it’s difficult for me to “practice what I preach.” I need to use reminders, and coaching from others, and creativity in continuing to strengthen my positive voice.

I never ask others to do work that I am not willing to do myself, so I am asking myself these questions, posing myself that challenge, before challenging you to join me.
I am going to start sharpening my vision through my… wait for it… bullet journal. Currently in volume 2. Washi tape, colored markers and all. (If you’ve been subjected to my nearly evangelistic preaching about my wonderful journey through the “BuJo” world, feel free to roll your eyes and groan here.)

Daily gratitude journalling is just one of the ways that my bullet journal helps keep me focused on what really matters.

If you’ve followed my blogs, you know something about my year of maintaining a  bullet journal - one place for all my weekly agendas, class notes, goals, lists of books to read, inspiring quotes, mundane “brain dumps,” shopping lists, task lists, musings, and even my loftiest spiritual musings. Recording and mindfully attending to the ebbs and flows of this year have kept me on a growth path and palpably changed my life in immeasurable ways. But right now, my daily gratitude list is feeling a bit forced.  The habit tracker (“drink more water,” “exercise,”  etc) - is feeling a bit stale.  Blah blah blah.  Time to brainstorm something fresh!

This morning is December 21.  10 days left in the year.

I realized it was time to rethink which habits I really want to strengthen between now and New Year’s Eve.  What are the habits that really give my life true health and meaning? Spiritual health and physical health are closely intertwined - not separate at all. I’m giving myself permission to focus on values this week instead of more typical “health habits.”

So for this week, I’ll be starting a new habit tracker and challenge  for myself.  For now, I’ll let counting glasses of water be set aside.  I’ll walk the dog and stop worrying about “exercise.” I’ll focus on positivity in other ways. This morning, I made myself a menu.  I challenge myself, for the next 10 days, to attend to and journal one thing every day in each category.  

Setting up a structure and a blank page always invites me to follow through and translate my ideas into concrete action. It keeps me accountable as well.

How will I end this year better than I started it?

What are the real “habits” I want to cultivate to become the best of myself as the pandemic lifts?

The nice thing about the bullet journal is that every day is a new blank page.

I can rethink and refocus, be flexible in my goals, and keep working towards them.

The Ten Day Challenge is just a beginning.

I invite you to go into your own space and think about the things that define your own positive values.

Your inner wisdom is unique to you, and will guide you in the paths towards a positive future in the New Year.


If you create a ten day challenge for yourself, what will it look like?

Be a badass positivity surfer. Be ready to catch that wave.