Monday 23 November 2009

Three Positive Things

It's been a little over a week since I last posted, for which my apologies.

Although I was supposed to be off last week, I ended up working the whole week, and particularly late on Monday and Tuesday. The rest of the week I was catching up on telly and relaxing when I could - including having a bit of a break from the internet!

On Tuesday, I was driving home listening to the wireless and I heard this edition of "All in the Mind". The programme was about optimism and, more aptly, pessimism and ways these can be used and combated.

One of the interviewees featured was a Doctor Seligman from the University of Pennsylvania. He had a number of interesting suggestions, including determining your key strengths and then working out ways to apply these to the tasks which you disliked least. Another was to get into the habit of writing down at the end of the day 3 things, however trivial, that had gone well that day. Studies have suggested that doing this can improve mood and productivity.

This website has a number of tools and links relating to Dr Seligman's ideas. I've not yet explored it fully, but am going to take some of the tests and see if I can become more positive.

For now, I'm going to try to think of three positive things each day. I'd have struggled to think of that many last Tuesday, but today I'm going to list the following:

  • I got today's key item of work completed, and approved.
  • I was able to relax a bit and have a bit of banter with my colleagues
  • My holiday requests were okayed by the boss

Andrew

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