Staying Positive

I had the distinct pleasure of attending Outward Bound New Zealand in 2013 and, through this, our course facilitator Vic Hewson .

To this today, I remember walking in to the room after our first day at OB - knackered beyond belief. Vic asked "How are you going going?" to which I replied with the standard, unconscious response - "Not bad".

Vic paused for a minute and replied "That's interesting". Sensing more to it, I asked "Why?". He simply replied "Do you measure your days based on how bad they are and today's was 'Not bad?'".

That exchange has stuck with me since then. Now, when asked, most of the time I will reply "I'm fantastic" or similar. Some times I am, some times I want to be and, sometimes, I slip back to old habits. It's interesting to see peoples reaction when you don't reply with the socially accepted 'I'm good', 'Not bad', 'No complaints'. But more than inciting a conversation, by saying it repeatedly during the day, I remind myself to be it.

Where this discussion led was does your environment control your feelings or your feelings control your reaction to your environment. This also followed a discussion around power words in our language and how our mind intrepets what we say. Great example here being 'Don't drop this' when you throw something v 'Catch this'. For 'don't drop this' - the mind will often ignore the 'don't and simply hear 'drop this'.

This left an imprint on me that for ages I have been outsourcing my happiness and success and, as a result, only getting fleeting moments of it. 'I will be happy when <insert situation here>. When that situation arises however, we (myself included) barely stopped to be happy, we simply reset the expectation to another event.

I've had some challenges with mental health like many. Setting really high bars for myself and when I get close to acheiving them, moving them higher still. Thus never giving myself time to actually suceed. Or, and equally, seeking 'perfect' but rnot ealising that this also and often has a by-product of diminishing your risk tolerances as risk has the potential for failure - what a viscious spiral that personal trait is. As you read this, you'll realise I've let this one go. Oh, and imposter syndrome.

All this culminated in a situation where I was forced to answer the question 'why am I?' and a personal journey to BE happy not FIND happiness. This wasn't (and still isn't always) my default setting.

A TedTalk by Shawn Achor got me curious and I ended up spending some time journalling. Being honest, this wasn't easy. The challenge was the blank page when you start.

So, being the analytical person I am, I rewatched the above video and took Shawn's content and adapted it to suit me.

I landed on asking myself 6 questions each day to keep me centred on the things that make me happy, give me energy and keep my black dog at bay.

These are the questions:

• What act of kindness did I do?
• How did I show those I care for that I love them?
• How did I look after myself?
• What are 3 things that made me grateful?
• What did I learn?
• What am I going to do tomorrow to improve?

Try saying 'I'm fantastic' next time someone asks how you are. Not only to see how you feel as a result, but you'll also be amazed how this will pop that person out of the normal conversation opening mindset as it isn't a response we are conditioned to receive.

Use this as you want. I am sharing this as twice this week I have had this conversation with others and ended up sharing these questions.

Leaving you with the final thought - you are what you say. If you change what you say, you can change how you feel.