I decided to shake it up a little today by keeping track of all of the positive and negative events that happened to me throughout the day. The theory I was testing was that if there are too many negative emotions that would negatively impact my day, that I could add a few positive items to make sure that the positives outweighed the negatives. I would rate each event on a scale from 1-10, with each event that made my feel unhappy on a negative scale, and with each event that affected my mood in a good way on a positive scale. If an event was neutral and didn’t impact my mood, I didn’t count it at all. Read on below.
Day 17:
Something I'm Thankful For: Numbers and lists. I enjoy them, and was looking forward to trying this experiment for the day. I know a few of you thought it sounded awful, but I was totally excited to try it!
Challenge O' The Day: Trying out this theory! Here are all the events that stood out in my day:
Not feeling sick: +3
Heard of beloved actor Steven Hill’s death: -1
Took care of NCS work: +2 (feeling accomplished)
Heard of prominent Jewish figure Rebbetzin Jungreis’s death: -2
Had son get angry at me because I couldn’t play with him: -1
Planning first group movie outing in LA for Floyd Norman’s documentary: +1
Launched new Kickstarter Campaign: +3
Hubby started new job: +5
Got to take son out for one-on-one time at the park: +3
Made new “mommy friends” and set up future play date: +2
Went to goodbye party for friends: -1
Got to walk home with a friend and have offer to help organize the house, KonMarie method: +2
New tablet arrived surprisingly early: +5
Tablet didn’t work, realizing it may be my computer that is not working: -10 :-(
Tally at end of day: +11
Lesson Learned: While the day was going very well overall (the best news being that hubby got a job! It’s not exactly what he was looking for but it’s something, and the people are really nice!) the last bit of news that my computer may be the problem and not my tablet really overshadowed a lot because of all the setbacks it would cause me to find a new job, and would set all my freelance work back for an undetermined amount of time. I can’t work on my storyboard portfolio until the Cintiq is fixed, and the salary from hubby’s new job is still not enough to cover bills. Plus, the news came so late at night that all I wanted to do was go straight to bed and not worry about making the day “better”. So I would say that today’s experiment did not work when dealing with creating a more positive attitude. But it was definitely a fun attempt!
Daily Insight: While this was a noble experiment that I’m glad I tried, it’s not something I would try again too quickly. It may work on a calmer day when a less devastating blow like “you may need to drop $2,500 for a new laptop” is not the final blow of the day. It was refreshing to try a new method though, and I can’t wait to start reading some of the new books I took out of the library to learn more insightful tips.