On the first of June I started a new project in my bullet journal. It was one that encouraged me to look around and spot the positives that came from my day rather than focusing on the negative. Being a naturally negative person I didn't know how long this would last or if it would even help.
I posted what I was planning to do on Instagram and I was overwhelmed by peoples reactions. There were lots of people who already do this and have noticed a positive change from just writing down one or two, or even more good points from their day. No matter how small. A few of my little moments include sitting in the sunshine, a catch up with a friend or even just how pretty sky looked on the way home.
And I was also told by the lovely Gabrielle (the over thinkers coach) that there is research to suggest that this form of gratitude practice is proven to improve wellbeing in real ways. No only this but by the time you get to the end of the month you've got a whole month of positivity to look back on!
I thought it would be a good chance to show you how I set up my bullet journal for the month of June incase you also want to do the same and let you know how I got on with writing down the good things for a month! I was actually surprised with how it went...
So, this is the spread that I created for June and below is a close up of July. I decided to keep it simple black and white so that it wasn't too fussy as I knew I would be filling the whole thing with writing! I also wanted something that I wouldn't be bored with or distract me from what the spread was about.
I find setting up bullet journal spreads very therapeutic anyway so I quite enjoyed drawing this one up. But you can keep it much more simple if you're not into decorating your pages. I left two lines for each of days to fill with my positive things from that day. I thought that would be too much until I started filling it in and realised I could probably write a bit more but it's a good starting point.
I found that making a note of every (or most) good things throughout the day has so far led to a more positive mindset and I actually look forward to filling it in at the end of the day.
This was actually put to the test on the 10th July when we headed off on our holiday to Norway. When we got to Gatwick our flight had been 'delayed' because of air traffic control problems, sure it was annoying but it was what it was. But not long after we saw that notice we had a text from Norwegian saying that they had cancelled our flight. To rub salt into the wounds, they wouldn't rebook us onto anything else, were less than helpful, rude in some cases and we spent an hour on hold trying to reach their telephone sales team.
And this is where I think this journaling helped. We were told we couldn't fly direct to our destination until Friday (it was Wednesday), unless we went direct via Barcelona, in which case we could fly Thursday. So we reluctantly took that flight (sorry earth, we really do love you). It wasn't until I over heard others talking saying they couldn't fly until Saturday that I felt truly grateful that we even had the chance of taking this super inconvenient flight.
Usually something like this would have ruined the holiday for me. But instead I was grateful that we had to sleep in the car to get this flight. I was grateful that we had to spend 6 hours stuck in Barcelona airport. I was grateful that we got there 24 hours later than we should have. A few months ago I probably would have had a huge sobbing sweary melt down. But that didn't happen. I think that's partly due to the general calmness of Ross and partly due to this.
So it's looking like I'm going to be keeping this as a regular habit! I like being challenged to push past my negativity and find the good things from my day and I'm excited to see where else this helps! If you've kept one, I'd love to know how you got on and if it's had any effect on your day to day!