6 positive things

An idea that I’ve been playing with for the last 3 weeks or so is that of sitting down at the end of each day and noting 6 positive things that have happened during the day.

Positive is self defined so it can be anything you want really…from a nice quiet walk on your own, to hanging out with your best mates, you choose.

I’ve generally found it quite easy to do because I try and put myself in positions where I am doing enjoyable things as often as possible, but it can be quite a challenge sometimes! For example last Saturday was a shocking day for me - I was around the house for most of the day not doing a great deal and then went to watch the United v Portsmouth match at my mates house. United lost so I was in something of a gutted state for the rest of the day and when it came to write down my 6 postive things for the day I was really struggling. I decided it wasn’t going to happen and went to sleep having only managed 2!

The next day I was determined to find something good about the day and not give up on this process because of one comparatively bad day…and I eventually came up with 6, although it was hard work!

For the record these were the 6 positives for last Saturday:

1. Completed the LFU cache practice project 2. Went for a run - very painful but good to get outside 3. Really sunny day - brings the best out of London 4. Found a route through Mitcham to get back home from Tooting 5. Mum’s steamed vegetables for dinner were quite nice for vegetables 6. Read Prison Break forums - some interesting potential plots

Obviously yours will be different to mine but I have been encouraging people to try this out and see what happens. I also used it in a Toastmasters warm up session.

From my experience it is very very easy to focus on the negative things, and therefore to end the day thinking of all the good things that have happened can be quite liberating.

Why 6 things?

Well it’s very easy to think of 3 things, 6 is double that and it can possibly help you find some things you enjoyed about your day that weren’t immediately obvious at the time.

That’s my experience anyway, but I encourage you to give it a try. What have you got to lose?!

Getting started with NLP

No updates for a week, what is the world coming to! Well I don’t actually have any specific subject matter that I want to talk about right now so I’ll just reference a few links to some interesting articles that I have read about Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).

I heard about NLP about 10 or 11 months ago when I was browsing Amazon for psychology related books. I started reading psychology based material about 13-14 months ago, and I’m still reading material now so you could say it’s one of my topics of interest I suppose.

Wikipedia describes NLP as follows:

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a set of techniques, axioms and beliefs that adherents use primarily as an approach to personal development.

That describes it better than I ever could so I think I’ll leave it at that! I feel reading NLP related material has helped me to better understand my emotions and feelings, and has been useful for me in helping to overcome some ‘fears’ that I had previously.

One particular concept which has been useful to me is visualisation. I won’t touch on it too much in this post, but it’s basically the process of imagining a situation in your mind going exactly how you want it to with reference to your own actions. I find this really useful for preparing for situations where I have to speak in front of a group of people - I previously found this a petrifying experience.

The book ‘Introducing NLP Neuro Linguistic Programming’ by Joseph O’Connor was my first reading material on the topic, and I think it serves as an excellent first read. I found everything explained in terms that I could easily understand. I also bought the workbook that goes alongside this book earlier this year but have yet to read that. No doubt I will report back on its usefulness when I do get the opportunity.

Finally, if you don’t feel like splashing out on a book, there are loads of free resources available on the internet. The best I have found so far is a free course run on NLPWeekly.com. I haven’t completed it yet but the material I’ve read so far seems to take a more practical approach than I have witnessed before so I think this could be an excellent resource.