“No matter how bad or slow things go, you’re still way ahead of everyone who isn’t even trying.” Tony Robbins

That’s how I am going to start this post, because frankly, it’s a message I had to read a number of times over as solace to myself. This week left me feeling pretty defeated. I am not going to go into all the gritty details, because some things are better left unsaid (and, for someone who is relatively quiet in real life, I sometimes don’t know when how to keep my mouth shut).

Don’t worry, the resolutions-that-I-don’t-call-resolutions are doing just fine. Go, me 🔥

Awhile back, I created a list of things I would like to do each day – specifically, what an ideal day/week would look like for me, and those things include meditation, practicing yoga in the morning before work, reducing my use of plastic, and most of all, practicing gratitude.

I am still working on making most of these things happen. Every day? Ner. But I am making some progress, and I really believe these things are important to my overall happiness and contentment – especially amongst chaos.

It is widely believed that gratitude is the key for optimizing happiness in your life, and I am on that bandwagon. I am trying to journal each week or more, but I don’t have a specific practice to do this (other than thinking through what I am grateful for/my wins of the day before I go to sleep). I was happy to come across this challenge I found online called “Opt for Optimism.” Their tagline is “How many acts of optimism does it take to change the world? Let’s find out.” Each day, I get an email with a different act/thought to help guide me along that path and battle the Negative Nancy’s throwing thunderbolts my way (more often than not, just my own brain/self-talk).

Sure, optimism is different from gratitude, but they are neighbors, wouldn’t you agree? It takes optimism to find gratitude in a negative situation or outcome and turn it into gratitude.

I also joined The Mighty’s “52 Small Things” self-care program, which prompts you to journal about the questions/topics they offer. Here was this week’s:

It’s normal to have an off day, even an off week. But, as I grow stronger in my convictions about what I want and need, I’m starting to question certain things, and for that, I will have to take the reins and adjust as needed. In the meantime?

Onward, gratitude!