38 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
38 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Ending your day with happy thoughts
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date: '2013-08-13'
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bigimg: /img/Ending your day with happy thoughts.jpg
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url: /post/can-i-haz-happy-thoughts/
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aliases:
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- /ending-your-day-with-happy-thoughts/
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- /post/ending-your-day-with-happy-thoughts/
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subtitle: Or how a tiny thing can really help you sleep better
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tags: ['self improvement', 'journaling']
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---
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<div class="summary">
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Past new year, I stopped promising silly things to myself. “This year, I’ll for sure go jogging several times a week!” — or “This year, I’ll really get into learning another language!”. We all know how these things go. Not that I made something up on the very day, these ideas are usually carefully crafted in my sketchbook and are lingering there to be exposed and finally executed.
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</div>
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Originally posted on [Medium](https://medium.com/writers-on-writing/6a9dbf4d8212).
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Past new year, I stopped promising silly things to myself. “This year, I’ll for sure go jogging several times a week!” — or “This year, I’ll really get into learning another language!”. We all know how these things go. Not that I made something up on the very day, these ideas are usually carefully crafted in my sketchbook and are lingering there to be exposed and finally executed.
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But there was someting I came across to on the internet I really, really liked. Something small and seemingly insignificant. These 365 things are not exactly new, I know. And “keeping notes to sort out your thoughts” is something I already do for years using my sketchbook which I carry with me everywhere.
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I found another tiny sketchbook I did not use, grabbed a pencil and put these two objects beside my bed. I labelled the book “365", sewed a little hedgehog friend to give the booklet a fluffy look and started writing before actually going to sleep. You should write one sentence, every day. In this sentence, you should be thankful of someone or something — that happened to you today.
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Sounds easy? Right. Put it to practice. It sometimes is extremely easy. It sometimes is extremely hard. Really, really hard.
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Frustrated? Write.
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You should. And by “write”, I don’t mean whole pages. Just one sentence: what happened to you today, what did you like? Focus on the good stuff.
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I have to admit, sometimes more than other times, I have trouble finding good the good stuff. Some days, my work can be really frustrating, the lawn mower got jammed halfway through the lawn, the bycicle chain broke, … I think you recognize these days.
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When I go to sleep, I mull over things that happened that day — it’s not some deliberate action, and sometimes I can’t seem to get rid of certain thoughts. Like how to convince your colleage to use method x and not method y to do work z.
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No worries — grab that pencil and write in your 365 booklet. Start with 2 simple words: “thank you”. These can end in “thank you dear x for retweeting about a meetup I will attend” or “thank you mother for dropping by and cooking hot soup”. (Yes they sound very cliché, make up your own!)
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In my experience, mindfully going through your day and thinking about what you liked most gives me happy thoughts and a sort of satisfaction feeling. It helps me sleep. It’s interesting to reread previous months.
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So, thank you internet for all those amazing blogs and great ideas, even if it’s as simple as writing down what you liked that day.
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Oh, and here’s a pro-tip: use a pencil.That way, you can write while lying down in your bed. |