Three simple ways to notice the good things.
It’s 2017.
How weird does it feel to write or say two thousand and seventeen?
I wonder how long it will take me to stop saying ‘next year’ and start saying ‘this year’?
And I wonder how long it will take me to feel overwhelmed by all the goals and ‘words’ and intentions I feel I should set for this new year?
Don’t get me wrong, I love intentions and goals and words of the year. I love the feeling of possibility and the excitement of what this new year could bring. I could happily spend all of January writing lists and coming up with goals and making vision boards… but I could also spend the rest of the year feeling guilty that I am not meeting any of those lofty ideals.
And the thing that all those goals and lists miss is that my life is already pretty awesome. It’s just that sometimes, things get so crazy around here, that I don’t notice how good things really are.
So this year, my only goal is to notice.
I want to see the beauty in the mess.
I want to find the good in the rough days.
I want to latch on to every little moment of awesomeness and tuck it away so that when the guilt of not ‘hustling’ or ‘growing’ hits me I have those moments to remind me that I don’t need that stuff.
I don’t need to always me hustling. I don’t need to always be striving for bigger or better. I just need to notice everything that I already do, are, and have.
Three simple ways I am going to notice the good things this year.
Take more Photos.
I take a lot of photos for my blog, but I don’t take many photos of my life, my real life, and I want to change that.
I want to take more photos, not perfect photos, not even interesting photos, just photos of my life.
There are lots of photo prompt lists that are good for inspiration – Capture Your 365 or Fat Mum Slim’s Photo a Day – but following a challenge tends to stress me out a little, so I’m just going to go with the flow and just try to look for moments in my own life, no matter how weird, or boring, or small.
I am aiming for a photo ‘almost every day’… because this is about noticing, not adding extra stress to my life.
Write it down.
For a long time I felt like there was little point to writing down things that had already happened, and the regimented idea of writing something I was grateful for every day was just adding another boring task to my to do list. But I recently found an old notebook where I’d tried to fulfill the gratitude journal task, there were only a few entries, and most of them were boring but one said…
“Morgs and I killed 34 cabbage moth caterpillars in the garden today. We are the butterfly murderers!”
As soon as I read it I remembered that day. I remember the sunshine on our backs as we hunted through the mint and bokchoy to find the caterpillars, I remember watching the chickens feast on them, and I remember my boy and I laughing and laughing at the idea of being big bad ‘butterfly murderers’.
I had a sudden urge to write stuff down, that kind of stuff. Just a sentence or two, some little thing that made me smile, or that made me think, or that made me grow. Maybe not everyday, and maybe not even something I am ‘grateful’ for, but something I want to remember. So this year I am setting aside one of my many notebooks so I can simply notice and write it down.
Slow down.
For a long time I bought into the idea that I needed to ‘hustle’. I thought that I should push myself outside my comfort zone in order to do more, and be more. Lately I have realised that doing that all the time stresses me out, a lot.
Lately I have realised that I don’t want more, that I already have enough, and what I really want is calm.
I don’t actually want to achieve more things, what I really want is to have less things I need to achieve.
This has been a bit of a revelation for me. Instead of trying to fit more things in I have actively worked on taking things off my list, of careing less about things that are not so important. This year I want to continue with that, and also work on slowing down. Scheduling more time to do things so we don’t have to rush, and taking even little moments to ditch the unimportant stuff and slow down so that I can notice the good things.
Do you do goals or intentions or ‘words’?
Do you start off your year with some kind of goal?
What would you do (or not do!) to achieve my goal of slowing down and noticing more?
Here Here Kate! You and I think alike. Caro
I think the gratitude journal is great — I used to do it, until I actually came to the point, that my life was balanced so well, a gratitude journal became too one-sided and that it was also “safe” to add the not so good things without it pulling me down.
Also to try to look at things from another perspective and finding the good in the bad. In my blog I used to have an “Always look on the bright side…” label and every Monday I would write about the things that seemed bad on first sight but when you gave it a second look, it actually turned out a blessing. (I remember one post in particular, when my youngest daughter put up a fuss about going to Kindergarten, and we were totally running late and missed like two busses… and when we finally did make it to leave the house, we ended up seeing a few deer running outside in the snow. Which we wouldn’t have seen, had we left the house on time. Totally made my day, :-).
I totally should start that again, :-).
So long,
Corinna
That idea of finding good even in really bad situations has been so helpful for me. Even if I have to look really hard to be able to find some glimmer of hope makes a huge difference!
And I love that you’ve managed to find balance in your journal… I’ve always failed at the gratitude journal as it seemed in authentic to not ever say anything that was challenging or difficult… but I love the idea that it can be both, acknowledge the hard stuff and then look for the good!
Joyous salutations for 2017, Kate. Another blogger I follow has talked about “Buffers” for this year, so my goal is to actively put myself out there and find an actual paying job to set up a Mojo bank account for any unforeseen happenings in our life. Basically I hate asking for more money from hubby as he’s doing it tough with our business (our income has halved over the past 2yrs but costs for the four kids & us keep going up).
So after 20ish years of being “just a Mum” and with no relevant “work experience” on my resume (got told not to bother putting down anything less than 5years ago – uhhhh what?? Domestic Goddess doesn’t count!? haha), I’m putting my toe back in the murky water of the employment ocean.
Only having one day I can work makes it a wee bit difficult (I only have 10 hours respite for my disabled eldest child) but I am going to push through that wee hurdle and talk, network, wheedle my way into a paid position somehow.
Volunteering and doing “work experience” is my first plan of attack and then the ole “I’ve come full-circle back to my 15yrold self” supermarket “checkout chick” position. And you can be sure I will be the BEST 50yr old checkout hen there is haha
2017…. bring it on!!
Sounds like some big plans for you this year!!
I looked at going back to teaching last year and was so disappointed that all my years of experience didn’t count for much because it was ‘too long ago’ :( But even a check out chick position is a big step in the right direction and I’m betting you’ll be awesome!!
Stop back in a few months and tell us how you are doing!