Positivity Experiment: Day Four

Four days in, and I’ll admit that I’m starting to feel the strain of staying positive. A few hours of missed sleep here, and some overdue school assignments there, and the bad mood train has been trying desperately to pull into the station. However, that hasn’t been the biggest surprise of this experiment so far. What has really shocked me was the amount of negativity that has snuck into my life without me even noticing it. Those snarky, sarcastic comments that I love making needed to be tossed out, as well as the eye-rolls and faces I make behind a particularly difficult co-worker’s back. There is a veritable cornucopia of these sorts of negative behaviors that I engage in on a daily basis, and I never even realized it.

That, of course, left me with the somewhat daunting task of breaking a habit that I hadn’t even been aware I had. So, how have I been managing? The glory of office supplies, my friends. I realized the majority of my not so positive thoughts and comments happened at work, (huge shock there, I know.) and I needed to do something quickly before this entire experiment went up in flames. So last night I grabbed a post-it and a sharpie marker and I drew a semi-ridiculous looking happy face. It looked a little something like this.

I wish I could say that the art quality was due to the fact that it was created in Microsoft Paint, but sadly, that’s about the extent of my drawing skills. The actual post-it doesn’t look much different. So, I drew my happy face, named him Francisco!, and stuck him up on my cubicle wall directly in my line of sight. From then on, whenever I felt a snide remark coming on, or my co-worker started to frustrate me, I just glanced at it and the silliness of the stupid thing would make me laugh, and I’d start to feel better again. It seems too simplistic to really work, right? Well, maybe it is. Maybe I just have the sense of humor of a three year old, but Little Francisco! kept me in check all night. Of course, I realize that single post-it isn’t going to work forever, but I think it put me on the right path. A little post-it can go a long way. That’s why I spent a few minutes at the end of my shift writing out anonymous notes for my co-workers. They had messages like, “you make coming to work fun” and “you’re an amazing mom.” With any luck my notes to them will give them the same kind of smiles today that Francisco! gave to me.

And now for five more things that help me chase negative thoughts away.

• The gorgeous colors of the (finally) changing leaves.
• AyePodcast, for providing me with amazing Scottish music every other week.
• My roommate, for always being able to make me laugh no matter how bad of a mood I’m in.
• An Iced Banana Carmel with whipped cream from The Coffee Bean.
• Curling up on the couch with a good book, and getting so lost in the story that you completely forget where you are.

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