What’s Going Well?

For the last few weeks, I have been starting my journaling practice each morning by answering the question “What’s going well?”

A lot of people in my workshops tell me they only write when they are struggling with a problem or they’re feeling overwhelmed. They use their journal to express their frustrations and yell at the page, so that they don’t yell at their loved ones, business partners or friends (or that random stranger who just took your parking spot when they knew you were waiting for it).

Journaling serves as a safe place to express our emotions and gives us time to sort through difficult experiences and come up with new solutions. And so it makes sense that we write about our struggles and our fears.

But I’m finding that beginning the day by writing about what is going well helps me to focus on the good and creates a more helpful mindset to start my day. Of course, we need to acknowledge the challenging times and how we are struggling. Some of our situations may be too heavy, and we find it almost impossible to write about what is going well. And while we do not need to force ourselves to be positive, maybe we can just turn our focus on something that is going well, or one thing that we can appreciate.

So when we are up for it, taking a few minutes to focus on what is going well can give us the space to create a little dose of optimism that just might get us through the day.

Happy Writing!