Friday, October 5, 2012

Times They Are A-Changing.

Okay, the title wasn't meant to be a reference to Bob Dylan in any way. It just happened to be the words that popped into mind.

I (and Holly!) really should be better at updating this thing. I guess we're just equally busy. Anyhow, I should get started writing something which might actually be relevant to someone out there.

I'm a perfectionist, or so I've been told. Apparently perfectionists have a very black and white way of seeing the world, there are no shades in between. There's just black and white. Either good or bad, strong or weak. You get the point, I'm sure. This black and white picture has caused me to get diagnosed with stress (again) so I've been given some exercises to soften the picture, get some colors thrown in there.

1. Start with the "fun" homework. 

Since when has homework been fun, you might ask. You know, I was thinking the same thing when I first heard it! By fun I mean the homework that seems the easiest to overcome or the most interesting. I've always done it the other way around, starting with the yucky homework first just to get it over with. Apparently that's not very motivating at all. Starting with the easiest gets the process going, making the workload seem more manageable in the long run.

2. By the end of every day, mention three things that have been positive.

There's no incident too insignificant to be mentioned. Even if the whole day just felt like one big failure there will have been at least three positive moments. At first I thought this exercise would've been the easiest, I mean three things didn't seem like much so it should be easy. It hasn't been. It's incredibly hard to think of three positive things in the midst of all the negative and the first time I did it, I felt ridiculous. That's the perfectionist speaking. By the end of the day I draw a conclusion; has the day been good or has it been bad? There's no in between. So drawing the conclusion "this has been a bad day" and still having to find three positives things about it challenges my way of thinking. Suddenly the day went from being all bad to being bad including a few positive elements. It went from a black and white picture to being in color. 

These are baby steps, but I'm getting closer to getting better every day. There's light at the end of the tunnel, I've realized that now!

I know this update doesn't do the past five months or so justice, but a short update is better than no update, right?

Fall has come to Denmark

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