Written by Anouk De Plaa – Team Member, HBCL
Recently, I bought a positivity diary. Someone recommended it to me, and as a pessimistic person, I thought a daily dose of positivity could not hurt.
The idea is simple enough, every morning and evening, you take three minutes to answer the questions posed in the diary. I decided I was ready for some positivity and started on my birthday because what better way to start a new life year?
Well, that turned out slightly different than expected. Immediately, I struggled, as I was in such a rush to get started, that I had not bothered to read the theory. Therefore, I did not really know how I was supposed to answer or think about the questions.
The evening questions started causing some sparks of self-doubt, such as, ‘Name a good deed you did today.’ Did I do a good deed today at all? Nothing came to mind. I would love to believe that I do so many good deeds every day that I do not recognise a good deed as such anymore, but let’s be realistic; that is very likely not the case.
Another evening question, ‘Mention ways in which you can improve yourself.’ Well, positivity diary, that question will take me more than three minutes. Have you got all day? Also, this is not leading to positive thoughts but rather quite the opposite. What was the creator of this diary thinking?
For some reason I didn’t understand myself, I decided the best thing to do was to keep going, which led to more frustration. Half of the questions I did not bother to answer anymore, and for the other questions, my answers were starting to become very broad and pretty much the same every day, as my mind just gave me blanks. It felt like I was taking a small exam every morning and evening that I had not studied for.
Realizing this positivity diary was now actually leading to negativity, I decided on a small intervention to stop randomly filling out the diary and actually read the theory behind it. Going through the theory, things started to make a lot more sense. I realised I should have known that these things are not some happy magic spell and take time. So, with fresh courage, I will start again tomorrow or maybe next week. For now, I have started to focus on the positive stuff to collect a lot of good deeds and happy moments to write down.
Well, wait a minute; this means the diary has been successful after all.
