A question to start each day with

Hi 

This week I’m sharing something more personal. Something to try not just once, but for the next 30 days. A little experiment, if you like. See if you find it as powerful as I do.

Something to try...

Try asking yourself at the start of each day: “What am I excited for?”

Even better, take 5 minutes over a cup of tea or coffee to write your answers into a notebook or your notes app. (You’ll love reading back over your notes in 30 days time.)

... and 3 Reasons Why

I’m not going to try to be all scientific here. Instead, let me simply share some of my own personal experiences - as someone who came into this quite skeptical about the idea… 

I started asking myself this question every morning at the start of the year, and here’s what I’ve noticed:

• When I first started out, I often struggled to work out what I was excited for - unless there was something in my day that smacked of “exciting”. In fact, when I read back on my notes, there were some days when - in the struggle to work out what was ‘exciting’ - I wrote down responses like, “The cup of tea I’ve just made for myself”! 😂 
  But over the course of a few weeks, I shifted from looking for Exciting Things, to instead finding the ‘excitement’ in almost everything I had planned for the day. “Excited for” started to mean something different. It started to become more a case of “looking forward to”. And suddenly I found I was looking forward to almost everything I had lined up for the day. I’ve felt a corresponding shift in my own energy and capacity to manage stress.
  
• This has turned into an important part of my daily planning, as it’s forced me to reflect on what I am choosing to give my energy to. (I know this is straying into woo woo territory here, but stick with me…)  As a result, I find myself being much more ‘present’ in conversations and activities (giving them my full attention) but also eliminating low value things from my day and week that just don’t serve a strong purpose.
  
• The most surprising thing about this simple question? It’s got me reframing challenging situations throughout the day. If I react negatively to a situation (a conversation I’m not enjoying, for instance) I'm finding I almost automatically flip into a different perspective - looking for what’s interesting, looking for what’s helpful, looking for what the other person needs. In other words, I’ve become less reactive in challenging situations.

So there you go - that’s my personal version of this experiment. One that will continue indefinitely. It's a keeper.

What do you think? Something to try?

If you do, please let me know how it goes. I’m excited to hear. ;) 

Simon