As we kick start 2020 I would love to set you up for your best, most brilliant year with a simple tool.
I’d like to think you have a year of grace and goodness in store!
In my experience of coaching thousands of people to health and happiness I have found that that much as we seek magic silver bullet solutions that change the wellbeing game (eg. starting a fantastic new job; leaving a hideous old relationship) the fabric of health and happiness really is woven from micro-moments of happy, than elusive silver-bullet game-changers.
By consciously putting more micro-moments of happy and well into life…life becomes elevated one tiny bite at a time.
There is a lovely technique called The Smile Jar, and you are in perfect time to get yourself set up for it right now for 2020.
All you need to do is buy/find/repurpose/beg/borrow or steal a pleasing-looking jar, and a bunch of post-it notes.
Each day you add one post-it note or scrap of paper that contained a moment that was pleasing, happy or successful.
It might be the compliment from the boss on that presentation you sweated over, the fact that your teen picked up their own towels off the bathroom floor without nagging, the unexpected message from a friend overseas, or finding that super cute dress you wanted 75% off in the sales. Maybe it was picking lemons off your own tree in the sunshine and making the most perfect gin and tonic, or getting a personal best on your morning run. The smile your granddaughter gave you after her ballet class or running into an old friend at the beach.
It can be anything.
The only criteria is that it made you smile!
Pick a happy moment, scribble it down, pop it in the jar.
You are filing a jar full of smiles.
This is a lovely one to do for the whole family.
I have had clients get a jar for each member of the family and it’s become part of the bedtime ritual for each child to add a moment of positivity or happiness to their jar at the end of each day as a gorgeous, positive family ritual that has endured for years.
At the end of the year, perhaps the day after Boxing Day each year when things have gone a little quiet you can sit and pull out each memory one by one.
Reconnect with what made you happy and all the moments that you have forgotten from your jar of smiles.
If you are having a bad day it’s also great to be able to dip into anytime, and remind you that life ain’t all bad.
Get yourself a Smile Jar for 2020, because, y’know, the small things in life…in the end, they ARE the big things.
