Cheers to making it through Thanksgiving weekend and November.  I hope you all had a great holiday weekend with lots of good food, good company and maybe some good shopping deals.  As we enter the last month of the year and officially welcome in all the Christmas music, lights and presents, I begin to wonder if we’ll start to fall back into our pre-thanksgiving routine?  What I mean by that is do we just falling back into the same routine without a second thought.  Do we stop being thankful for everything in your life, good and bad just because Thanksgiving is over?  I think a lot of us just try to get through December and the year then start making resolutions towards the end of the month for the new year.  Well, I wanted to spring a challenge that will hopefully change that.  I want present you with a challenge for December, if you’re game.  I got the idea/inspiration for this from a short snippet in my Men’s Health magazine.  With all the holiday obligations on the horizon (holiday parties, family gatherings, etc), I think we tend put things on the backburner.  Whether that’s your exercise routine (it’s too cold to workout), your relationships (sorry, I have another party/commitment to attend) or your sanity (I’ll catch up on my sleep in the new year when things slow down).  My challenge is for you to make a daily list of 3 good thoughts that happened to you for the day for the entire month.  It can be anything you think of that made you smile, made you think or just made your day, big or small.  Just cause we don’t live in a world that is positive all the time, I also want you to list 1 negative thing that didn’t go your way as well.  With that negative thing/thought though, write down how you can turn it into something positive (see example below).  In other words, try to turn a negative into a positive.  So we’re looking for a 3 to 1 ratio of good to bad.  Sounds simple enough right?  I like to make the basketball analogy of a 3 to 1 assist (good) to turnover (bad) ratio as the gold standard for a good point guard.  If you can average that ratio, you’re considered a solid point guard (sorry for the tangent).   You can use your phone calendar to note your thoughts or you can do it the old fashioned way and print out a calendar and handwrite it on this at the end of each day.  I went ahead and did a trial run this weekend and here is what I got for Sunday.

11/29/15

Positive

1.) had lunch at my parent’s house and spent time with my dog.

2.) finally started the first of 3 new books I got last week.  So far so good.

3.) really enjoyed the yoga class I took and helped me get ready for the work week ahead.

Negative

1.) still can’t believe my Bruins lost to the Trojans in football and now I owe my friend dinner from a lost bet.  Even though I lost, I’ll be able to spend time with him since we haven’t hung out in awhile because of our schedules.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this challenge goes for both you and I.  I think it’ll be really interesting to look back on January 1^st and see how your thoughts, good and bad changed over the month as we get closer to Christmas and the new year.  Just remember, this is YOUR challenge so anything that comes to mind goes, mundane or extraordinary.  I know it’s going to be hard for me to do this on a daily basis but that’s why it’s a challenge and hopefully by the end of it, there will be change.  One change that I’ve been trying to make for me since I started this blog was to read/write more and watch less tv.  It’s been extremely challenging for me as I’ve never been much of a reader growing up and would usually just fall back to the comfort of watching tv.  It’s been a daily struggle, especially with the holidays and football season winding down but I think with me writing this post is one step forward.  Even if you take 2 steps forward and 1 step back, you’re still making progress.  Obviously you don’t want to take any steps back if you can help it and always want to be moving forward but as long as you’re mindful of your progress, a little push forward is still better than being in the same spot.

QOTD: “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” –Michelanglo