The Power of Small Positives

Lately, I’ve started each day (plus or minus) with a “positive focus.”* That entails writing down three positive things that have happened or I’ve done in the past 24 hours. This simple exercise gets my head out of scanning the horizon for dangers and problems and reminds me that good stuff is happening on even the worst days. It helps me celebrate my small victories, too. Big victories are made up of a lot of small ones. The people who I learned it from say that it helps improve confidence. I don’t know about all that; helps me more than the time it takes.

A recent Saturday was a total rest day. What really worked for me was just resting and watching TV most of the day. Sunday when I went to write my positive focus, I struggled. Resting and connecting with my husband—they counted as two solid positives.

But what about a third? I wracked my brain to come up with a third positive, feeling slightly inadequate. The shows I watched weren’t good enough to count as a positive. Usually I count things that I’ve done where I’m either connecting with someone or being productive. What could I count?

Could walking over for takeout food count? I thought through the experience. It was dark out, but the weather was warm. I wasn’t 100% sure where I was going, so bumped into a local holiday market that I thought happened earlier in the day. The block was lit with small white lights that waved slightly in the breeze. I felt a spark of magic and charm seeing this gathering from a distance. This sense lasted about ten seconds.

But does that really count as a positive? I probably would have forgotten about the scene in another day if I wasn’t grasping for a third positive.

Then I realized—this is what all those experts are talking about! They say it’s recognizing the small stuff that really counts. Researching it, I found a recent study that quantified the impact of these “micromoments.”**

Starting a new year can be awesome. We can all hope for that. But the new year can also be fraught with everything from unpleasant or uncomfortable family interactions to loneliness and dashed expectations. Worse, we can compare ourselves to the people and families that are really functioning well or appear to always be doing just great—and feel the worse for it.

This year, instead of trying to make every interaction perfect, I’m going to look for — and let myself count — those ten-second glimpses of magic.

*Positive Focus is a technique that I learned from at Strategic Coach

**Link to the recent article on micromoments: Micromoments Article.

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