Here are a sample of my Everyday Optimism Microblogs. To receive one to your inbox every Monday-Friday, complete with a daily action to take, a reframe to help train your brain to look for silver linings, and a recap of the week on Saturday, subscribe here.
“The minute we declare ourselves experts, we lose our edge. Stay hungry for knowledge and progression, there is always more to learn”
As I watch graduations happen (even in the most unorthodox ways) I’ve been thinking about the knowledge we gain through all of our years of schooling. I remember pulling onto the freeway after my high school graduation or watching my cap fly into the clear blue San Luis Obispo sky after college, both times feeling like I had arrived, that I was prepared to take on the world. There is no effective way to communicate the journey of learning that happens after we leave school. As Mark Twain said with so much fire:
“What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t true.”
The things we understand about ourselves and the way we interact and form relationships becomes the hallmark of the legacy we leave. While knowledge in whatever field we choose is important, the wisdom it takes to understand our core values is what turns a job into a life purpose and helps us grow authentic relationships that last a lifetime. The single biggest thing I know today is that I know very little compared to what I want to know. I believe that my progression and satisfaction with my life depends on trusting my gut on that one little fact, because it keeps me humble and hungry to know more about the world and my place in it. Pick a topic or a conversation and go in with a beginner's mind, assume you know nothing, listen without judgement, see what assumptions pop up for you and question both yourself and the ideas you learn. The path to growth is an uncomfortable one, but when we turn our fear into curiosity, that is where the real learning begins.
Daily Action: Pick a topic or a conversation and go in with a beginner's mind, assume you know nothing, listen without judgement, see what assumptions pop up for you and question both yourself and the ideas you learn.
Daily Reframe: Rather than lacking confidence, think of the things you don’t know as your edge that keeps you learning and growing into the person that you are meant to be.
With Optimism,
Wendy
The Optimists Journal - Building confidence, courage, and self-love one day at a time
Link to book: 365 Days of Optimism
Link to Book a Coaching Call: Optimism Coaching
“Privilege can take our focus away from the simple things in life that bring the most joy. Flowers, a hot cup of tea, the sound of the ocean...don’t forget to notice the little things.”
There are a lot of things going on these days that leave us craving normal. And where I live, normal comes with a lot of bells and whistles that we may believe are at the root of our happiness, but I have come to find out this isn’t the case. Although I miss live music, sports, and sitting in restaurants, I know that what I will miss most when life gets going faster again though are the slower, plainer moments that have helped us find time for gratitude in the small things like after dinner walks, sunsets and swims in the ocean. I have been exposed to simple, fancy, and everywhere in between over the years and what I understand with certainty is that when we have the presence to find gratitude for the simple things, life is a sustainably happy place. Victor Frankl, holocaust survivor and the author of the extraordinary book, Man’s Search for Meaning, said this:
“Pain from problems and disappointments is inevitable, but suffering is a choice determined by whether you choose to compare your experience and pain to something better and therefore feel unlucky and bitter or to something worse and therefore feel lucky and grateful.”
These days I feel a deep sense of contentment for the roof over my head, the inhales and exhales for myself and my kids, my ability to move, and the food in my refrigerator.
Daily Action: Make a gratitude jar. Write down on one thing on a small sheet of paper every day and drop it in the jar. We always have this to remind us what we are grateful for if a challenge is clouding our memory.
Daily Reframe: Too many choices can lead to feeling discontent. Don’t forget to count the simple blessings of life.
With Optimism,
Wendy
The Optimists Journal - Building confidence, courage, and self-love one day at a time
Link to book: 365 Days of Optimism
Link to Book a Coaching Call: Optimism Coaching
“Avoid asking why about the past, when about the future & focus on the present. It’s all coming together”
As a wordsmith with a philosophizing mind, quotes, even the ones I write myself can be tricky. I no sooner write one, even put it in a book, and I think of alternative thoughts and the ways that they may not be true for life. I love quotes because they are thought provoking. The truth is that healthy self examination about our own motivation, why we make certain choices in life, and the experiences that result from them can be beneficial to understand ourselves further and avoid making patterns out of choices that don’t create positivity on our path. The trouble with asking ‘why’ about the past happens when we put the focus on choices made by other people and how they affect us. Instead of asking why in this instance, ask what or how….What did I contribute that led to where I stand today? How can I get stronger or wiser in the future? An optimist is keenly aware of what they can control in life, and always chooses to make choices to move forward based on those things. Many of life’s worries come when we think our fate or happiness lies in someone else’s hands. Don’t give up your power, everything you have ever needed to be successful is in you. If you don’t recognize that, make sure you are asking the right questions to uncover your strength.
Daily Reframe: We find a more content spirit when we focus on what we can control, our attitude and your choices, and let the rest go.
With Optimism,
Wendy
The Optimists Journal - Building confidence, courage, and self-love one day at a time
Link to book: 365 Days of Optimism
Link to Book a Coaching Call: Optimism Coaching
“Learn to judge what is good in life from the inside out, rather than the outside in.”
The social media age has filled our lives with snapshots. Our phones probably hold more pictures from just the last year than all of the baby books in our families combined. Sometimes they take me back to a time and place that warms my heart, others make me feel the void of what was missing in that moment. I’ve learned to observe that feeling, take a deep breath, and let it go. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but, no matter how beautiful, it can never tell the whole story. The good life doesn’t always come with a glossy finish. It happens when we learn to connect with how we feel on the inside and let the people in our lives see it. Then on days when we need a helping hand we will find one. When it’s our time to be the light for someone else, we will be ready. Be bold and vulnerable. The trick is to let your insides and outsides match, only then can we attract genuine connection.
Daily Reframe: Real connection happens when we connect with ourselves first.
With Optimism,
Wendy
The Optimists Journal - Building confidence, courage, and self-love one day at a time
Link to book: 365 Days of Optimism
Link to Book a Coaching Call: Optimism Coaching
“When you are sad, find the water, it absorbs tears better than any tissue ever could.”
It’s hard to believe there was a day not too long ago when my entire goal for the day was to do three simple things. In my mind, these were the one foot in front of the other days. When my traditional family came apart (I still hate the word divorce), I set three goals for myself…
To go to church every Sunday.
To go to yoga five times a week.
To get in the ocean every day.
The quiet connection at church and the breath to movement that calmed my beyond anxious nervous system were both game changers, but the water brought me back to the peace I have always felt there from my first swimming lesson. Most kids scream and cry when you put them into the pool for the lesson, I was the only one screaming on the way out. The point is, when challenge hits and we meet our dark night of the soul, even the smallest goals can feel like giant mountains to climb. In this stage, no win is too small, we have to start somewhere and small victories build our confidence one little piece at a time. What three things can you do today for those small victories? Moments add up to hours that turn into days and we just keep going from there. I don’t even recognize myself or my outlook from those days just a few short years ago. In this life, change is the only constant, so we may as well get good at it.
Daily Reframe: I realized that my actions were the only thing standing between me and a great day
With optimism,
Wendy
The Optimists Journal - Building confidence, courage, and self-love one day at a time
Link to book: 365 Days of Optimism
Link to Book a Coaching Call: Optimism Coaching
Abundance Mindset
Abundance mindset is directly tied to an optimist's outlook. It’s believing that there are enough resources to go around, and not feeling threatened by someone’s process or idea. It’s looking for ways we can add to the whole, because our honest efforts make the pie bigger for everyone.
Scarcity mindset feels jealous, it hoards and feels threatened by other people’s talents and ideas. When we are scared, we make excuses and look to others for reasons why life isn’t going the way we planned. It renders us helpless and short on energy and then what we lack becomes reality because of our mindset.
I’m working everyday with my youngest to help him see how our choices and mindset relate to the outcome in most situations in our days. How we frame things in our own mind, which is one reason I teach optimism, create the energy to form the work ethic to make things happen for ourselves.
Abundance mindset looks at any life situation and asks questions like ‘what’ and ‘how’...
“What unique qualities do I have that can add to this experience for myself and other people?”
“How can I get this job done more efficiently or help others while I’m doing it?”
Questions like this put the responsibility on us to prove what a wealth of human capital and energy can accomplish in our lives.
Scarcity mindset asks why questions....
“Why did this happen to me?”
“Why did she make that decision?”
Then what we focus on is out of our control, and leaves us feeling helpless to change the circumstances of our lives.
It’s up to us to adopt the mindset that creates our best life...maybe some people come by optimism more naturally, but it can without a doubt be trained. Do you see things with an abundance or scarcity mindset? If it’s the latter, what are you willing to do to change it?
Servant Leadership
If we want to lead in this life, we have to be bold... bold enough to understand our motivations and our own egos. We have to have the ability to see where we may be self serving (which isn’t always a bad thing as it can keep us safe) and make difficult decisions in our own lives to fully realize our path to becoming the greatest version of ourselves. We have to be honest with ourselves, not just about our strengths, but the areas of life where we want to improve, because, for me anyway, nothing is more inspiring than a transparent, striving, human who pushes herself to get just a little bit better every day. Although I know we lead from our strengths, our weaknesses are what make us human and relatable. Not to mention, we can’t improve on anything that we aren’t first willing to see and admit.
Human potential is so fascinating, we are all capable of so much. Even though there is great universal truth to the human experience, we all have something about us that is unique. Our uniqueness is the catalyst that gives us our potential to lead and inspire, beginning with ourselves and then letting that reach extend to the lives of others. For me, my boldness looks more vulnerable and transparent, I don’t have a loud style, I’m more likely to quietly disarm a situation than go at it guns blazing. It fits my personality, I’ve been told that I’m more of a “graceful #sskicker”. I get it, but that doesn’t mean I’m not ready to lead. At its most basic, our ability to lead comes down to our own journey to self awareness and recognizing the role we can play to make situations better. Leadership often looks like helping hands, because the best leaders inspire with their actions, not just their voice. What can you do to lead today?
The Strength to Be Ourselves
Yesterday I talked about overcoming limiting beliefs, that voice in our head that holds us back from our biggest and best life. This topic plays a huge role in whether we create the life we really want. As much as I would like to say cleansing ourselves of limiting beliefs is a quick reset, like most things that make us successful in life, changing the way we talk to ourselves takes conviction and consistency. My limiting beliefs crept in quietly over time, so until I was dissatisfied enough to pay close attention to the way my life was going, I wasn’t even aware of how my confidence had plummeted. When I was honest with myself, I realized that I saw life on two different playing fields, and the one that I had myself playing on was infinitely smaller than where I wanted to be. That honest process of identifying and then replacing those beliefs with affirming words helped me transform the ideas that were holding me back from writing, speaking, and living my truth. We have to determine if the story in our head is giving us energy to create, or draining us and leaving us frustrated. Once I did this, then I was able to send my negative voice packing. When it tries to creep in these days, I can identify it without it sending me off course. I created a comeback line, a new belief, that silenced the negative and made me shift. I started with the words:
“The past doesn’t equal the future”,
and when I would say it over and over again, my energy changed, and I could work on the practical steps of making that statement true. The trick to creating the right empowering statement is to make sure it is useful to our process. Our mind has to believe that it can lead us to the life we want to create, it always can, even though it often comes with some hard choices. When we know that failure is not fatal, but instead an opportunity to learn about ourselves and how to change course, our options in life become infinite. History only repeats itself if we choose not to reflect on why things happen. It can be hard to look at ourselves honestly, but that pain breaks through to progress if we stick with it. We all have it in us to replace our limiting beliefs with limitless power, do the deep dive to identify what is holding you back, let yourself consider what life would be like if you flipped the script. Everyday is a new opportunity to write a better story. Why not start today?
Generational Awareness
From the outside looking in, I don’t have the ‘ideal’ family. The Christmas card picture makes me pause, my kids birthdays leave me with a twinge of sadness, and I still believe in marriage and compromise and the hard work that a lifelong relationship takes. But what I know today is that what is truly ideal is feeling healthy and free, and we only know that truth for ourselves from the inside out. I believe in love and the ability people have to connect, challenge, and support each other, but it is best when both people have a deep and secure knowledge of themselves first. Relationships reach an end when people don't want to grow together, but the calling to evolve once we have felt it is impossible to ignore. This calling is the only thing that makes failure not fatal. As painful as divorce is on a personal level, there is nothing harder than watching kids experience this almost unbearable pain. That’s why my goal is to be transparent and vulnerable with my struggles in life and what I have learned from them. I believe that hurtful cycles in life can be deeply impacted and changed with our own journey to self awareness and although it's a journey that never ends, it provides neverending motivation to keep striving to know myself a little better everyday. From where I stand today, what must be done everyday is shed light on what makes us human. To be this vulnerable is to know the depth of our own strength and from there new relationships emerge to add fullness to our life. Once we are aware of the circumstances and tendencies of our lives, and work to understand them, the more whole we become on our own, and every relationship in our life benefits from the brave choice we make to know ourselves. My greatest hope is that future generations of my family will follow suit. It’s not an ask or expectation of perfection, just awareness, because that is where the patterns that hurt us find lasting change.
