Well January came and went like a blink of the eye, filled with good intentions for personal behaviour change and pursuits. Does the holiday break seems like a world away now and instead you’re back into living in a constant reactive state of being? Or perhaps you are kicking goals; taking it one step at a time this year and on your terms – I hope it’s the latter! I have managed to do the two experiences that I had planned for January to share with you and how they have made me feel. One of which was Boating out in the harbour with family – how many of you like being out on the water? I am not into staying still fishing, however love the rush of zooming around feeling the wind through my hair and being semi-blinded by the seaspray.
As I mentioned in a previous blog, I aim to do an experience every fortnight and then reflect on it against certain criteria. I want to encourage you to do the same, so that you look back on your 2017 and see that you’ve made some memories participating in interesting and fun events, reflect on how you spend your free time contributes to your wellbeing and experience something that helps develop or progress a useful soft skill. Boating in this case brought me instant gratification, joy and a playfulness to my day, while making memories with my extended family who were visiting. I built up some confidence by taking charge with the steering for a while and felt that my values for pleasure, health and family happiness benefited with this activity. As introduced in the previous experiment blog, I want to also consider GALLUP indicators for Mental Wellbeing, in this case Social and Community indicators were thriving. This means that I love where I live and having supportive relationships in my life.
Another activity I undertook in January was the Act of Kindness, in which I paid for 5 people to have a hot drink on me one day at a local Tauranga cafe (a must-visit by the way) called Folk. Not only did this make me feel great on a day when I was actually feeling a little low, flipping my mood on it’s head, but it inspired those who got a freebie to pay the gesture forward! It was so fantastic to hear that people were so chuffed that they simply added to the tab and apparently this continued for many of the patrons afterwards following suit! How good does it feel to do good ha!?! Pretty freaking amazing if you ask me. So on reflection, it really contributed to my personal values of Altruism and Community and it really helped the GALLUP indicator for Purpose go into overdrive – meaning that I love what I do each day and am motivated by my Happylocal mission. So bring on February’s experiences I say – be great to hear what you’ve got in the diary too!