Field Experiment #1: How'd it go?

On October 4^th, I set out to adopt an Attitude of Gratitude to counteract feeling overwhelmed with everyday details.  For every piece of information that came my way, I would find something, anything, to feel thankful for.  To remind myself, I stuck Post-Its around the house that said “Thank you.”  My family graciously indulged me.

So how’d it go?  I must say, quite well.  When I received an email with several to-dos for the Girl Scout bake sale, I was thankful to be involved in the project (it did turn out to be fun and profitable).  When I opened a Visa bill, I was grateful to have the money to pay it.  When I got a recorded message from some county politician, I just laughed.  I started to feel a little less stressed.

After awhile, the Post-Its became part of our domestic landscape -- they didn’t register anymore.  So I started programming random “thank you” alerts into my online calendar.  I think the trick is to change up reminders from time to time, so that I can’t ignore them.  I may start leaving notes in my car or sock drawer.  Whatever works, right?  My goal is to keep this up until gratitude becomes a habit, like brushing my teeth.  If I don’t have to remind myself, I will have internalized the lesson.

I’m so happy this Attitude of Gratitude made a small dent in my information overload.  I didn’t get rid of any info coming in, but I reframed my response.  I’m starting a "what I've figured out so far" sidebar on this blog, to summarize my progress.  Hopefully the list will grow until I achieve some sort of framework to live my life in peace – with or without the Post-Its.