Positivity Hack: Start This if Nothing Else

In If You Can Walk, You Must Walk, I wrote: It’s very easy to keep pushing forward so much so that you rarely stop to see how far you have come and the journey you’ve been on. I felt frustrated with my progress and decided to read my journal entry from around the same time, the year before. Reading it back inspired me to walk the near 20,000 steps I walked that day.

Since then, my journals have become my favourite reads, particularly my little black hospital journals from when I was having brain surgery. I gave one to my mom and sister, as well as keeping one to write myself, to really see the experience from different perspectives. And nothing has been a bigger reminder to keep going than re-reading some of the struggles I didn’t even realise I overcame. 

I highly recommend writing your experience to anyone going through a hard time right now, or simply journaling daily life that seems meaningless at the time.

Not because documenting pain or raw emotion is in itself something you want to remember. But because, alongside the many benefits of expressive writing which I share in this Happy Habit's post, anything that makes you pause and reflect on your journey, is guaranteed to remind you just how far you’ve come.

The littlest progress can often go unnoticed when it seems so frustratingly small at the time. But writing things down and journaling, when re-read later on, will make you stop and realise “Wow, I can’t believe I used to think like that.. or that I used to struggle with that... or that I experienced pain like that...”

The truth is, we might know deep down that pain doesn’t last and that struggles are only temporary. Yet  it can be so easy to forget this when we’re in the midst of a challenge. Having a tangible reminder will ensure you always trust in the notion that pain ends and start to really believe that better days are on the way.💭