Half a Year of OGTAD

I seriously cannot think of a more eloquent title for this post, amusingly enough.  OGTAD is just such an awkward acronym, but it's funny to me.  I digress--

Today marks exactly six months since my friend Jessica and I took on the task of recording one good thing about each day in our Good Things-specified journals for a year.  I can't speak for Jessica, but I can wholeheartedly say that for myself, just these past six months have truly changed how I look at my days.

The rules are fairly straightforward.  At the end of each day, I take out my One Good Thing a Day journal and document one good thing about that day (repetitive writing, I know).  The entries are usually about a short paragraph each, two to a page, a full page if it's been a particularly important or special day that requires more of an explanation.  I am NOT allowed to discuss any bad things that happened during my day.  The closest I allow myself to mention any negativity comes in the form of, "Today was not the best/not what I expected/something similar, BUT...." and then I focus only on something good.

Looking back at the entries, one would think that I've had nothing but six months full of beautiful, glorious days of ultimate perfection.  Naturally, this is not the case.  I still have bad days.  I still remember the negativities and mistakes and mess ups and failures.  In fact, yesterday was a pretty sucky day in and of itself, and I'm not up to my usual standard of cheeriness today, either.  But this is where OGTAD makes such a difference for me.

I'm a big fan of journaling (...hence this blog), but when I go back and reread old journal entries, they're usually miserable.  I whine and beat dead horses with multiple sticks and can't seem to get over the bad things that happen during the week, with an occasional happy entry here and there.  Rereading my old journals means entering a world where it seems I was nothing but upset.  And that's not true.  Doing OGTAD means that when I look back at those entries, I only remember the good things about the days, and there is always something good to remember about each day.  Sometimes it's simple and stupid-- I had a really good sandwich at lunch, someone complimented me on my shoes, I had a rare good hair day-- but remembering a compliment on my shoes is far better than remembering that I failed a quiz or something that day.  If I'm going to remember anything about what I do, I'd so much rather remember the good over the bad.

This exercise is helping me learn to change, which is the ultimate goal for me.  In the beginning of OGTAD, it took a while for me to learn not to harp on the bad things.  Setting the rule for myself that I wasn't even allowed to mention any specific bad things that happened was difficult for me, so much more difficult than I would have imagined.  Of the optimist/pessimist viewing of life, I like to consider myself a realist that encourages others towards optimism but never quite gets there for my own point of view.  OGTAD is teaching me to not really be an optimist so much as to learn to recognize the positive blessings in my life, embrace them, be grateful, and look at the world through this new set of eyes.