Journal Prompts To Set Your Vibe
While working in a somewhat intense start-up company environment, I encountered a person who would impact my way of thinking. A beloved department “coordinator” had to take a week off to attend to family matters. This was uncharacteristic as she was so consistent in her work ethic and attendance. I needed to access files on her computer so I called her to ask for her password. It was “happiness is a choice”. Each day she would logon with “Happiness is a choice #1!”.
Her login was her mantra. She was determined to consciously choose happiness over the alternatives. After fiendishly retrieving the information I needed and logging off, I became curious about this mantra and what made her tick. Her cubicle had family photos including 4 kids but what struck me was a coffee mug, which I had seen a hundred times before, but now read the inscription that said, “I brew my own coffee as I brew my own way”. At first I thought, “What an odd woman”, with the mantras and affirmations and doesn’t get her coffee at Starbucks. Even more strange I started relating her affirmations to these chants which really seemed to help me playing volleyball. In order to get my mental focus I would chant things to myself like, “It’s my ball, it’s coming to me, I go, I go”. At work sometimes I do this internal chant, “that is my job, my job, I got this, I go, I go”.
This idea that happiness was my choice seemed a bit far fetched. My happiness was dependent on the traffic, my boss’s mood, my boyfriend’s mood, what everyone thinks of me, my grades and my paycheck. A lot of external forces had to align for me to be “happy”; a good hair day, good skin day, nobody in my way (or commenting on my hair)...a lot of criteria. If I could just get everybody on the same freaking page as me and behaving as I wish, I could have a good-to-moderately okay day. However, the idea of choosing to be happy in spite of relentless annoyances had never really occurred to me. I get to just choose?
Well our coordinator always seemed happy, vibrant and smiling. I don’t recall her ever being moody, sad or whiney but I also realized I never really recorded her happy vibe either until upon this delayed observance. Well it turns out this humble darling possessed the key to life. I was like an Egyptian dragging pyramid blocks around before ever having conceived of the wheel….like I was missing some fundamental process in my psyche….right over my head.
Long story short, I decided to create prompts to take charge of the few things in life I have control over; my thoughts, words and actions:
- 1) I set my vibe - not traffic, not external circumstances.
- 2) I chose to be happy.
- 3) I will speak and act impeccably to preserve my vibe.
Oh we’ve heard it all before, “Are you a glass half full person or a glass half empty person?” Well it turns out I can be a clueless person who thinks I can control everything and everyone but doesn’t exercise my power over the only things I actually do have control over; my thoughts, words and actions.
