I love this time of year and what Lent represents (at least to me). For years, it has always been a time of year where I gave up something - chocolate, coffee, meat, ice cream, men! The experience has always been good for me. When I taught Sunday School, I would ask the kiddos to think about Lent as a time they should do something positive. Clean the kitchen, make their bed, clean their room without their parents asking them to do it.

A couple of years ago, something in my brain triggered me to think of this as a time to move to the positive, like I had done with my Sunday School class. So that year I started every day as I drove to work telling myself that I loved my job and it was going to be a great day. My attitude had been really rough about my job. I wasn't happy and I was perpetuating that negativity with my self talk every single day. It worked. Now I won't say I started loving my job but I was in a much better place and it has helped ever since.

You can choose to be happy or you can choose not to be happy.

I choose to be happy.

A few weeks ago I read a blog about ways to improve your mood and it reminded me of this. So I put the highlights of that article on my calendar so I can look at it throughout this season. The three that stick with me the most are to start each day with a positive affirmation, wish others well on your commute and end the day with a grateful thought.

So that is what I am working on this Lenten season. Starting each day with a positive thought - working on ridding myself of the negative self talk; then wishing others well as a commute (which is probably the easiest of the three since my commute is all of 10 minutes on a bad day); finally ending the day with a grateful thought - this is harder for me as I tend to have a tougher time in the evenings with where I am....