Book Introduction - Questions and Exercises

To celebrate, I like to put my hands above my head in a V for Victory. It feels like I'm congratulating myself.

One thing I've been doing in my journal that relates to this is: writing down 3 good things that I did each day and writing Yahoo! or Yeah! or Hooray! next to them. This is at the end of the day and not immediate like BJ Fogg recommends, but it let's me look back and see all my daily successes. Plus, I'm focusing on the positive and not the slip-ups.

I found when reading about celebrations, that I was smiling and I think that's a good way to recognize that I'm shining.

Yes, the 100 ways to celebrate and feel shine are on page - in the appendix page 288.
It is on page 84 of the PDF that came with the audible book.

Note: In the kindle version you can search for things (like any document).

Edited by: JANEGSN at: 4/2/2020 (20:19)

Jane,
Was this in the book?
1) Look at the One Hundred ways to Celebrate and feel Shine and find several celebrations to play with.

I am still working on getting my new laptop all organized.

? Celebrations are hard for me (and many others). I do a lot of tasks but I don't have that feel successful feeling/feeling of pride afterwards - it was just something I did even if it was a huge accomplishment.
I had to check out the appendix on One Hundred ways to Celebrate and feel Shine and I found one (only one) of these I thought might work for me (saying Nicely Done). But doing that helped me to find other ones and I have tried several others in the last couple months.
It seems it depends on how I feel (energized or not, playful or not, silly or not) what fits at that time. Since I am doing my celebrations for things I am doing at home, I can be silly or playful.

Exercise: Celebration blitz:

One day I did about 10-15 dishes and said “Ta Da” after every dish – that felt fun.

Note: On another day, I worked with the fact that I tend to do 5-10 dishes, then walk away, then come back later some time later and do another 5-10 dishes. I wanted to do all the dishes all together. So instead of walking away, I put my hands high over my head and turned around 3 times. But then I just felt revved up (though I was not spinning fast). So I added 3 breaths to it.
Recipe: After I feel like I want to walk away and stop doing dishes I will put my hands in the air and spin around 3 times while wiggling myself, then I will stop and take 3 slow breaths, then I will do another dish. This worked ok (I did 3 batches of dishes) that day. But a few days later I remembered that habit and it didn’t work at all (I had no desire to spin around so I didn't).
So I learned, for me to do something like dishes/tidying, It works better for me to make it a celebration blitz and do something silly like saying Ta Da after every item (dish/tidy). That would keep me going until I get them all done at that time. I should try that one again.

Another day during a webinar with BJ, I did a celebration blitz on tidying – for 2 minutes. The first minute I put away a bunch of things (like 5/6 items). But then I picked up something that I really wanted to tidy but took over 1 minute to do that one item. I felt that changed the pace (e.g. fast task, fast task, fast task….., long task) and I was pushing to finish it as I didn’t finish it in the 2 minutes. So for me, a tidying blitz should be quick things, with longer things being done as separate tasks (it could be it's own blitz of several items that take several minutes each).

Exercise 3 I have not tried yet, I will do another post when I do that one.

Questions:
Do you do celebrations easily or are they hard for you?

Exercises:

Let’s play with celebrating to find what works for you. You might have different celebrations for different situations (Jump in the air and holler “Whooop” when at home and a silent “great job” inside your head when at a work meeting). Something big when you did new task, something smaller for your routine tasks to acknowledge you did something.

1) Look at the One Hundred ways to Celebrate and feel Shine and find several celebrations to play with. Book - appendix page 288. Audible PDF page 84.

2) Try a celebration blitz (or several of these). This can be used when you need a pick me up (check how you feel before you do the blitz and how you feel afterwards and you will feel better).
BJ uses this for tidying… Either use a timer for 3, 5, or 10 minutes or decide to put away a set number of items – e.g. 5 or 10 items. Then pick something up and put it away and Celebrate. Then pick up something else and put it away and Celebrate. Choose very simple things that you can do in 30 seconds.

3) Try celebrating things you are already doing. For example: Every time you clean one dish/put it in the dishwasher, every time you do something for yourself, your family, your friends, a work task, etc. We are just practicing feeling successful about things we are doing. Note: This is not something BJ teaches explicitly, though he does say celebrating is good to do. But for those like me that struggle to celebrate I thought it would be a good way to get into that habit.

Basically spend the week practicing celebrating and finding what works for you (you may want different celebrations for different things/times/places).

Share with us how these go, including what didn't work for you (not working is a great discovery place, ok... that didn't work, let me try adjusting my recipe by doing ......).

If you choose another way to teach yourself celebration, please share it with us so we can all learn. Best thing on the over 60s webinar I did was people sharing I did... and someone else saying that is not me, but what I do is ....

Remember this is play time and learning time - no right or wrong. Give yourself time to learn what works with you and allow that to change over time (different situations, different tiny habits/behaviors, etc.).

Edited by: JANEGSN at: 4/2/2020 (20:20)