In February, I tracked my negative thoughts for a week:

I wanted to find out how my thoughts impacted my happiness (and life in general),

Because my therapist vibe checked me on cognitive distortions a lot.

Whenever something was going poorly, I’d fall into the trap of all-or-nothing thinking:

But I noticed when I catch myself in these thinking patterns, I’m able to feel more peaceful and grounded.

Then, I think things that are less likely to make me spiral and make impulsive decisions, like:

So here’s what I learned from tracking my negative thoughts.

The first day, it was 8 - but I tried to reframe my negativity to needs instead.

For example, if I got mad I stubbed my toe on something, instead of thinking:

I think more like:

I always like to focus more on the goal and solutions - it helps me move on faster so I don’t get caught up in negativity for longer than I have to.

I started noticing a lot of my negative thoughts were around expectations.

I expected to get my work done - so when I took longer than usual (bc the admin work was sooooo boring), I felt disappointed at myself.

And also a bit resentful at the work.

Which caused me to want to avoid it.

Which caused me to procrastinate more.

Which made me feel ashamed and guilty, making me want to avoid it more.

And the cycle repeated…

It reminded me of when I tracked the amount of time I did people pleasing favours…

In 2022, it was 23 hours for less than half the year:

I remember spending the year feeling so resentful, almost hating people who didn’t even know I was upset.

Because to be “nice,” I’d always agree to do the things they asked of me, even when I didn’t want to.

I expected to bend over backwards for everyone else, because I thought if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be “useful” anymore and would just get discarded.

Ever since I forced myself to track my time, the people pleasing time slowly decreased over the years - without me needing to do anything specific:

I think I was holding on so tightly to this idea of being a “good person” that it kind of did the opposite.

Once I let go of this fear of disappointing others (and the expectation of always needing to please them), here’s what happened:

For some reason, I was reminded of this parable of a boat - when you’re on a boat in the river and another boat bumps into you roughly, almost toppling you over…

Do you get upset?

Maybe you’d think “what is their problem, why’d they smash into me when this river is big enough for the both of us?”

But what happens when you look at the boat and there’s no one inside?

It was an accident, the wind, or just the waves.

Maybe your anger would dissipate.

I think it’s kind of the same thing when it comes to contentment and people pleasing - it’s all about your expectations and assumptions.

If you assumed the boat (and other people) aim to harm you, of course your defences would rise and you’d get upset and resentful.

But if you acknowledge that others are on their own journey - and their actions or hate comments are more a reflection of their perspective than of yours - then life gets a lot more peaceful.

The next time you notice yourself upset over something…maybe it’s:

I challenge you to think about what assumptions or expectations you have of the situation.

And maybe that will help you find some more clarity 🫶

Til next time,

Jennifer