I love a good self-help book. More than most, and it’s apparent. It only takes one glance at my bookshelf to see that. From everything to sleep, friendship, burnout, love, mental health, resilience, finance and feminism. You name it, I’ve read it.
It’s not all it’s cracked up to be though.
Which is to say, while my bookcase is heaving under the weight of all that self-help, what’s really buckling me is the weight of potential.
Potential to go to bed earlier, to be a better friend, to be more present, more productive, to ditch my phone at night, to finally start that emergency fund, to date with more intention, to be better, kinder, more self-aware. Smarter. Fitter. HAPPIER. That’s it isn't it? That’s where we’re all trying to get to. That’s what the strategies in all these books boil down to. Happiness, in one form or another.
All these books, with all the answers, and yet just reading them isn’t enough. It’s as good as owning a gym membership, getting a PT session to set you up with the tools to reach your goals, and then never returning to the gym. Because the hard work is done. Right?
But it’s not even close.
I’m as guilty as the next person with this. I tend to get really excited and passionate about what I’ve learnt from a book, but then months later I seem to think that the mere existence of that information settling in my brain will be enough to change my life.
But every now and again, you read a book that really sticks. Something in it resonates with you and you’re still thinking about it weeks later. That’s how I felt when I read The Resilience Project a few months back. It was one of the most authentic, accessible and genuinely helpful self-help books I’ve ever read. Mainly because it boiled down to three very simple things – gratitude, empathy and mindfulness.
To test the theory, I set myself a challenge. Three months, three things I’m grateful for every day. The science says that by doing this you can rewire your brain, from one skewed by a millennia old negativity bias, to one that sees all the good things, every day. After a while, apparently the good stuff starts to stick. The science also says that as a result people who do this are happier, more resilient and live longer lives.
I like science, so I tucked away any traces of cynicism and put pen to paper.
At the start I thought it would be hard. Despite there being some big things I am forever grateful for - my family, my friends, a fulfilling job, my darling Arabella, not to mention the roof over my head - I knew I couldn’t write these same things down every day, I needed to look wider than that.
And it was hard. I would find myself thinking in the morning, what will I write down today? What will my three things be? Is the chocolate biscuit I had at morning tea enough? Does it count as one of the three things? Is that incredibly sad??
And as a result, all day, I’d be scanning for the good things and mentally noting them down. More often than not, I started to get more than three and would have to get selective. Of course, bad things still happened, but they came and went, resigned to the periphery of my focus. That’s because the good stuff was front of mind.
Had a good breakfast. Received an adorable photo update of Arabella. Made somebody laugh at work. Completed a niggly task. Saw a friend for lunch I hadn’t seen in a while. Smashed a gym sesh. Clocked a full 8 hours.
They were pretty small things, but after a while they started to feel undeniably big.
I wondered if this was cheating, to be so consciously looking for the things to write down before they’d even happened. But then it became clear to me. This, this was the whole point.
So I’d proved a point. But it seems that wasn’t the point.
The point is, now I’m hooked. I see what they did there.
Eva x
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