Hello Friends!
I’m delighted to reach out to you today. It’s a special day—the first day of the 8-week Path to Resilience Journaling Challenge! I’ve developed this challenge for two reasons:
To give my wonderful people (including you) an easy, accessible way to learn many of the helpful strategies from my Path to Resilience training
To help you turn resilience practices into habits.
So let’s talk a bit about what makes a habit stick. James Clear, author of the book, Atomic Habits talks about four elements that encourage a helpful habit: make the habit obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying. It’s beyond the scope of this article to expound upon these four elements, but I will definitely say that I’ve tried to make the journaling challenge as easy and satisfying as possible. Making the habit attractive begins with you clearly envisioning the life and emotions that you would like to create with your habits.
Envisioning Your Most Fulfilled Self
How do you dream of feeling and showing up in the world? How do you wish to interact with your loved ones and children? Take a look at the below list of values, and choose the ones that you would like to strengthen in your life.
The resilience habits that you create will help to bring this goodness into your life.
Build Simple Habits
Often we want to make BIG changes to become our best selves. Big efforts can lead to big results…but what we’re looking for in the game of resilience is sustainable efforts that will lead to lasting improvements over time.
Yesterday, I taught session 7 of the Path to Resilient Parenting, which focuses on “positive neuroplasticity training” (a big fancy word for helping our brains to take in good things). We can positively shape the wiring of our brain by incorporating goodness practices over time…just a few times a day for 20-30 seconds at a time.
In my bedroom, I have a small glass bowl and a container of salt crystals. Each day that I practice growing the good, I add a couple of salt crystals to the bowl. This is how we grow resilience, one grain of sand…one small practice at a time.
It All Begins with Awareness (the “Spots” Habit)
The first week on the Path to Resilience journaling, we focus on the “Spots” habit.
On week one of the journaling challenge, we cultivate mindfulness of our emotions. You can click here to see the week 1 blog. All of the subsequent weeks of the Journaling Challenge will be shared only with participants in the challenge. If you’ve already signed up for the journaling challenge (it’s free), look for an email from me (jlt@jamielynntatera.com) in your inbox for next steps.
Begin the Journey Today
The most important thing in building a habit is to get started. If you’d like to join the 8-week journaling challenge, you can register here: https://jamielynntatera.com/resources/.
If you’d like to build resilience habits another way, what might work for you? Would it be helpful to set a reminder on your phone to pause and notice? Do you need to find a buddy to check in with?
What’s most important is that you 1) create a vision and 2) take a small step. You can become your happiest, most fulfilled self by making resilience strategies into habits. I believe in you. And the ripple of the goodness that you will create with your habits will be absolutely amazing!!
Wishing you Light and Love,
Jamie Lynn