What went well today?

A few years ago I found myself not only grieving the death of my father but also recovering from cancer and dealing with a whole bunch of other problems that life had decided to bring to me, all at once. Life, it seemed, was absolutely dreadful.

And so I decided to begin a new habit.

I set a reminder on my phone for the end of each day to ask myself a simple question:

“What went well today?”

At first, my answers might not have impressed you. They were things like “Walked 50 metres today,” “Met up with a friend,” or “Saw a beautiful sunset.” But at the time, recovering from a 6 hour medical operation, even these were huge achievements for me. Reminding myself of them helped me to keep going. And as I recovered from the cancer and moved on with my life, so my answers to this daily question also shifted and grew: a couple of years ago I walked over 50 kilometres in a day, twice.

So now, many years later, this reminder is still on my phone. Because with hindsight, asking myself this very simple question at the end of each day has brought me three very valuable and powerful things:

1. It reminds me what is going well in my life, as well as what is going badly. This gives me a more balanced perspective, which improves my morale
2. It reminds me of what is important to me, which helps me to set my priorities for tomorrow, next week, and next month, which means I end up doing more of the things I value most, which improves my morale and creates a virtuous, self-reinforcing circle
3. It trains me to look past the ‘problems’ I face to find the opportunities that also exist: it strengthens in me, every day, the key attitude of leadership

With hindsight, this apparently simple process has actually been transformative — a major contribution to my becoming more antifragile.

Is your life perfect at the moment? If not, do you take the time to remember what is going well, as well as what is going badly? Would it be useful to set a reminder on your phone at the end of each day to ask yourself, “What went well today?”?

Adapted from Inner Leadership: a framework and a set of tools for building inspiration in a time of change.

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Photo By Kevin Gale via StockPholio.net