Encouraging myself

I had sat down to prepare a post saying how encouraged I felt this week. I managed to send out some encouraging cards in the mail, buy postage stamps to send future cards, and exercise three times in the last week.

I was thinking about how good I felt after sending a card to other people to encourage them, and how that feels like cheating (it should be to make the other person feel better right?)

I sat down on the couch to draft the post while watching some Ted talks on Netflex, because bubs will only nap at the moment if I am sitting next to her on the couch.

The series I was watching is called Life Hacks. In one talk a game developer, Jane McGonigal, promises to extend your life by seven minutes during her talk. This is all based on the allegedly scientifically proven benefits of four kinds of strength or resilience:

1. Physical resilience - exercise, not necessarily going for a run but just something as simple as not sitting still

2. Mental resilience - completing tasks, even simple tasks like clicking your fingers 50 times

3. Emotional resilience - look out a window, or look at cute baby animals, aiming to have 3 positive thoughts to every negative one

4. Social resilience - send an email to someone thanking them

Now while you can find science to prove almost anything, it seems that none of these things are going to be detrimental to anyone, and so it is probably a good place to start.

In fact more than that, I know that God has told me these things are good for me, so while I don't know if it will add seven minutes to my life, it did seem like something worth passing on. I have shared the link to the talk below if you wanted to check it out yourself.

I have also been thinking about other wisdom in these areas from the Bible, such as:

* Heb 10:25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another .....

* Phil 4:8 .. whatever is true, whatever is noble, whater is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things

* Prov 13:4 The sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the dilligent is richly satisfied

* John 13:35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another

* Gal 6:9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up

It is funny how when you start focusing on one thing, you see it everywhere. I have found doing these little things this week to be encouraging for me.

I found this video to be helpful this week. She also touches on doing this all in small chunks, which is similar to a recent post I made about trying to do things in manageable chunks.

So I am hoping to sit down this week and revisit some goals and try and plan out some structure for my week, without overdoing it. These categories will hopefully help to keep me motivated. Feel free to ask me how I have gone with that.