Four Things I've Learned From The 30 Day Optimism Challenge

This post is sponsored by Frost Bank. All thoughts & opinions are my own.

A few weeks ago, Frost Bank launched its 30 Day Optimism Challenge and I initially shared it with you and encouraged you to join. Hopefully you did! If not, you still have time to join here!

There have been many studies about the effects of optimism on overall physical health, mental wellness and overall well-being. I’ve mentioned that while I’m normally an optimistic person, there’s always room for improvement so the challenge was very much welcomed!

Being optimistic doesn’t mean that negative thoughts won’t come to you. It just means that you are able to handle it, navigate away from it and turn it into positive thoughts.

For example, a few months ago, I had just changed my car insurance deductible from $500 to $1000. I’ve been driving for long but never got into any single accident. I figured, I can lower it since I’m a good driver and really never had any incident. Well….right when I increased my deductible, we had a crazy hail storm that did some damage on my car. However, I didn’t sweat it. I paid off my car recently and it turned out, I was able to acquire some insurance money to get it fixed. See, I could’ve beat myself up for my decision of increasing my deductible but it is what it is and everything worked itself out for me.

Here are some take aways I had so far from this optimism challenge:

1. Little random acts of kindness can make a difference in someone’s life.
  
  Everyone faces some kind of battle. We don’t always know what someone is going through, especially in this curated world of social media. We’ve become so good in putting up a facade, staging a #goal life for all to see…but the fact of the matter is, we all face a challenge or two. And for some, it’s even more.In this challenge, random acts of kindness such as buying someone you don’t know a cup of coffee, leaving a note of encouragement in someone’s car, giving someone you haven’t talked to in a while a phone call, donating to a charity or a kickstarter campaign, thanking and appreciating someone, can all make a huge difference. Sometimes, you don’t even have to go too far to find someone to do these acts of kindness to – our own family, relatives, co-workers, church mates – they are our mission field. These are individuals that could use some acts of kindness from us. Often times, we are kind to strangers but miss loving on the people that are closest to us.
2. Little random acts of kindness can get you out of your self-absorption.In this narcissistic era of selfies…we can get too absorbed with ourselves. I’m not going to lie, I feel that way sometimes, especially that blogging and social media is my full-time job. However, I’ve learned that the best way to get out of self-absorption is to do acts of kindness for someone. Life is beyond ourselves.
3. You can’t give what you don’t have. It’s all about finding balance.While going out of your way to show someone kindness is essential, it’s also important that you take the time for ourselves. By that, I don’t mean taking selfies. Life has become auto pilot for a lot of people. They wake up, take a shower, go to work, go home, take care of family, and rinse and repeat. Life is more than all of these and I hope that each one of us will come to realization how important it is to give ourselves some love. By that I mean, taking the time to slow down, breathe, and reflect. Yesterday on another post, I have actually shared Why It’s Important to Go on a Self-Discovery Journey and Development and How because this is something that we all need to do.I know it may seem confusing and contradicting that in this narcissistic era, we still tend to forget ourselves. I think the problem lies in the fact that we are too busy trying to look good on Instagram, tweet inspirational quotes, share positive messages on Facebook, but we come home, lie down in our beds at night and still feel empty inside. All because we don’t take the time to slow down for ourselves and really care for our inner being. Find the balance. We can’t give what we don’t have.
4. Always keep things in perspective.
  Optimism is overall a state of the mind. As I’ve said above, it’s not that negative thoughts won’t come to mind. Optimism doesn’t mean that challenges won’t come either. It’s being able to not sweat when they come and being able to have peace, knowing that, everything happens for a reason and things will work itself out.

I hope that you will share this optimism journey with me and hundreds and thousands of others. But before you set on this journey, I encourage you this Day 22 Optimism Challenge: Take care of yourself. Spend some quiet time to unwind.

Remember, you can’t give what you don’t have. Love yourself so you can love on others.