Crappy Mood? Maybe You Just Need Structure.

I was just stumbling along ... oh, you know about StumbleUpon right?  You must.  It's vital to true enjoyment of the web...before you continue reading the genius I'm about to lay on you ... go forth and install StumbleUpon.  Your life is guaranteed to be better. 

StumbleUpon is a toolbar that plugs into your Mozilla Firefox Browser (download that here if you're still on IE) and then download StumbleUpon here and suddenly VOLIA! You can simply click Stumble! and random websites that fall into your set interests suddenly befall your screen.  Hours and Hours of entertainment...I promise (cross my heart, even).

Anyway, back to my discovery.  So, there I was stumbling along and I ended up at Dave Navarro's site (not the guitarist - the blogger) - Rock Your Day. 

The particular blog I wandered into was all about training yourself to be in a better mood.  We've all heard it - be positive, keep it light, look at the bright side of things.  Okay - super!  I'm all on board!  Until, the day that I'm not (aka yesterday) when you get yourself in a funk for whatever reason and you just wanna paddle around the pity puddle in your floaties.  Except that sucks the whole day and then you can do squat - and really our days are limited on this beautiful planet so why not work out a way to pack up the floaties for good?

Dave suggests a totally structured system to pulling yourself out of negative moods and working your way into more positive use of your energy.  This struck my uber-dork soul.  You see, I get all the free flowing positivity and I'm all about it.  But sometimes, you just need structure.  And my man Dave - he gives it to you in a compact little acronym - ACT NOW!

Basically, the key to his idea is - you take responsibility for your mood, you make a plan of where you want to go, then you decide what you need to do to get there (in a positive, non cookie hording way).  I think it's brilliant.  I love plans - I love next steps - I love Dave...woah there nelly...I love Dave's idea (better).  Anyway - check out his article and see if he doesn't speak to you like he did me.

You see I started this day out in the puddle.  I have a little case of social anxiety and yesterday was Ox's niece's birthday party.  I thought I did okay, but I guess it was noticable to Ox that I wasn't on my A-Game and he mentioned it.  Bummed that I'd be caught I started beating myself up for not being "on" and for not making a stronger effort with these new people....I worked my way into the puddle, I strapped the floaties on and I floated on into today.  But...by the grace of StumbleUpon go I and now I'm putting together my ACT NOW plan to not waste a minute more of today or any day being in a mood that just doesn't suit me...it's time to retire the floaties - once and for good.