Create a Good Things Photo Album

This practice is a game changer. Creating a place where you can look at things that bring you joy is a simple and effective way to bring your focus out of the things that are wrong and into all the things that are going right. To create a “good things” space in your phone simply create an album in photos and label it “good things.” For a week, take a picture or video of things that make you feel good and put them into the good things album. These good things can be anything from pizza and puppies to spring flowers, a video of your favorite candle burning, or your favorite TV show’s theme song. After the week, occasionally update your good things album. If, for instance, you’re lying in bed after an awesome dinner with your friends and you happen to have a picture from the evening, add it to the album.

Creating a good things space has a few benefits. For one, when you’re making the album, you’re training your brain to focus on and put more time and energy into the good things in your life. This will help change your inner dialogue to one that focuses on all the things going right for you. Resulting in a positive impact on your overall quality and satisfaction of life. Second, when you find yourself in a bad mood, struggling to do hard things, or feeling like everything is going wrong you can look at the pictures to remind yourself of all the things you love in your life. Focusing on these joyful moments will remind you of how you were feeling when you experienced them. Have you ever looked back on a time you were embarrassed and cringed? You can do the same thing with positive memories. You can look back on happy moments and feel as happy as if they had just happened. The good things space reminds you, even though things can get tough, that there are aspects of your life that you love. The good things album is a great tool to have at the ready when you’re in a bad mood, in a funk you want to get out of, or doing hard things. For more tips on how to create a bad mood tool box, click here. And remember, you got this.