I was reading the weekly newsletter by Mason Curry where he is answering people’s questions on how to establish routines and rituals to help them achieve the goals, projects, or whatever they are working on.

In it he had a quote from a poet Nikki Giovanni, who when asked about her daily rituals said this:

At 7 p.m., I go out to the fish pond in my backyard. There are goldfish there, and I take a seat, and I drink cheap champagne. It’s a $14 bottle. I like it. My body tells me what time it is, and so I just go. You have to take time for yourself, you really do. It’s important to give yourself a little time to think and to enjoy the moment or whatever you’ve done today. To congratulate yourself because a lot of people don’t congratulate themselves. They don’t realize, “Oh, I did a good job today.” Or “I got that done today.” Instead, we pick on ourselves and say, “Oh, I’m no good.” You can’t think like that.

Nikki Giovanni

I was so struck by her idea to congratulate herself.

I realised that I finish every day thinking “Darn, I got too distracted today and didn’t achieve this, this, this, this and this…” I’m looking at all the things that aren’t crossed off my ‘to do list’. I’m disappointed, down on myself, and berating myself for a lack of self-discipline, not working hard enough, and yet knowing that I will probably do the same thing again tomorrow!

But when I read Nikki Giovanni’s little end to the day I was quite struck by the idea of celebrating what I had achieved instead bemoaning what I hadn’t achieved.

A New Ritual

So I have this week started rewriting my ‘to do list’ and at the top I list the one thing that if I do this one thing today, I have had a good day. Sometimes I might list two or three things, but generally it is the one thing. If I knock that one thing off, it is a good day and at the end I can pat myself on the back and say, ‘today was a good day!’.

The truth is the ‘to do list’ is never done! There is always something else to do, another task, item, thing that pops up or comes along. So by celebrating that one thing I did achieve today, I can feel good about the day and turn my computer off with a smile and leave the rest for tomorrow or another day.

I haven’t yet decided how to celebrate achieving that one thing, maybe that will be tomorrows one thing for the day!

Thanks for reading, Cheers