I don’t have to tell you that this is a busy time of year. If your “to-do” list is anything like mine, it feels like more stuff gets added to it every day and not enough tasks are checked off.

Any time I am overwhelmed (not just during the holiday season), I try to remind myself to focus on what I AM accomplishing and what IS going well. One way I do that is by making brain dump lists.

Here are some examples of how to do that at any time of the year.

Make a list of:

*all the good moments that Happened in your classroom in the course of a day

*all the good qualities about a difficult student (or colleague)

*growth you are seeing in your students in any areas

*all the good moments that happened in your personal life in the course of a day

*all of the things you DID get done today

*every positive interaction you had with anyone else during the day

*every single good thing from the day, starting from when you got up in the morning.

You don’t have to list every single thing. This isn’t an assignment. This is just a way to get you to notice that, no matter how bad the day might have seemed, there are plenty of good things that happen in the course of any given day.

Other ways to put positivity in your life on a regular basis:

*keep a daily gratitude list. Try to Write down five things for which you are grateful every morning and every evening. These don’t have to be big things (like your spouse/partner or kids). They can be small things, like your cup of coffee.

*leave positive comments on other people’s profiles on social media

*write a quick thank you note, email or text to someone

*add a post-it note to your Planner (personal planner, teacher planner, or both) – jot down one or two positive things that happened in the course of the day (you can always add more, but start with just one or two so you don’t feel like this is one more thing to do)

*and finally – write a thank-you note or email to yourself. Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but try it anyway. Just start writing. What have you accomplished? What have you learned? What are you doing better now? Don’t overthink it -just write. Email it to yourself (maybe schedule it to send a week from now?) or put the thank-you note in your planner to read at a later date.

Please note – this is not to deny that there are hard things in our lives. Right now I am dealing with putting my mom into an assisted living facility. All I’m saying is that there are always blessings in our lives if we look for them. Hard things are hard. But looking for the good can make the hard things a little easier to bear.

If you are a person of faith, the words of Paul in Philippians 4:8 are worth memorizing:

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable – if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy – dwell on these things.”