Weekly: How you meet it
Happy 2024, everyone! How is your new year starting off? Whatever it's been like — energetic, productive, slow, relaxing, pensive, challenging, peaceful — please know that I'm wishing you the happiest year yet.
Over the holidays, we released a few new tools that I want to make sure you know about:
2024 Tracker: Use this emotion tracker to check in with yourself every day (and don't miss the community members' reflections on 2023 and intentions for 2024 that are inside!)
Dreams Square: Use this goal setting tool to turn your biggest dreams into an actionable plan.
If this year has started off on a stressful note, fear not: in today's newsletter, we're covering one of my favorite tools to help you manage your stress more effectively.
With love,
Stephanie Harrison, founder of The New Happy
This Week
Old Happy: "I need to punish myself for feeling stressed."
New Happy: "I need to be kind to myself when I'm feeling stressed."
Imagine you're at a party, looking to make new friends.
What do you think is going to be more successful: going up to people and openly judging them, or going up to them and being kind to them?
We all know that it's the latter. It's an ironclad rule: being kind to others is always the best way to build a relationship.
Yet, for some reason, we expect that rule to be invalid for the relationship we have with ourselves. We believe that we can criticize and hurt ourselves into the self that we want to be. All this does, though, is harm our relationship with that self — because while you can walk away from a judgmental stranger at a party, you can't walk away from the judgmental self that you have to live with.
This week, I hope that you practice meeting your stress with compassion. Here's what that looks like:
Acknowledge it: Remind yourself that it's completely normal to feel stressed. It is an inevitable part of the human experience; there's nothing wrong with you for feeling this way.
Accept it: Don't fight the feeling or push it away. Sit with it instead. Say to yourself: "I'm stressed, and I'm accepting that reality."
Address it: Take one small step to help you to recover from the stress (going for a walk, calling a friend) or to avoid it in the future (making a plan, asking for help.)
You can be a friend to yourself, even when you're stressed. And that friendship will make the stress a far lighter burden to carry.
Tips and Tools
1. Make better decisions — This week's animation.
2. Don't fight it — Embrace your feelings.
3. The beauty of the present — Gratitude changes what you see.
4. Your fear becomes your confidence — The surprising way to become a more confident person.
5. You're not your performance — Be mindful of how you measure yourself.
More from TNH
Podcast — Get a daily morning pep talk — in five minutes or less
Speaking — Book us to speak to your team about well-being, resilience, and productivity.
Articles — Read more articles on our website.
Community
What are you stressed about right now?
"My relationship."
"Needing to do my work performance review and feeling like I didn't do 'enough.'"
"Quitting my job (even though I know it's a bad fit) and finding something that better aligns with my values."
"My friendships."
"My job. I really enjoy it but the pay is so low and I feel like I need to further my career. I’m torn between choosing enjoyment or career prospects."
"I am hiring someone for the first time. This makes me nervous wearing a new hat. Many questions are keeping me up at night: what if I don’t pick the right one? What kind of boss do I want to be?"
"Which direction to go (in life and profession.)"
"Navigating my child’s ADHD diagnosis and getting him the appropriate help and support."
"I don’t know what to do with my professional life. I’m disappointed with my current job situation and have no idea what to do next."
Inspiration
1. ‘Welsh Tidy Mouse’ Tidies Tiny Welsh House (NYT) — I cannot describe how delightful this is. A tiny helper!
2. The Un-Brie-Lievable History of Tyromancy (Saveur, via Kottke) — Today I learned about tyromancy, the practice of predicting the future through cheese.
3. A Second Life for a Beloved Dog (Atlantic) — If you're a pet owner, this piece will make you cry — it's a beautiful reflection on love and grief.
Before You Go
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