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I’m 100 pages into Sheryl Sandberg’s “Option B: Facing adversity, building resilience, and finding joy.” (Sandberg’s husband died suddenly several years ago, so she and a psychologist named Adam Grant wrote this book about recovering from loss and grief.) I don’t know that I’d recommend it, since I’ve been trying to slog my way through it for a couple weeks and I keep falling asleep while reading. But one thing caught my eye on page 68. I’m transcribing the whole thing here and hoping no one reading this works for her publisher.
“Adam suggested that I should write down three things I’d done well each day. At first, I was skeptical. I was barely functioning; what moments of success could I find? Got dressed today. Trophy please! But there is evidence that these lists help by focusing us on what psychologists call ‘small wins.’ In one experiment, people wrote down three things that went well and why every day for a week. Over the next six months, they became happier than a group writing about early memories. In a more recent study, people spent five to ten minutes a day writing about things that went ‘really well’ and why; within three weeks, their stress levels dropped, as did their mental and physical health complaints.”
Sandberg says she did this for six months almost every night before she went to bed, and it helped her so much she’s started telling all her friends to do it too. “The people who try it all come back with the same response: they wish they’d started doing this sooner.”
My to-do lists are a never-ending Post-It collage of errands I need to run, emails I need to send, calls I need to make, things I’ve been putting off for way too long that I really need to deal with one of these days, etc. If I don’t cross items off these lists quickly, I feel like I’m falling behind at being a responsible adult.
Could this end-of-the-day “small win” list have the opposite effect on how I judge myself? Maybe! Instead of “Shit, I didn’t have a chance today to go to the bank, call the plumber, track down my building’s insurance policy for the fuckers who ‘service’ my mortgage, call my mother’s financial guy, submit my dog’s pet insurance claim, or return my library books,” it would be “Nice work, Crandall. Today you cleaned out someone’s garage, got paid, took good care of your dog, got that broken door handle fixed, and managed to get your weekly email out before midnight. You worked, wrote, and made the dog happy, so you earned that early bedtime. High five.” I *almost* feel better already. So I’m gonna try it, for at least a week, to see if it helps.
But first I gotta hit send on this and go run some errands.
Leading roles
Last week I asked you who you’d want to star in a movie about your life. My favorite answer:
"Kristen Bell. Because she’s comfortable cussing up a storm. And from what I understand from Dax Shepard’s podcast, she’s fairly insightful and open about her own mental health struggles and the role helping others has played in her healing. She’s outspoken about her politics. As a mother and wife, she’s definitely in charge, goal-directed, and perhaps a little high-maintenance but in a funny and possibly endearing kind of way. I think she’d get me. But I’m not sure a movie about my life would be very exciting to watch."
Good stuff
For next week
This is email #90. When I started this weekly writing experiment, I figured it might last a couple months before I got sick of doing it, or before people stopped reading it. Instead it's become something I look forward to doing every week, and while I hate looking at metrics, the qualitative feedback I've gotten has been hugely encouraging and rewarding. So I feel like I should do something different or special for #100. But I have no idea WHAT. Special guest writer? Profiles of different readers? Mega list of links? I'm not thinking far enough outside the box because it's late in the day and I'm wiped out. But maybe you've got some ideas, and if so, please fire away! As always, you can respond directly to this email and anything I share will be anonymous.
Pass it on
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