Page 43 - Vision Manual

Building Positive Experiences and Mastery
Stress can be most difficult or challenging when we feel as if we have nothing to look forward to or that we don’t have any control of the things that we do. It’s important to make efforts each and every day to make more of our lives, even if it’s in very small ways. In order to do this, we have two different concepts: Building Positive Experiences and Building Mastery.
Building Positive Experiences requires us to take an active effort in working towards doing things each and every day that allow for the possibility of a positive feeling or enjoyable moment. The reason that “building” positive experiences is so important is because we cannot just sit back and hope that life delivers a positive experience to us. If we take a passive approach to life and our positive experiences we are likely to be frustrated a great deal of the time! Day after day will roll by as we think to ourselves “I sure hope something good happens today...”
Building positive experiences every day asks us to try and do something within our means or capability that allows for that positive event. That might mean going and watching a sunset/sunrise, enjoying a good book at the library, stopping by a drop-in center and playing some cards, or spending some quality time with a pet. The thing is, sometimes we need to expend effort and put some work into making these things happen. We might need to arrange for a ride to the drop-in, or call a friend and see if they can come over. Taking an active role and building for a positive event helps make sure that it will happen.
Questions: What can you do every day to build towards a positive event? What do you do now to make sure that your day has some things positive in it? What can you do to improve on the chance a positive event might occur?
Building Mastery is similar to the idea of building positive experiences, in that with this strategy we try to make time each day to do things that help us feel more confident, capable, and in control. One way to build mastery is to do things that, while they may not be fun, helps us feel like we have a handle on our life. This can include a variety of different activities and tasks such as sorting and opening mail, doing dishes, folding laundry, making phone calls to our doctors, and taking our meds in a timely fashion. It’s important when you do these things to give yourselves credit for doing something to maintain control over your life.
A second way that you can build mastery is by improving your skills in a hobby or life area that you want to get better at. This can be challenging yourself to learn some new computer skills, working on crafting projects, learning how to build something new, or making use of skills to better manage stress! Just like with day to day tasks that organize our lives, it’s very important to give yourself credit for these activities as well.
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