Sorry about last week I was having some technical issues with my computer. But we’re back this week with chapter 4 of 10 Solutions!
Chapter 4 is titled “Be aware of your strengths,” and is mostly just a collection of exercises designed to help you know what you’re good at and all around help you with your self worth. The first exercise I think is the simplest out of the exercises in this chapter. Essentially Glenn lists out a bunch of attributes ranging from Humility to Humor. Then he has you rate how you believe you act on this attribute on a scale of one to 10. For instance if I were to rate myself I would give myself a 10 on flexibility, and probably a 2 or 1 on determination. Then after you've gone through every attribute you can think of, go through and just see where you’re lacking. Set goals and try and improve on anything you don’t feel comfortable in.
The next exercise is really just based around making yourself feel better and go through all of the times you’ve done something positive in the past. Basically, you take the boxes that Glenn has listed out and every time you can think of a time from your past you’ve acted in such a way, you put a checkmark in that box. Some of these boxes include things like: Being Friendly, Being calm or composed, Fun Loving, Logical or reasonable, and Sensitive just to name a few. After going through and checking whatever boxes you see fit, you can look back and kind of smile because you know you’ve done all these things.
The third exercise Glenn recommends is the most time consuming and tedious but according to a man named Walt Whitman made him feel “Larger, better than I thought. I did not think I held so much goodness. There are a couple steps to the process so let’s start with step one. To simplify, You start off by writing on a small sheet of paper or index card, 10 positive statements about yourself that you believe to be meaningful and true. For step 2 you should find a room where you won’t be interrupted for about 20 minutes. Begin by reflecting on one of the statements and whether or not it’s true for about a minute or two, and write down a comment. Then proceed to do the same thing for every other idea you wrote down. Step 3 is to just repeat this process every day for the next ten days. Then step 4 is to just every day look back at everything you’ve written and just meditate or reflect. Think about what good deeds you’ve done and what you did wrong/right. Hopefully an exercise like this allows you to just look at things you’ve done in the past and be a little prouder.
Anyway it was a short chapter but Glenn provided a lot of good exercise that you should try out if you need to know where your strengths lie. I really do enjoy these exercises Glenn provides because most of them really are effective in just reflection or making me feel a little bit better about myself.
Thanks for reading week 4.