A chapter in the excellent Happiness Toolkit is devoted to praising yourself. The author Jennifer Summers states:-
Most people have no qualms about putting themselves down when they’ve not done something as well as they’d hoped or wanted. People put themselves down for all sorts of reasons, examples can include: being late, messing up the baking of a cake, scratching the car, quite often even injuring themselves can provoke a reaction, “I’m so clumsy.”
The opposite reactions can be experienced when you praise yourself, and tell yourself you did well. This shouldn’t be reserved just for big events – like running a marathon!
Recognize that most of what you do each day is positive
To do this Jennifer suggests listing 10 positive things you did today, and describe how this makes you feel? This ensures you focus on the mundane, as well as the special. The Happiness Toolkit includes a worksheet to help with this exercise, although any form of diary or notebook would suffice. Give it a try.
