Malcontent, or discontent, is a habit in thinking. Even if you personally think it isn’t, does it matter? We all create our feeling states via the thinking we host. Those thinking states translate into behaviours – including the ones that don’t help us get on with life. We all have periods of discontent. So what? My conclusion with my own moments of moroseness is to do something that ‘gets on with my life’. How I feel is irrelevant.

Catherine Deveny, in her book ‘Use Your Words‘, has a chapter on another habit, ‘Procrastination’. Whatever reasons we make up about why we procrastinate, her point is that in real life we can’t avoid the need to do things to keep our lives going. If we indulge our habits, that indulgence incapacitates.

Deveny suffered from depression. In a desperate attempt to get better she bought $350 worth of self-help books. In one of them, she found this little nugget – ‘pocket notes’. Turns out that writing a little note can provide an antidote to a bad habit. Carry it around and look at it a number of times during each day. You might be surprised at the impact.

In my world of understanding, that note acts as a circuit breaker, distracting your thinking from its habit, and frees your mind to consider alternatives. Follow the circuit breaker and you break your connection to the thinking behind the habit. You break your habit of indulging your habits!

The example about ‘pocket note therapy’ Deveny quoted pertained to weight loss but it got me thinking about what my ‘pocket note’ could look like for discontentment.

‘Leave your morose thinking alone – it’s not important.’

‘Do one thing to get on with life before you give in to inaction – every time.’

‘Turn off the TV after an hour.’

‘Only use Twitter to post information – no surfing.’

‘When you feel like a glass of wine, drink a large glass of bitter lemon and water.’

If I follow my ‘pocket note’ every day, my life moves forward. I am more creative, I meet new people, my relationship with my daughter is closer and I feel more energized. My only commitment is to follow the advice when discontent surfaces – as it will. Much, much better than feeding the habit of malcontent. What’s the habit that stalls your life – every time? What simple actions could your ‘pocket note’ contain? Are you willing to give it a go?

Photo by Tim Bish on Unsplash.