You are not a problem that needs to be fixed
… although your negative thinking might make it seem so.
I recently received the book “How full is your bucket” as a gift, mainly because it contains the famous Gallup Strength Finder test. The book itself is tiny and contains a simple message: your overall wellbeing can be represented as a bucket; positive interactions are filling your bucket, while the negative ones are draining your bucket. The simple and logical idea, so much so that it provoked a “Duh!” moment. I read this little book on the metro on the way to work and back and didn’t feel as if I discovered something spectacular. I read much more profound spiritual literature and the message of this book seemed somewhat trivial.
(Warning! As soon as you dismiss a lesson, it will come back in no time and bite your ass. It’s fascinating how many times we can (and should) learn and relearn simple and seemingly trivial lessons. It’s not that we don’t know, it’s that we forget. In frenzy of our daily lives, we get stuck with our habitual ways of thinking and being (most of which are constricted and negative) and yes, we do need a reminder not to let our bucket leak too much. Seriously. This is what happened next.)
On the Strength Finder test that came with the book, I discovered that my biggest 5 strengths are: Input, Strategic, Learner, Futuristic, and Ideation…
