Just for today

The next time you’re off to work, dreading the day ahead, stop yourself. Decide, just for one day, to think in a whole new way. Try these affirmations- they just might change the way you feel about what it is that you do.

• Just for today, I will be as friendly as can be to the people I work with. I am going to treat them as if they were responsible for keeping me in my job and be grateful they are there.

• Just for today, I won’t assume my job is to be chief critic. I will try to see the good in every situation and will look for something to praise in every person who works with me.

• Just for today, if I correct someone, I will do it with as much good humor and self-restraint as if I were the one being corrected.

• Just for today, I am not going to insist that everything I do be perfect.  I am not going to try to break any speed records. I will do what’s in front of me with competence, not painful compulsion.

• Just for today, I will assume that I have adequate competence for my tasks. I will not endlessly question whether I really deserve my title and my pay.

• Just for today, I will be grateful I live in a society and time in which I don’t have to do backbreaking work in horrible circumstances.  And I will be thankful I work in a free country where no one is forcing me to work

• Just for today, I will feel happy I am at work, alive and well, and not in a combat trench or in a hospital awaiting surgery.

• Just for today, I will not have any expectations about how I should be treated.  I will not compare my pay or status with anyone else.  I will just be glad that I am who I am.

• Just for today, I will not worry about “what’s in it for me.” I will think only about what I can do to help out in every situation.

• Just for today, when I leave work, I will not dwell on how much I did or did not get done.  Instead, I will look forward to the evening, and be thankful for whatever I accomplished.

These thoughts are not complex, and did not come from Tokyo or Cambridge. Their merit is that they can make your days more productive and happier. Above all, they save wear and tear on your most valuable asset— your peace of mind.

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