Weekly Challenge: Do you have a “Compliments” File?

Have you ever received a card or an email that contained a compliment or inspirational statement that just made your day? I get one every once in a while and they never cease to amaze me. Sometimes the message shows up right when I really needed it and other times it is random such as the one I received this morning via email:

I found this site through a reference on the Joomla.org site. I love it. This is exactly the sort of resource I want my daughter to have, when she’s old enough–she’s only 2 now.

Keep up the good work.

Now, I’m having a pretty good day so far (ok so it’s only 8am)…but I know somewhere in the future I’m gonna have a run of bad luck and that lovely little email will be just the thing I need to pick myself up off the floor and move on.

How will I find my way back to reading it when I’m having a crappy day and I need a little motivation to keep going? The trick to making these compliments work for you when you really truly need them is simple.Create a “pick me up” file. You can call it whatever you want. Mine is simply a folder in my file drawer called “compliments”. For email, I just tag them in gmail with “compliments”. See a pattern? My gmail folder contains email of course, but my physical file folder holds a variety of things…scraps of papers with hand-written notes, cards, a couple of photos…things I’ve collected over the last few years since I started it. The last two things I added to it were birthday cards from my two closest friends. I don’t just save every birthday card I get. I only save the ones that are truly personal and have a hand-written heart-felt note. I don’t get those very often so they are special.

I am challenging you to start an inspirational stash today. It doesn’t have to be a file folder…use a decorative box or a plastic bin – whatever you like. You don’t even have to wait for your inbox to ding or for the mail carrier to deliver. Start thinking of some things you want to remember…write a list of your favorite inspirational songs… a poem…toss in a favorite photo… Some of the scraps of paper in my folder are just things I wrote down myself. If someone complimented me verbally and I wanted to remember it, I jotted it down on a scrap of paper an tucked it into my folder.

Drawing a blank? It’s not always easy to remember the good stuff is it? My “compliments” file has become quite the lifeline for me at times. It’s easy to forget that you have friends who truly know you or that you have done something to make a difference in someone else’s life. When you need a little “pick me up”, open your file and indulge yourself. ;)