The Moods-Behaviors Tracking Challenge Check-in

Have you ever intended to keep your discussion or commentary short and sweet and communicated that you were going to do so? And then, did you actually follow through with what you said you were going to do — keep it short and sweet? Well, I’m about to try that very thing right now.

Just a little online check-in to let you know how things are going with the writing therapy exercise I proposed a few weeks ago. And the short of the matter is that I’m planning on keeping this blog post short. However, the “sweet” part may not apply here all that much.

Anyway, I’m well into week 3 of the tracking challenge, and I can’t say it’s going as well as I’d hoped it would. No excuses, but it’s been a crazy month thus far and hasn’t been the easiest to sit down and do some dedicated writing/tracking during this challenge. But again, no excuses.

I must say that there are individuals who are dedicated trackers — very disciplined, in fact. And these folks religiously track/record in their trackers/journals for all sorts of things. But unfortunately, I’m not one of them. I’ve never been a consistent tracker of goals-habits. Never. Just never have been able to get going on this type of daily writing exercise.

So, why did I think I would do any differently with this challenge than in times past? Well, I don’t know. I’m an optimistic individual, so I’ll always make room for the “glass half-full” perspective. But seriously, I’m truly failing at my own challenge. And, I really have some doozies of excuses (for why that is) if you care to know them. Then, you’d really understand why I didn’t manage to get a good handle (get it “hand” — led) with the whole hand-writing therapy of daily moods and behaviors tracking.

And boy, how I’ve had some major events occur in the past 2-1/2 weeks that have warranted some noticeable shifts in moods and behaviors. Truly!

But, no. NOPE! Not going into details.

No, I said I wasn’t going to give any excuses on this one, either. And so, I won’t. Therefore, I’ll settle with the whole . . . “I’m just not the tracker type. And maybe I just need more compelling, habit-forming mechanisms in place to help motivate me to engage in tracking for writing therapy.”

YOU THINK?

But, what I have been doing more so than the writing part of the tracking is just that mental tracking that you can do in your head when you have a moment to think and reflect on how you ended up feeling overall about the course of the day’s events. And, I’ve found myself putting two and two together to end up with some cause-effect scenarios that have led to some ah-ha moments of self-awareness.

Some small breakthroughs to where I can safely say I get where I was coming from, but I could have handled the situation differently and it would have brought more favorable outcomes. Or, I did really good in the moment and need to remember to replicate that same behavior whenever that similar scenario comes around again, since I handled it like a SUPAH STAH (superstar) and all.

And, that’s totally what this challenge is all about — it’s about creating a self-awareness of the ways in which we behave and the why’s for our behaviors. (You can refresh your memory on or get an introduction to the details of the tracking challenge by clicking on the following blog post title: The Moods-Behaviors Tracking Challenge: A Writing Therapy Exercise.)

Remember: the reason for the challenge in the first place is to gain clarity on what drives us/motivates us to feel the ways we feel and/or to do the things we do.

And once we’re self-aware, it makes it that much easier to create strategies or systems for managing those behaviors that can drive us to do constructive as well as destructive things.

Anyone else out there have any tracking anecdotes, advice, and/or strategies to share about this particular challenge or on anything else you attempted to track — and the resulting favorable or unfavorable outcomes that resulted?

Please do share, because I would, most certainly, love to hear.