Daily Tracker: Depression Mini Series Part 4

So far the topics in this mini-series have been making a plan, working out, and self-love. Today I’m going to talk about my daily tracker.

What is that?? I’ll get to that in a minute. But first let me give you some background about why I created a daily tracker.

When I go to a therapy session, which are getting farther and farther apart, my therapist asks what I’m doing for me. She’s very big on self-care. This has helped me to become better at my self-care and valuing it more.

Something else that she suggested I do many times is to write a sentence or two about my day. It can be about anything. Some samples are:

• How I felt that day: the good, the bad, the crappy, the happy
• A win I had at any time during the day
• What I did that day
• Something that happened with one of my kids

For a long time I had a little notebook that I wrote a sentence or two in. Then it turned into one page per day. Some days it was longer and other days it was shorter.

The point of writing something down is to get it off your chest and out of your mind. When that is done you can, most of the time, move on with your life. It was great! What started out as writing a sentence quickly turned into a mini journal.

I wrote funny things that happened with my kiddos. There are frustrations, guilt, and wishes written down. It became a place to let my mind go free. And I loved it.

I had been in and out of the habit for a while lately. I was trying to make a plan to help me become a better me. A realization hit me, I needed a nightly routine to help me reflect on my day. My daily tracker was born. haha

The idea behind a daily tracker is to have a graphic organizer to help you think about specific parts of your day. I wanted a place that I didn’t have to write the topics down daily. You could get fancy and make a book by getting it bound after you print off the pages.

What’s Included on My Daily Tracker:

• Date
• What I did for myself
• Mental health status
• Notes about today
• My focus for today

Date

This is pretty self-explanatory. It’s important to have a date on your trackers so you can keep them in order or find one if you need to. This will also make it easy to go back and see what life was like at certain times.

What I Did For Myself

Going back to my new found value for self-care I felt it was important to try to make an effort to give myself some self-care/self-love on a daily basis. Some days it will be small, other days it will be bigger. The point is to be consistent with daily self-love.

Mental Health Status

This is a very important spot on my daily tracker for a few reasons. This little spot is giving you a minute to think and reflect about your mood. It’s forcing you to reflect about the day. Were you stressed? How about depressed? Or anxious?

Sometimes I will be depressed and not even realize it. When you can stop and think for a minute you might realize that you were in a different state of mind then you thought.

Notes About Today

This is a free for all space. You can write what you had for dinner. You can write something funny that happened. This is a great space to write updates about your kiddos or pets. Keep it short and sweet. Maybe you write full sentences or just bullets.

My Focus For Today

This space is not meant to be filled out at night. It is reserved for the morning. Take one minute to think about your intentions for the day. Do you have a goal you want to accomplish? Maybe you want to be more patient with those around you or one specific person.

I felt the mornings when I have set a goal, purpose, intention, whatever you want to call it, I have a better day. I probably messed up 756 times. But I also tried harder and didn’t give up for the day.

Be Happy Daily Tracker

I call this my Be Happy Daily Tracker. I want to help start and end my day with happiness. There needs to be a place that I can reflect and give myself accountability in private.

My hope is that this has inspired you to get my free daily tracker or make one of your own. But, most importantly I hope you take a few minutes at night to reflect about your day. Keep track of your thoughts on something, anything.

Once you get in a habit I hope you will see a change in your mental health and your life like I was able to see.

And if you want to print off as many copies of the Be Happy Daily Tracker then click here to get it.

Happy daily tracking!

Xoxo, Steph

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