Caring for Others: Cheerfulness

 
Cheerfulness

… from the moment you enter the school in the morning

“OK! I want to know how you do it!” Mrs. Lang said as she burst into her neighbor’s classroom one morning.

“Pardon me?” replied her startled colleague, Mrs. Werthmann. “Do what?”

“Make the kids like you! I work just as hard as you. I have good lessons. I use positive reinforcement. I’m just as good a teacher as you, but the kids think you walk on water. They’ll do anything for you! How do you do it?”

Mrs. Werthmann shrugged and smiled broadly. “Oh, I’m sure you’re exaggerating,” she said quietly.

Mrs. Lang sighed, “No! It’s true! And it’s not fair!” She turned and almost ran into another teacher as she stormed out.

“What’s up?” asked Mr. Adams. “Problems? I see Betty’s scowling as usual.”

“She’s just tired,” Mrs. Werthmann said and smiled at Mr. Adams. He smiled back and laughed, “See? That’s why I like teaching next door to you. You’re always smiling and that smile of yours makes me feel better. Now I forget what I came here for but—keep smiling.”

 

Ten Ways to Show Cheerfulness:

1. Exercise your face. It takes seventeen muscles to smile, so smile—all the time, at everyone. The worse you are feeling, the more you need to smile. Mark Twain once said that the best way to cheer up is to cheer up somebody else.

2. Practise smiling in a mirror, making sure your eyes and mouth match.

3. Tell yourself you are a cheerful person over and over until it becomes a habit. For example, try the positive affirmation I am a cheerful person and I like to smile.

4. Use the “Stop!” technique to avoid cynical or negative thoughts: mentally tell yourself to stop a particular thought if you find something negative creeping in.

5. Strive to make your self-talk, or mental conversations with self, positive, optimistic, and accepting. If you think only of reasons not to be cheerful, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

6. List activities or situations that make you feel frustrated, angry, or full of some other negative emotion. Choose to avoid these or to approach them with firm resolve to remain as cheerful as possible.

7. Play a tape or CD of a “laugh track,” a piece of beautiful music, or a stand-up comedian on the way to work.

8. Remind yourself that you don’t have to be happy to be cheerful. Cheerfulness is a deliberate state of mind. Choose to be cheerful. Keep a fresh flower on your desk as a constant reminder of this resolve.

9. Begin every day by doing or saying something to brighten someone else’s day. The act of cheering up another person has a wonderful vicarious reaction—it cheers you up too.

10. Slow down. Cheerfulness is lost in the stress of trying to do too much at once. When you find your cheerfulness fading, take a deep breath and walk with exaggerated slowness for about three steps.