As most of you know, I started a bullet journal this year. One thing that I do in the bullet journal is track my moods and emotions every day. I fill in the little box that corresponds with the color of my emotions for that day. If I have a really good day where nothing goes wrong, the box is green. If one or two minor things go wrong, but the rest of the day was pretty good, then the box is teal, and so on.

I noticed that February had less bad days than January, and March had less bad days than either of those months. In fact, every single day of March was either green or teal. So what does a month of no bad days look like?

Not every day was great. My emotions got the better of me sometimes. I was frustrated and annoyed and upset. But I was able to find a lot of good things that happened. I was happy and joyful and triumphant. Overall, March was a good month.

I know I mention this often, but I’m working on me this year. I’ve made a lot of progress from where I used to be. But I’m still going. And I don’t want you to think that January and February were these terrible months. They weren’t. I think I had 5 or less bad days per month of each of those months. I don’t plan to have bad days. I hope every day is good. But I don’t force the day to be good. I let myself have bad days. There were a couple of days this month where I was in a bad mood either at the beginning or the end of the day. But even in those days, I was able to focus on the good things and realize the day wasn’t completely terrible.

I’m not saying this to boast or brag, or even to receive recognition. I’m saying this to tell you that it gets better. A lot of 2018 was rough for me for various reasons. So the fact that three months into the year is a month of no bad days is incredible for me. I had hoped to make this achievement later in the year. I would never have expected it to be only three months in.

But just because I have reached this goal does not mean that I can just quit. One of my biggest goals for the year is to improve. I left it vague because, realistically, I want to improve in every aspect of my life. And I’m working on it, and getting there, but it is a continuous process. There is always something to be improved. Improving my emotional state is a huge step for me in the right direction. Maybe one day, my month will be entirely green. That would be cool, but that is not a realistic goal. I accept that bad days happen. But if these past three months are any indication, I know that bad days are less and less as you grow.

Be proud of who you are and the journeys you have made. The good days and the bad days are a part of life. It’s completely fine to have bad days. In fact, they’re important (I wrote a whole blog post about that at the end of February. I even said that it would be nice to have a month of no bad days). I’ve been stressed out of mind, lazy beyond belief, and hardworking this month. But for the most part, none of those really impacted my day too much. I was able to still find the good in the day and celebrate it.

If you’re struggling to find the good days, I suggest you keep track of them. You don’t have to do it the way I did with pixels in my bullet journal. There are so many ideas. Just use Google or Pinterest and search “mood/emotion tracker”. There are ideas for all kinds and all levels of creativity. It really put my days into perspective for me. So often, I can get caught up in the bad part of the day rather than focusing on the good. By tracking my emotions for the day, it allows me to really think over the entirety of the day rather than the 10 or so minutes that upset me.

The original picture that I got the inspiration from to do this had a quote saying, “Remember: even your worst days only have 24 hours.” I didn’t like that quote as much, so I didn’t use it. Instead, I used a quote from the musical The Book of Mormon, which says, “Tomorrow is a latter day.” That quote was a humor point of the show, and it always brings a smile to my face when I see it.

A month of no bad days from the outside doesn’t look any different from any other month. I felt everything as deeply as I normally do and worked hard to get the things done that I needed to. But on the inside, a month of no bad days looks incredibly different. I found reasons to enjoy and be grateful for the life I am living no matter the annoyances that come my way. I know bad days are important, but seeing how much I have improved to the point where I can honestly say that there were no bad days is incredible. There were bad moments, but they never lasted the full day. We’re three months into the new year, starting the fourth month, and I can already see how much I have improved in that time. As the year progresses, I want to continue to improve. I am so proud of where I am and am looking forward to where I am going. Here’s to more months of no bad days, and may the good days always outnumber the bad ones!