'Wins' board idea/technique to aid you on your journey to recovery...

I came across this success story video in my YouTube feed in which Dan Buglio interviews a lady called Channelle who started and maintained a 'wins' board which she advises was a tremendous help to her on her journey towards her recovery (of note is that the 'wins' were not about measuring progress by whether she had symptoms or not)...



P.S. As @Diana-M says below, the 'wins' board info starts at 20:45. (I should have thought to do that because as @Mr Hip Guy points out, it's quite a long video.)

 

Awesome! She says celebrating the littlest wins taught her brain to look for more. A win, for example, was “not thinking about my symptoms for one hour.” Dan agreed this is a great technique. It starts at 20:45 if anyone wants to just listen to that part. I like this idea. She used Post it notes. I think I’ll put this into practice. Thanks, @BloodMoon!

 

Thank you for summarizing. I like the idea and started the video but balked at the runtime.

Any sort of positivity we can latch onto is important when we're down in the dumps of negativity like TMS brain wants us to be. if she's using post-it notes that means she has visual cues to look back on and doesn't have to "remember to log my wins" etc.

 

Yes, Dan made that very observation/point, that is, the visual cues and evidence of her progress were in her face (her 'win' board was on the back of her bedroom door) but if you stick your 'wins' in a notebook on a shelf somewhere you have to remember to make the effort to look them up.

My thanks to @Diana-M for giving the time at which Channelle describes how she used her 'win' board (20:45 for anyone else who's interested). It's not a long section of the video and imo it's really worth spending just a little bit of time hearing her talk about it...

For instance, I liked that she described that even with her 'downs' she was able to view them as 'wins' because she took on board that recovery isn't linear, she accepted that the journey was going to be bumpy and viewed a 'down' as one step further along the road towards recovery. When she describes it, using hand gestures, I could tell that she was kind of visualizing her journey/path to recovery in her mind's eye to be something like the graph below, which is from 'The Pain Reprocessing Therapy Workbook' by Vanessa Blackstone and Olivia Sinaiko. (The key/legend came out a bit small so just to say that the solid, black straight line is 'what people think healing looks like' and the meandering dotted line is 'what healing actually looks like'.)

 

Me too! I've just ordered a load of Post it notes in various colours and shapes from Amazon!

 

Although I don't follow her work much anymore, that puts me in mind of Nicole Sachs saying healing is like concentric circles up a mountain, not a straight climb.

 

Bingo. The back of my office door is a mess of post-it notes (alot of TMS reminders, but also faith-based reminders too) and cards, pictures, and drawings from my daughter that I want to have "in my face" all the time for all sorts of reasons. When you look into my office from the outside, it looks perfectly normal.

 

I used to write positive things on my mirror with a dry erase marker, I should start again. Thanks for the post. I think there’s no limit to what focusing on the positive and uplifting ourselves can accomplish!

 

Dr. Abraham Low, in his writings and lectures, calls this "endorsing." Endorsing not for the result, but for the effort.

 

Very interesting! Thanks.

I thought I'd ask Perplexity.ai for more details and it came up with the following, so I thought I'd post it up for others to see if they're interested in this:

"Dr. Abraham Low, founder of Recovery International, used the concept of "endorsing" as a core technique for supporting mental health recovery and self-improvement. Endorsing, according to Low, means specifically recognizing and applauding oneself for any positive effort made, not just for successful outcomes. In his approach, members are taught to "endorse yourself for the effort, not only for the performance," emphasizing the value of any attempt to apply recovery tools or to manage situations better, no matter how small the progress may seem.

What "Endorsing" Means

• Low urged people to practice "self-endorsement of every effort made to use a Recovery method, no matter how small and regardless of the outcome".
  
• This is intended to help break cycles of self-doubt and perfectionism, making future efforts easier and more likely to succeed.
  
  Purpose and Application

• Endorsing is not conditional on results—people should "endorse themselves for their efforts—not for their successes".
  
• This approach builds confidence, encourages persistence, and helps individuals recognize their gradual progress, especially when moving step by step through difficult experiences.
  
• For example, trying to act differently in a stressful situation or simply making the attempt to change a habitual thought pattern are both endorsement-worthy acts, regardless of the outcome.
  
  Summary of Key Point

Dr. Low’s message: Recognize and validate your efforts, however small, in the process of recovery and self-management—this positive reinforcement fosters resilience and continued progress."

 

I discovered Dan Buglio's made a kind of 'follow up' video to suggest adding something else (just one other thing) to recording our 'wins' on a 'wins' board, i.e. recording/noting down with each 'win' what our mindset was at the time of the 'win'. So, here it is (the video's just 7mins 44secs long):