If you have ever played the card game, Uno, you know how much power lies within a wild card. The player who lays this colorful card down decides the new direction and course of the game. If you are looking to up level an aspect within the game of your life, you may want to consider adding an itty-bitty, yet powerful, “wild card activity” to your day.
A wild card activity is an new, intentional habit. It is a purposeful action that helps one grow or simply show up as who they really are or who they want to be. We can grow subtly because we want to, not just because we are suffering.
A wild card activity is not, yet, automatic in your day but it is something that matters to an overall sense of well-being and centered-ness to keep yourself striving to reach that goal or identity you crave.
Sometimes wild card activities help for the short term, and sometimes they are actual habits you want to integrate into your daily routine until further notice. They are teeny-tiny aspects of action to accomplish, typically in a short burst of time…maybe even one minute!
The point is to recognize your daily progress. In addition to boosting your motivation, momentum and self-esteem, you are building an identity of someone who gets things done. Checking off a consistent task actually creates a dopamine hit in the brain. It feels really good when our actions are in alignment with who we want to be.
For me, I often have a five-minute wild card activity. I ask myself, “What is something I can realistically, and confidently, do when I set a five-minute timer on my phone…that will lead to progress with a goal?”
Wild card activities that I have achieved in my past have been reading stories out loud to my children, practicing the piano, cleaning one window a day, finding one item to purge, or donate, per day, listening to an educational podcast or audio book, reading five pages per day, meditating, walking, writing a thank you note.
The beauty of using a wild card in life is quite similar to when you play it in Uno… you decide how the next round will play out. You set the pace, color and direction of the wild card you lay down. You are in control of the next steps.
Please share examples or ideas of your past, present or future wild card activities. Please share on social media: and my_festus.
If you would like to dive deeper into these concepts, I invite you to check out a couple of my other blogs relating to the idea of change and progress:
“If I’m not changing it, I’m choosing it”
“Monitoring the Middle Matters for Momentum”
