Strum Strum Sticker

My best friend, Katy, has wanted a new ukulele for about a year now. She talks about it, knows  the specific one she wants and has multiple screenshots of it.  After a year of hearing about her pining for it without purchasing it, she just seemed to be stringing herself along.

I asked her what was stopping her from buying it. She said she wanted to “earn” it.

I asked her what would make her feel like she earned it. She said more consistency playing her current uke.

I asked her what was stopping her from more consistent playing of her current uke and the line went silent.

The next text I got was a photo of her 30-days-to-a-new-uke calendar. It was a simple 30-day hand drawn calendar, the last day of which said “YOU DID IT!”

To accompany her calendar, she had a roll of stickers typically reserved for her younger piano students. Each day she practiced her ukulele, she rewarded herself with a sticker.

Via photo updates, I watched as the stickers strutted their way onto the 30-days-to-a-new-uke calendar. Katy’s photo updates were always upbeat and there was no fret that her new uke was  within reach.

At day 19, I hadn’t gotten my photo update at the typical time and I was worried about the fate of the new uke as I was now an invested subscriber to the 30-days-to-a-new-uke calendar.

“Did you get your sticker today?”

“Yea,” Katy said with about as much enthusiasm as a kid about to start a mandatory chore of scrubbing toilets.

“What’s up?”

“I just wasn’t feeling it today. I taught lessons for nearly 11 hours, had to scurry around running errands after that and then had a 3-hour rehearsal.”

“Ok, but did you practice your ukulele?”

“Yea,” said as if I hadn’t heard it the first time.

“And your calendar got a sticker?”

“Yea, but it felt more like strum-strum-sticker.” Her monotone “strum-strum-sticker” had a death-march cadence.

And despite the grim delivery of the strum-strum sticker ballad, the bottom line was that she had practiced her ukulele, she had earned her sticker and she was still on her way to her dream uke.

I’ve certainly had days that felt like “strum strum sticker.” The days where I’m just not feeling it. Whether it’s studying, working out, or trying to stay on Whole 30 (or as I end up calling it, “Whole 10”). My “strum strum sticker” days are the ones where I don’t really feel like I’m having any impact on my own goals or any impact whatsoever.

Katy’s 30-days-to-a-new-uke calendar reminds me that sometimes we just have to power through and “strum strum sticker.”

Some of you may have downloaded the Laugh-Learn-Think tracker. It’s a one-week version of the 30-days-to-a-new-uke calendar (minus a uke at the end of the week). It’s my reminder to find something each day that makes you laugh, learn and think.  Some days are more of a challenge than others but I assure you that there are still things out there each day to help us laugh, learn and think.

So I hope you’re keeping an eye out for those gems in our everyday life, even if some days it’s just “strum strum sticker.”

And if you need a new Laugh-Learn-Think tracker, you can download it here:  Laugh-Learn-Think Tracker

Thanks for strumming along!