One of the things I did on vacation was to take a writing class. I spend my days writing for businesses, but in this class I was forced to free the fiction writer from within.

I gotta tell you -she's dead.

Every assignment we had I found myself writing about something I knew, had experienced or knew someone who had had an experience.

When we were asked to write with classical music playing in the background, I wrote about long hair.

When we were asked to write a poem about our inner self- just kill me now - I wrote about a lion.

When we were asked to write prose steeped with colorful language for the senses - I wrote about guilt.

Let's just say, I took home the prize for "most likely to fail in writing the great American novel."

However there was one exercise that we completed in which I found value for my business life:

Write about something you hate as if you loved it.

Think about the number of times during the week that you are forced to do something you don't like. You put it off until the last minute - or like my brother eating peas, you force them down quickly and with lots of milk.

Just thinking about the dreaded task makes you break out in sweat and feel like calling in sick.

Now imagine that same task as if it were something you loved. Transpose the feelings of joy you feel when doing something pleasurable onto that loathsome task. It is the old "fake it 'til you make it" idea.

Truly immerse yourself into thoughts of happiness, success and joy when thinking about that difficult task or difficult person you have to interact with. The results were comical!

One woman wrote about loving her anxiety. I'll paraphrase, but essentially she wrote:

I am so thankful when I feel anxious. And when I wake in the middle of the night, stomach tight with your feeling I say "hello - glad you are here - come sit beside me and keep me company. Anxiety, you are a joy that keeps me from feeling too happy, you keep me aware of potential challenges, you keep me on the straight and narrow."

By the end of her piece, she had found that anxiety actually holds a few positive qualities that she can be thankful for.

So think about something you hate to do. Just hate it. Difficult conversations with an employee, paying bills, conversations with a vendor, doing the books.

What lovely thing can you find to say about that dreaded task? Take paying bills: I hate paying bills (start with the negative and then turn it around), I love paying bills because it means that all my stuff is mine for one more month. I love paying bills because when it is over I don't have to do it again for four weeks. I love paying bills because it means that I had money enough in my account to cover them.

Whatever the task - think about loving it for just one day.

Deborah Chaddock Brown
Writer