Thoughtful Thursday & Marble Jar Moments

In Tonya Dalton's book, The Joy of Missing Out, she shares a concept called Marble Jar Moments.

Marble Jars have been used by teachers forever as a method to encourage good behavior.

I have used it myself when working with children.

Basically, every time the children do something good, you drop a marble in a jar.

Then the jar fills up, the class earns some kind of reward.

Half of the fun of this is the anticipation of watching the jar fill up.

The kids get excited when they can watch and hear the marble rattle into the jar.

There can be power in the marble jar because it reinforces good work.

We all want to be recognized for our efforts, right?

We want people to notice the good we have done and to get credit for it.

Tonya shares, however, that we all have an invisible marble jar we carry around with us, striving to fill it. 

Got up and worked out....marble jar! 

Cleaned the house.....marble jar! 

Cooked a healthy dinner....marble jar!

And so our day continues with marbles clinking and filling our jars.

But there can be a problem with these imaginary jars when something doesn't go like we hoped.

Such as forgetting to set the alarm and getting up late. 

We forget something on our grocery list.

We miss a deadline. 

We don't just say, "Oooops! No marble in the jar!"

Instead, we feel defeated and discouraged and we loosen our grip and allow our jar to slip out of our hands and crash to the floor. 

Marble and glass are everywhere. 

It doesn't matter that the jar was almost full. 

It doesn't matter that we had done really well. 

All. Day. Long.

Instead of picking up the perfectly good marbles we earned, we decide we need to hustle to earn more marbles. 

We think we have to do more and be more. 

Then we fill our lives so full in an effort to fill our jars. 

We get so overwhelmed, we lose count of all the marbles we actually have. 

We believe that our value and worth come from our efforts to fill our jars.

Getting caught up in the busyness of trying to fill our jars we can lose sight of how amazing we are. 

We all have marble jar moments which can create and reinforce our limiting beliefs. 

Stories that feels so true but hold us back from creating a joyful life. 

Is it time for you to slow down and count your marbles?

Give it a try!