The Monthly Mindset

March 2025 Edition

Welcome to the first edition of The Monthly Mindset—a space to pause, reflect, and step into the month ahead with purpose. Each month, I’ll outline an emotion to notice, a vocabulary word to explore, and a habit or goal to focus on. I’ll also include my reflection on the previous month’s edition.

Why do this? Because every month brings its own energy, challenges, and lessons, and this is my way of embracing it with more intention. Since this is the first edition, there’s nothing to reflect on. So, we’ll just jump right into the focuses for March!

EMOTION TO NOTICE

“Heart is sea, language is shore. Whatever sea includes, will hit the shore.” ~ Rumi

When it comes to the emotion to notice for the month, I’m not necessarily picking one that I know I’ll experience. Instead, I’m focusing on an emotion I might not have fully recognized before.

Why not pick an emotion that I know that I will experience? Well, in my nominal emotion research in previous years, I’ve learned that it’s not that we don’t experience a certain emotion, but rather, it’s that we lack the vocabulary—understanding the definition—to identify such emotions.

My go to example is the difference between envy and jealous. Take a moment and think how often you hear these two words. Now that you’ve thought about it, I would bet $100 that you hear the word “jealous” more. But can I let you in on a little secret? It should be reversed… you should hear the word “envy” more and “jealous” less.

Let me be the first to say that I’ve been using these words all wrong. And I’m pretty sure it’s because, like most people, I don’t like to say that I’m feeling envious—even when I am. I’d rather offer a friendly, “Man, that’s amazing. I’m so jealous.” But as it turns out, I’m probably not jealous when I say that, I’m envious. But I don’t like the way that sounds. Here’s what I’ve learned.

…

Envy occurs when we want something that another person has. Jealousy is when we fear losing a relationship or a valued part of a relationship that we already have. (Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience, Brené Brown)

I hope that through this quick example you can see how important it is to correctly understand the definition of each emotion.

To that end, the emotion that I want to be intentional about noticing how I relate to it this month is Self-Trust. “Self-trust is normally the first casualty of failures or mistakes. We stop trusting ourselves when we hurt others, get hurt, feel shame, or question our worth.” (Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown)

Now, that I’ve an emotion to notice, let’s talk about the vocabulary word to explore for the month.