My Mini Happiness Project

I would consider myself happy by any definition of the word. I am successful, I have a loving family and loving friends, I have had wonderful life experiences. I would consider myself grateful, positive, and friendly. Not positive every minute of every day, not over the top friendly, but enough so that I am pleased with my life at the current moment. Do I have a lot more to look forward to? Of course. Am I where I want to be at this point in my life? No. But challenges are placed in front of us to see how hard we fight for them. The walls are built for us to break down. Every setback is a setup for a comeback. This is not my first rodeo. I have figured out that if something doesn't come to me, I must go to it.

My summer job ended yesterday and I have to be back at work August 29th. This means there are a few weeks in between now and then. Given certain characteristics of myself and knowing how easily bored and anxious I can get, I have decided to create a short and sweet happiness project. Instead of letting these few weeks fly by as I waste away time sleeping, worrying, and facebooking, I am going to prevent any of the above negativity from even happening. I just started reading the book "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin, where a middle aged woman decides to make her life happier. She does this over the course of a year by dedicating time to areas in her life that can be improved in order to make her more happy. She already has a successful job, an apartment on the Upper East Side, a loving husband, and two adorable girls, so how can she be happier? She is in the midst of explaining that to me, and I am already inspired. She points out that she is one of the millions of people each year who sets new year resolutions for herself and rarely follows through. As a more attainable goal, she sets a new resolution for herself at the beginning of each month. She set her own 12 commandments and will focus on one per month and the details that fall under each commandment. If she can make both large and small improvements in her life over the course of a year, I can most certainly make some improvements to my life in three weeks.

Often times, actually, all the time, I am concerned with what other people think of me, how other people are going to perceive me, and making everyone else happy before considering happiness for myself. That doesn't take away from my own personal happiness in any way, in fact making people smile is what makes me feel my best, but it means that sometimes I forget to focus on me. I hate to feel selfish, but for the next three weeks that is what I am going to do.

There are a lot of things in life I enjoy, that bring me great pleasure. Some of these things are big- going on vacation, visiting family, spending a weekend away with friends. And some of them are rather ordinary- a delicious cup of vanilla iced coffee, for example. Easily attained, and an instant mood booster. Other little things that boost my mood include yoga, adding to my happiness notebook, sending cards to friends, getting lost in a book, a delicious craft beer, spending a summer evening outside, going for a walk with my boyfriend, a nicely paced run, cooking dinner, cleaning, writing in my blog, and laughing. In order to prevent myself from getting easily bored- and more importantly anxious- over the next three weeks, I am going to focus on completing tasks that make me happy. I will not just drink vanilla iced coffee all day and become the happiest person in the world, but in down times or when I'm alone, I can pick up a book, and realize I have nothing else to do at that moment but to read and learn and enjoy it. I, too, and going to focus on a few of my own personal commandments; do yoga everyday. Work out. Go for a run. Write cards. Help others.

More than just completing a task, however, I want to focus on inner behavior, my intrinsic motivation. Do things for my own happiness. I also need to focus on how I treat others and the length of my patience. When I get worried about something (i.e. a new job, perhaps) I get very short and irritable with the people that are closest to me and that is not acceptable. Of course it happens to the people that are the closest to me because they are the people I see the most (or live with) and talk to the most. But that is a behavior that needs to be changed. If something is bothering me, I need to do something about it before talking to the people that I care about in order to prevent hurt feelings and negative conversations. All actions have an equal reaction. If the action is positive, the reaction will be positive. And the same goes if it is negative.

So. What does this all mean? How will this work? I have decided to write down things on small pieces of paper that I want to focus on, or things that I need to do better. I am going to fold those pieces of paper up and place them in a mason jar. Each morning, after my new morning routine of waking up early, sending out applications, eating a healthy breakfast, and practicing some yoga, I will pour my coffee and pull a paper or two from the jar. Maybe it will say "pray more" or "clean the bathroom" or even "call Grandpa." Doing these things for myself will make me feel happier. Some of the pieces of paper may say "take a deep breath" because we all know one cannot have a panic attack if they are breathing deeply! Completing the little goals that I set for myself each day on the paper, will make me feel accomplished. Calm. Preventative. Happy.

I may even write about my findings on here as time goes. These three weeks are in fact going to fly by, and I hope that I do notice a change. I hope that doing things for myself will make me happier, but not in a way where I want to continue being "selfish." I will continue to read Gretchen Rubin's book and take notes from her, though the more I read the more inspired I become because she reminds me of myself. Some of her commandments included "stop nagging," "fight right," and "de-clutter." I also want these new findings of myself to continue beyond three weeks, but I know that it will take off once I get home tonight and I will see where my mini happiness project takes me. These daily small goals can turn larger as I set a final goal of making myself more happy. Rather, turning this into a lifestyle would enhance my thinking strategies as well as my gratefulness. I'm ready to give it a try. A little challenge for myself? I'll take it.