So about a week ago I finished reading Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project and I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I think that it would be a great idea, as she suggests, to start my own Happiness Project. Like Gretchen it’s not that I’m unhappy, it’s just that I know I could be happier!
So where do you start? Gretchen started with the idea of tackling a topic of importance each month like: marriage, parenthood, friends, then making resolutions that revolve around that topic and keeping track of how she was doing keeping those resolutions using a daily chart. She marked the chart with a check for good and an X for bad!
As her thoughts, crystalized over the first few monthd she formulated her Twelve Commandments, overarching principles by which she tries to live her life, and also her Eight Splendid Truths of Happiness.
The first of these truths is : To be happier, you have to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.
So over the next few days I’m going to attempt to direct my thinking along those lines.. I’ve already started lists of things that make me happy and sad:
Things that make me happy:
my wife and family,
finding and listening to new music,
reading a good book,
running and exercising
going to concerts…..
what makes me feel bad,
procrastination
feeling like I haven’t been and done all I could do!
feeling right
when I’m writing and working on my blog!
Ok so I’ll try to complete those lists over the next few days and come up with some topics for the monthly resolutions. but for this month I am going to take Gretchen’s first topic which was Boast Energy- Vitality. Her four resolutions for the month were:
Go to sleep earlier
Exercise better
Toss, store and reorganize
tackle a nagging task
Act more Energetic
Hum, most of those appear to work for me. I cerainly should go to sleep earlier, but I like to read and work on the computer, so I don’t know if I can stop that. Maybe a half hour earlier?? I really exercise ok – a do at last fifteen minutes each morning and run 3 times a week, but maybe I could work on boasting my enegy through my diet!
Toss, store and reorganize is a big one for me! I am a pack rat who doesn’t get rid of much. So I think I really do need to make this a resolution!
I’m sure there is a nagging task I could tackle… the dentist?
Acting more energtic sounds like fun and hey, sometimes just acting turns into being.
So as I work on my lists, happy, sad, feeling right, etc and my Twelve Commandments, I’ll also tackle these resolutions for October:
Go to sleep earlier – I’ll probably get an X already on this one!
Eat more foods that provide an energy boast
Toss, store and reorganize
Tackle a nagging task
and Act More Energetic…….
So maybe I should stop to get to sleep earlier!