Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Looking Ahead

Happy New Year everyone! Today marks my return to real life, back to work with no time off in sight (well, except for Martin Luther King day, but still).

I read a book over the holiday called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and have decided to start my own happiness project this year. I loved the book because she is a lot like me, and I was able to relate to a lot of what she was saying. One of her main motivators (like mine) is a "gold star," meaning that she expects praise or a good grade or something for, well, everything, and that is something I can defintiely relate to, as I find myself doing that a lot (and plan to work on it more this year). Her brain also works the way that mine does. Each month, she had an all-encompassing goal that was broken down into three action items of sorts and then made a spreadsheet to grade herslf on how she did accomplishing these goals. Her goals were all this that enhanced her happiness and helped her appreciate how good her life was now.

This year was probably the happiest year for me. I found a job that I love and challenged me, got to spend a lot of time with myself learning about what made me happy, spent time with my family, and grew my relationships with friends. I took a chance on myself and while I think that paid off, I also did nothing with my writing or any of the other foals I thought I would accomplish. So that is the main focus this year--expanding on what I learned this year to be even happier.

Some ways I will do this include:
*Set a time aside for writing: When I went to see Sarah Dessen, she said she writes at least an hour a day, and she's so involved in that that she feels weird when she doesn't. So I have set aside the hour of 3:00-4:00 each day to write, and if I have something going on during that time, I will fit it in another time.

*Time management: I will hopefully spend more time planning out my days this year, so I don't just get bored and watch TV. One way I plan on doing this is through my to-do lists, which I will show you all later this week. This will let me catch up on work more, focus on the blog more, and also get some things done around the house.

*Calm down: One thing that gets in the way of my happiness is anxiety that I get over, well, anything. Worrying gets me nowhere, and of course I shut the garage door, so taking small steps to calm myself down will help me generally be less stressed about the little things.

*Focus on relationships: I want to continue to strengthen relationships with Nathan, my friends, and my family this year. I am lucky to have wonderful people in my life, and I want to appreciate that!

And the best part of my happiness project is the cute journal I got to write it down in. Now that's motivation.

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