My Happiness Project

I’m sure by now you’ve all heard about The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, right?  If you haven’t, please check it out immediately.  I first heard about it from Natasha’s blog and was intrigued enough to check it out.  I am currently about half way through the book and I’m really enjoying it. 

As I was reading the first few chapters, I really started thinking about my happiness and where I am on the spectrum.  I (like Rubin) believe I am very happy…however, I think there are many steps I can take to make my life better and make myself and the people around me MORE happy!  While I don’t believe I have the time or the energy, for that matter, to devote my ENTIRE 2013 to such a task, I do believe I can focus on one small area of my life that I’d like to “work” on each month.  AND, what better place to document my Happiness Project than right here on this blog. 

In thinking about what brings me happiness (or unhappiness, rather), one word came to mind:  GUILT!  I hate that word and I have to say that I think every area of my life that “needs work” is strictly 100% because of my guilt.  Therefore, I think the entire focus of 2013 will be to work on taking steps to keep myself from feeling so guilty in all areas of life.  For example, I feel guilty when I arrive to work late, I feel guilty when I don’t workout, I feel guilty when I don’t take Zoey on long enough walks, I feel guilty when I snap at Patrick, when he VERY RARELY snaps at me.  This year, I’m going to work on these things…one area of life at a time.

So, you’re probably wondering, where am I beginning?  Well, you’re looking at it.  January is going to be focused on Blogging.  At first I was going to include blogging in the “Me Time” month, but then I decided that it used to be a very large part of my life.  I used to write with much greater regularity, and lately, it seems that it’s one of the first things I let go when life gets too hectic.  Hence, the guilt I feel for not allowing myself the time to commit to one of my favorite hobbies.  Therefore, this month will be focused on blogging.  Without further ado, here are my January Blogging Resolutions:

1. Blog every work day. This may require me to blog on Sundays some weeks and schedule posts in advance, and it may require me to get up early before work some mornings, but I want to aim at blogging every day that I go to work.
2. Comment on at least 2 blogs per day.  I love when people comment on my blog.  It seriously gives me a little bit of sunshine in my day.  So, I’m going to aim at commenting on 2 blogs per day.  I know to many of you, this doesn’t seem like a lot…for me though, it’s huge.  You have now idea how often I read a blog link during my lunch break and think “Oh, my, that outfit is soooo cute.”  However, because I am usually in a hurry to get back to work, or to move on to the next blog, I never take the time to actually tell the blogger.
3. Have my blogs posts published by noon everyday. Again, this may require me to get up early, but HOPEFULLY, I can keep this up!
4. Proofread every post for grammatical errors.  I know this isn’t a big deal, but nothing irritates me more than looking at a post I just “published” and see a big spelling error.  All it takes is a little bit of time to make sure every post is somewhat professional.

Well, there you have it!  My January Happiness Project!  Stayed tuned to see how it all works out…at least for this month.  Happy Monday friends!