Catching on

The wheels of happiness pursuit is slowly taking off again, and although I've been absent for a while, happiness and well being are firmly in my pursuit path.

I've made some progress with the ultimate to do list but panic is starting to set in. Days away from my 37th birthday, I know I will have to pull out the stops to get all 40 items done before the big 4.0 creeps up. The category of "shopping" is complete, but perhaps that was the low hanging fruit. The "detox" category has also progressed well. But I still need to find the time to exercise my culinary cuisines and to work on my personal development.

Being a woman, I always doubt myself. I doubt my own abilities and successes, and I am sure this resonates with other women. Men don't have this problem from what I see. They have absolute conviction in themselves and often will over sell themselves. So doing the woman thing, I doubt this whole project and pursuit often and wonder if I'm just setting myself up for failure. And it was a little glimmer of hope that I stumbled along that I want to share with you, that has put me back on that path of well being. Here it is:

 

I found this in my daughters notebook a while back, and its her ten things to do before shes ten. I don't really speak to her about my happiness project, but she hears conversations I have with various people about it. Maybe its crazy for a 7 year old to have a to do list. Or maybe shes learning some lessons that will help her prosper in life. But it made me realise that when you publicly declare your own pursuit for happiness, you inevitably motivate those around you to think about it in some way of form. So surely there is benefit in that. I will let you know in 15 years time if my happiness pursuit helped my daughter. In the meantime, a phone before you're ten, over my dead body!

Reflections

I thought,  before I embark on my next happiness endevour, to reflect on my happiness project so far.  So, almost a month in, am I happier? 

The happiness project has certainly got me thinking about being happy more. And being more self aware is making me happier. So far, I have implemented only a few simple tasks, sleep, phone and my two golden rules, be me and you can't change others.  In addition, having my blog is always on my mind. It forces me to regulate my thoughts into some logical reasoning for my happiness project and this is constantly on my mind. So being AWARE of your happiness does make me happier.

I want to thank all the people who are reading my blog and the overwhelming positive feedback about it. The answer is, YES do your own, its a liberating experience, particularly for those who always like to have their voices heard (you know who you are!!).  And this is making me happier too.

I don't talk about my happiness project to my daughter anymore. I do talk to my friends, who ask, about it.  So although she doesn't want to hear about my happiness project, she is getting a gentle trickle of happiness talk. I was cleaning out my seven year olds bedroom (with help from her of course) two nights ago. At her bedside is her diary and I as I was tidying, she saw it picked it up and started writing in it. I asked her "whats that?". She said its her happiness checklist, and she showed it to me. I wanted to share it with you:

She has made her checklist of things that make her happy, and possibly even things that make me happy (like being sansebel - sensible), and honestly, this bought tears to me eyes. So even though I couldn't preach the happiness project to my daughter, she actually has picked up on the positivity in our household and has formulated her own happiness checklist. Come to think of it, our household has been far calmer and happier over the last month. So this is the proof. If you want to change people, change yourself.

Flu-Spreading the Happiness

Before I start writing about my next happiness adventure, I thought I would first reflect.

Ok, so I started the blog, am I happier?  Well certainly I have been overwhelmed by the comments and support from everyone.. but is that happier?  It has been quite exciting writing a blog and checking on how many people have clicked on my page, and I guess that adrenaline rush does make me a bit happier... so yes.. I'd say that writing this has made me that little bit happier.

So after realising that my first happiness rule was to just be me, I started to think that this happiness project might be quite nice to implement on my poor unsuspecting 7 year old. Actually, she is not unsuspecting. The happiness adventure started several months back with an innocent question "mummy, what are you reading?". And so my description of the happiness project started.

I then thought it would be great if we could do this together, the two of us. Lets just make a list of all things that make us happy and lets just do it. Oh how Naive Am I.  My 7 year old just looked at me and said "mum, you're weird". I cannot dispute that.  So I thought the best thing to do is to subtly start to ask random happiness questions, but the problem with modern 7 year olds... they are actually smarter than us.

So here I am at the end of August. Any mention of the word "happiness project" and my 7 year old shoots daggers at me with her eyes. The word "happiness" is now banned (by her) in the house and I am not allowed to talk about it.  So, this brings me onto my second realisation - this is a journey that you have to do alone. You can't make people (and your loved ones) buy into your happiness. You cannot infect the happiness by sneezing on them. You have to accept that only you can change yourself. And there is a strong strong chance that the people around you may not even respond to the happier and more positive you. You will have to learn to live with that disappointment. So I am going solo, its my happiness project and now my ONLY outlet is this blog.  Only time will tell whether my personal adventure might have an impact on those around me.