character happy

There are 24 strengths of character, I'll list them all. Maybe you can identify with all of them to some extent, maybe you can identify with some more strongly than others. But take a good look... your strength of character will reveal alot about yourself...

1. Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence - Noticing and appreciating the beauty around you, whether it be art, nature or mathematics
2. Bravery - Speaking up for what is right, even if you're the only one speaking! Also includes physical bravery
3. Citizenship - Working with the team or community, being loyal to that team or community
4. Creativity - Coming up with new ways to do things, not only artistic
5. Curiosity - Finding everything interesting, love exploring
6. Fairness - Treating everyone the same, trying to overcome personal bias to ensure everyone is treated equally
7. Forgiveness and Mercy - Forgiving those who have done you wrong, giving people a second chance
8. Gratitude - Being aware and thankful for what you have and taking time to express thanks
9. Hope - Working towards the future, and believing that working hard can change it
10. Humour - Liking to laugh and tease, bringing smiles to other people, lightheartedness
11. Integrity - Speaking the truth, presenting yourself in an honest and open way, take responsibility for your actions
12. Judgement - Thinking things through, not jumping to conclusions, able to change your mind in light of evidence
13. Kindness - Doing good deeds for others and helping them. Taking care
14. Leadership - Getting a group together to get things done, organising group activities and make sure they are done
15. Love - Being close to people, value close relationships with others
16. Love of Learning - Mastering new skills, adding to what you know
17. Modesty and Humility - Letting ones accomplishments speak for them self, not wanting to get into the spotlight
18. Persistence - Taking pleasure in completing tasks, finishing what you set off to start
19. Perspective - Being able to provide wise counsel to others
20. Prudence - Being careful about your choices, not taking risks
21. Self Regulation - Controlling emotions, being disciplined
22. Social Intelligence - Being aware of the motives of other people, how to fit into different social situations
23. Spirituality - Have strong feelings about the meaning of life and purpose that shapes conduct and provides comfort
24. Zest - Approaching life with excitement and energy, never doing things half heartedly, feeling activated and alive

I'll be honest, there are several of these characters that I cannot relate to at all, or very little, and others that more strongly resonate with me. Conversely, there are characters that others may see in me and I do not see in myself and vice versa.

So what has this got to do with my happiness project?  There are 2 character strengths that resonate strongly with happiness, hope and zest.  With some character traits, having too much of a character can start to be detrimental, like loving too much starts to become a negative. But not with happiness, you can have oodles of hope and zest and the happiness will just increase.

There are other traits that are more weakly associated with happiness; gratitude, love and curiosity, but its hope and zest that really stand out.

So flipping the coin... are there traits that lead to "less happiness"? Yes there are: Modesty, Creativity, Judgement, Appreciation of Beauty, Love of learning and Prudence.

There are several studies that have lead to these conclusions, so its real.  My philosophy is to focus on the positives, if you want to have more happiness, focus on the hope and zest. And with that, I'm parachuting off a cliff edge, and hoping I won't die.

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!

The Grass is Never Greener

Peculiar. That's the best way to sum up yesterday. Peculiar in many ways, but one phrase uttered to me particularly stuck in my memory.  I was asked a question, is it true that I have it made, always on cloud 9, or am I a really good actress?

Its peculiar as I really didn't know how to answer it. Do I really advertise myself as the perfect being? Is my blog portraying me as the Nigella Lawson of the Internet? I didn't want that to be the case. I have highlighted on here my struggles, my demons and my frustrations. And if anything, I would say perhaps I was more negative than positive. So it makes me think of the later part of the question, am I an actress? Am I a fraud who has fooled you all my readers, into believing that I am the goddess of happiness and bliss?

I sincerely hope not. My life is far from perfect, but maybe the difference between me and others is that I believe I have the power to change things around me, and I am dedicated to changing that. I read my blogs again. I don't think I ever portrayed myself to be a happiness fairy sprinkling happiness dust down your throats. Correct me if I'm wrong. But maybe, we as humans, have the tendency to look at others and think - I want that life.

Something I realised over 15 years ago was that the grass is never greener on the other side. You may think someone is perfect, with lovely children, lots of money, a devoted husband - but we are all real people with real problems, and we don't really know what is going on behind closed doors. Even with our closest friends and families. And I blame social media. Where its actually become a contest - look at this massive bunch of flowers my partner got me for no reason, look at the lovely neighbours I have, they all pitched in a tenner and bought me a Porsche... and we tend to use social media to brag and show to others what we have. Giving the perception that other peoples lives are better than our own.

But over the last 5 years in particular, as my friendship networks deepen, and I mature more. And I begin to see through the roses - I realise that even the most perfect people have problems far bigger than mine. And this is part of the epiphany needed to bring inner peace and happiness, stop looking at others with envy. Really, if we all had our problems in a heap, you'd take your own back any day.

Taking Charge

My last blog played heavily on my mind this week. There are always individuals in your locality who are determined to put a dampener on your good fortune, mood or situation.  And this has really bothered me. In fact, I can go as far as saying that this is the biggest obstacle I am facing with my happiness project.

Now those who know me know that I am pretty focused and determined person, and so I put my mind into finding a solution to this. Surely I am not the only person who experiences this, and I started a comprehensive search of peoples experiences and thoughts.  Then I had the epiphany....

The only thing standing between me and my happiness project is just me. People will talk and bitch, but whether it upsets me or not is really my own fault. In every situation, I have a choice. I can choose to experience it negatively, or positively, or just ignore it altogether.  So people upsetting me is really my own fault, I am letting them. 

In your mind, nothing is impossible. You can achieve whatever you want, whether it be loose weight, a physical challenge, complete a difficult piece of work. I know I have taken my body and mind to extremes, and I can achieve more. The only thing that stops me is my own self telling me I can't.

Freeing your mind and taking charge of your fate is liberating. You can be physically restrained in your environment or limited, however nobody has any control over your mind, your feelings and your thoughts - in this realm, you are king. And this was my epiphany, I can train myself to react how I wish. 

Since my epiphany, I must say I have let alot of comments and situations just completely wash over me.  So the next challenge, can I sustain it?

The Happiness Diary

True to my word, I am now back after 7 days.  Over the last 7 days I kept a happiness diary working out my moods throughout the day over a seven day period to see, as said in my last blog, if my mood changes throughout the day.  It does.

But not in the same way as the previous blog suggests. I have discovered alot about myself in the meantime.  Firstly, I am definitely a morning person. Never had any grumpiness in the morning. And the second thing, is that throughout the day, my mood is quite neutral. However, there are times of the day where my mood reaches extreme happiness and unhappiness and mapping those out is quite interesting.

Unhappy. Being late in the mornings. Having to scream and shout at a seven year old to get ready for school put me in a grump for 45 minutes. It was only when I got to work and managed to vent it out to work colleagues did my mood reach neutral.  Unhappy. Last minute change of plans and my presentation was moved forward 6 weeks. Left me in a grump for only 15 minutes until I talked myself into believing it would be achievable - but other things had to take second place.

You get the jist. Work, home, life, family, loved ones, friends all give me reasons to be unhappy, but as equally they also are the ones who lift me out of my grumpy moods.  My mood didn't fluctuate all that much during the day, but it was little things that came along that put me in grumps.  Its the human interactions that make both happy and unhappy. So now I know.  The key is to quickly realise when those unhappy moments come along and identify the people who will lift you out of them as quickly as possible. I certainly know who those people are, and they are all on emergency speed dial.

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.