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.

Visions

If I am entirely honest with myself, my quest for self realisation and content started way before reading "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin. Over the last 3/4 years as new years comes around, I always found myself reflecting and actually thinking "this year certainly was worse than that before, next year must get better". But it never did. Pressure, stress, demands all seemed to increase from work and home year on year and I felt totally out of control of my life. I needed to take control back.

It was perfect timing when I was introduced to the concept of a vision board.  I was told it was simple: flick though pages of a magazine, cut out pictures you like the look of. Some may have meaning or purpose, some might not, they just caught your eye. Then stick them beside your bed so you see them everyday. I am always skeptical of such ideas because there was no logic to this as I was cutting and sticking like I was back at primary school, but I had total faith in the person who told me about this. This was December 2013.

I would like to share my vision board with you 10 months in.

There are pictures I purposely put in there. The two women running. I wanted to get well enough to run again. The scientist - to remind myself why it was I became a scientist, I want to stay in the lab and my vision was to work on that this year and to try and steer away from management. But the rest I just liked the look of. The pictures of the sunhat, frogs, woman swooning in black and white are all pictures of unexpected things that occured in my life this year that I can directly relate to these pictures. But because I had them in my vision, I felt totally in control of these unexpected events, they did not take me by surprise, nor did they phase me.  And taking control of my life once again undeniably makes me happy.  Being able to set yourself a task for over a long period of time, or to be able to make sense of the nonsense gave me a sense of control like I never felt. And I didn't feel overwhelmed or over stressed, because I had the vision. And it wasn't the board that changed my life. I just made some very far fetched connections between my life events and these pictures which made me feel like its all part of the plan.  This gave me great happiness and satisfaction and was indeed the start of my happiness project that evolved into this blog.

I still have 2 months to go before my vision board ends, so I could still make sense of some of the other pictures. Or maybe I won't, but I am not disappointed, it was a valuable experience and I can't wait until December to do it again. But this time I will have a Ferrari slap bang in the centre!