Happiness Project

My guilty pleasure is self-help books.  To be more specific, self-improvement books.  I love picking up new tips and testimonials of people who changed their lives through implementing new habits or changing their perspective.  I learn a lot from them and though my life is FAR far far from "together" I feel I have grown a lot over the last 10 years between experience and refusing to give up on growth.

For Christmas my husband got me the book "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin. 

http://www.happiness-project.com/

He saw this book and thought of me.  I am on a constant journey to find happiness.  Happiness seems like such a relative term, it means something different to everyone.  I am trying to improve my life in whatever way I can but I know that the biggest improvement I can make to my life, and the lives of my loved ones, is by improving my attitude and my outlook. 

Gretchen Rubin took a year, and a LOT of research, and created her own happiness project.  Every month she focused on an aspect she wanted to improve on that she believed would bring her more joy while also cutting out areas in her life that maybe brought about more stress and guilt than they were worth.  She has one major goal, like "Boost Energy" and then broke that up into sub categories based on her research and her personal life, like "Go to sleep earlier", "Exercise better", "Toss, restore, organize", "Tackle a nagging task", and "Act more energetic".  She made this her first month because she believed it would make the other goals easier to attain.  Other goals like "Remember love" and "Lighten Up".  Then, with the passing of each month, she built the next on the previous, continuing to keep up with the habits she instilled while working on new ones.  I think this is a great idea!  You know me and self-awareness.  :-)

So, I'm halfway through the book and I think it would be great to create my own happiness project.  My current Whole 30 approach to eating well will fit right into it, so that's a plus.  Anyone who is interested in trying it out, let me know or check out her website above, or buy the book.  It really is an interesting read.