Monday, October 15, 2012

Happiness Update

It has been awhile since the first post for this blog. Because my first post was about my working on becoming happy, I've decided to readdress my situation.

The goals I made at first were good goals, however over time I have added more goals to cover other areas of my life. I know I won't be happy if I am only doing homework, cleaning, sleeping, and working out.

I've added new goals to my life which include starting up a hobby and trying to be more appreciative of my family and reading more.

In the terms of my first few goals, I have not been working out like I've wanted to. Here and there I do get a bit more exercise within my daily routine, but nothing that was planned as a workout. While reading Gretchen Ruben's book Happiness at Home, I begged to differ of her opinion about abstainers to moderators. In her book she writes that moderators tend to have issues creating healthy habits because the feel they can cancel their choices of putting things off until late. As a result she abstains from things instead of letting them in in moderation. So, no sweets for her! Halloween? NOPE! Christmas? NOPE! I felt like arguing with her from the moment I started reading that! How in the world could that be healthy? But then I realized, I'm a moderator! I SAY that I want to workout at least 3 times a week and then I put it off until the last three days of the week and something comes up so I'm not even able to workout those 3 timse. So, I push the plan to the next week. Instead of doing this I am going to go for Gretchen's all or nothing idea. I am going to plan on exercising daily. A simple walk counts and can be easily done. This way I KNOW that I have to have at least 15 minutes set aside daily to workout and I don't have the opportunity to procrastinate another day.

Sleeping had improved and then decreased, but now that Spencer has to work during the day, we actually go to sleep at night. We've been getting to sleep a little bit earlier now. This truly helps me feel like my day was more productive just by getting up before noon and showered. In addition, I don't have the need to take naps during the day.

My homework or school life was also doing well until it wasn't! Haha. Like I mentioned in my last post, I was falling behind in International Economics. However, I have spoken with the teacher and am now on track to be catching up. Next week I plan on getting together a table to record all my grades that I have so I can see which classes I need to work harder on. It is my intention to get all A's this semester and I really believe I can do it. One thing I still need to work on is getting my homework done in a timely manner. I still wait until last minute to do EVERYTHING! This has an incredibly negative effect on my mood. I become cranky closer to the due date and then rush to get my assignment complete. Plus, I miss out on doing activities with my family and boyfriend.

Cleaning is one area that I have been doing quite well in. In fact, because of my cleaning efforts, my parents bought me an outfit! They really appreciated everything I was doing around the house. This is something I want to continue doing despite the fact that nothing stays clean for longer than two hours!

Now my new goals have actually added a lot to my happiness! I have wanted to start up a hobby, a productive way to spend my time. I've decided to craft, cook, and scrapbook. So far I haven't done any scrapbooking. However, I have crafted a few things which I've posted and I have cooked some new recipes that I haven't posted. Creating something cute or delicious is something I love to do. I feel so accomplished afterwards and it prompts me to be even more productive with my time. Energy creates energy. I have a whole bunch more crafting ideas up my sleeve along with some more recipes I want to make!

Appreciation is another big goal for me. I feel that I am not as close to some members of my family as I'd like. Or that they sometimes feel that I don't care enough for them. My parents do a lot for me and I'm incredibly thankful for that! I love them both dearly and I plan on doing small, simple gestures to show them how much I car. For example, I left a sticky note in my dad's car before he went to work. I later told my mother about it and she told me that dad loves that sort of thing. In addition, I've done it for my mom before and she loves it too. So, I plan on doing it more and in more creative ways. I don't know how yet, but it'll happen. This applies to Spencer too. Sometimes because I'm around him the most and am so comfortable with him, I take my frustrations out on him. He doesn't deserve that and I know it doesn't make me feel any happier to make someone else miserable. I've lately been paying more attention to people's feelings and I think paying attention is not enough, I need to learn to act certain ways because of it.

Reading books! I love reading books! Some time ago I decided not to buy books any more. This has saved Spencer money and time (he hates waiting for me to pick out a book from the store). Now I make weekly trips to the library myself. I've read quite a few books over the last few months and it was all (mostly) free. This is the way it should be! I'll be doing a post later on books.

For a while there, I was on the verge of falling back into my bad cycle of unhappiness. However, I feel like I have recieved lots of prodding from books, horoscopes, quotes, and blogs to put me back on track. Along with the fact that I know my family supports me 100%, I know that I need to put myself out there and try my hardest to accomplish the best I can. I deserve it and so do my parents and boyfriend.

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