So what exactly is this happiness project? I had some questions too. It all started with Gretchen Rubin's book The Happiness Project, which I'll add a link for at the bottom if y'all are interested in checking it out!
Essentially I had been feeling under the weather for a bit (you all who follow me on Instagram know that I struggle with mental health) when my mom heard about this book and the project that goes along with it. She suggested that we do this project together. I was SUPER wary at first because of the stigma against mental health and the idea that you can "fix yourself". But first lets look at what the actual project is!
Step One: Make some lists!
- Personal Commandments (ex. Keep a soft heart, and It takes time. Let it take that time.)
-Life Lessons
Step Two: What is happy to me?
-In the intro to her book Gretchen recommend readers take the Authentic Happiness Inventory (which I will also link below!) which is on a scale from 1 to 5. I scored a 2.58 on this scale which is pretty middling.
- I spent a long time determining what happiness is to me-- I'll make a separate post on this because I got kinda complicated in thinking about it. Gretchen recommends that everyone decipher what happiness means to THEM, because it truly is a very individualized thing. So I spent some time thinking about that! Step Three: How do I apply what I've figured out about happiness to my life concretely?
-After I've determined what happiness is to me, I determine my "months" i.e. I pick a topic (Organization, Reigniting Passion: Writing, Explore Home, Relationships, etc) for each month of a year and each month (11 different broad categories). Then develop tasks that apply to each month, i.e. for Organization, one of my tasks is meal prepping.
Step Four: DO IT!
-Procrastination is what holds us back from growth and happiness so just jump off the wagon and do it.
-After you complete each months tasks you attempt to maintain those tasks throughout the rest of your months. For the twelfth month you only attempt to do all of your goals at once!
Okay so there are lots of articles both by the author of The Happiness Project and also by other participants, who probably explain it way better than me but I thought I would give it a chance! My biggest question after figuring it all out though was-- Is it worth it? Will I actually get anything out of it, and will it benefit anyone else?
Simply put-- YES! But I felt that delving into the reasons why (especially on a public forum would help me commit more deeply so lets GOOOO!
1. Is it self-centered to spend so much effort on personal happiness?
NO. Let's ignore for a second that self-help is never selfish, and look at the other benefits! Improving yourself improves society both by you being a better person, and through inspiring others to be better. People who are positive, giving, accepting open souls are so rare and needed. And as one of my commandments will say- You cannot fill someone else cup if yours is empty.
2. Is it possible to make yourself happier?
As a depressed/anxious human bean this is an important question for me. Gretchen breaks down the "determination of someone's happiness" in her intro and essentially its:
50% genetics
10/20% life circumstance
30% how a person thinks and acts
Let's start with life circumstances with an assumption that 10% is stuff I cannot change (gender, sexual orientation, etc) and 10% are things I can change (where I live, who I interact with). Some of this stuff I can't change is bound to be good, and for me a lot of it seems to be I am; upper-middle class, school comes easily to me, I am cis-gendered, and Christian. Some is not so great; female, pansexual, mixed presenting black.
The other 10% is things I can change so lets leave that for later!
50% is genetics, which worried me at first, especially since she made a staunch reminders that the opposite of happiness is NOT DEPRESSION, and that this will not cure my mental illness. That actually helped me in the long term because it means this project does NOT fall under the umbrella of you can fix yourself and your mental health just by doing certain things. She is NOT telling me I can magically cure my depression by countering it with active happiness, but rather that there is a portion of my happiness that is not dictated by my mental health. I will probably write a whole article on this project and mental health because I could talk about it FOR AGES.
Essentially though I have about 40% of my happiness that I have active control over...why would I not want to improve that area if I could?
ANYWAYS thank you so much for reading this article PLEASE respond with ideas and thoughts etc, if only to feed my ego.
AUTHENTIC HAPPINESS INVENTORY:
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