The Happiness Project: March

Peachy Palate | PHOTO Courtesy The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
Peachy Palate | PHOTO Courtesy
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

With April approaching quickly and summer break just around the corner, The Happiness Project has great goals for the month of March. Not only have we covered some basic steps in becoming happier people, but we also have built up to the addition of striving for greatness. This month is all about aiming higher, creating goals, completing them, and bettering ourselves.

These goals will help to become a better version of ourselves, as well as creating a happier you.

Launch a Blog

This is a goal that maybe you don’t think you are cut out for, or it’s not your style. Well, from my own experience, it is worth it. Writing about your life and sharing the experiences you’ve had is extremely rewarding.

People get to compliment you on your accomplishments and you get to relive them while you are telling the story. It is also rewarding to be able to write loosely. You don’t have to be grammatically correct or worry about all of your spelling errors. You are able to write however you want to write. It may seem strange at first but it feels great in the end.

Enjoy the Fun in Failure

Push yourself. Yes, knowing you could fail isn’t a great feeling. But try to remember why you are pushing yourself. You want to better yourself, right? So why not enjoy striving for bigger and better things. Don’t sulk in the face of failure, relish in the journey that got you there and try to make the next adventure that much better. Remember that failure is part of being ambitious. If you have nothing to fail for then you are not living your life to its full potential.

Ask for Help

Stop running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Ask for help. It’s okay to get advice or thoughts from another person. If fact, that is why we have other people in our life. For support, happiness, and help. You never know what is going to come out of asking for a little help now and then. In fact you may find that you both have created a whole new solution or you work incredibly well together. Asking for help doesn’t make you weak or unintelligent, it actually makes not only you, but also the person you are asking, stronger.

Work Smart

We all know that perfect planning and scheduling isn’t the strong point of every college student. In fact we are very well versed in procrastination.

Although after reading this chapter I haven’t become a strict schedule keeper who has everything planned to the minute. It has helped.

Simply starting my day before 8 a.m. has helped. Creating time for things that make you happy is important. I don’t mean sitting on your sofa all day watching Netflix, although it is perfectly acceptable to spend a couple hours a week binge watching your favorite show. It’s important to do things that keep your mind awake in order to accomplish the things that need to be done in a timely manner. Read a book, take a bath, surround your workplace with things that are the quiet kind of content, like a candle or a plant, go for a bike ride, maybe paint a picture. These simple things will keep your mind awake and ready to defeat the day.

Enjoy Now

This month was all about pushing yourself to be better, aim higher. But it’s always great to have that simple reminder: “Live in the now.” Enjoying your time is more important than anything. Pushing yourself is great but remembering to enjoy those moments is even better. Life and all of its ups and downs, after all, it’s something meant to be enjoyed.

This month has been somewhat of a push and pull game. Sometimes it’s hard to fit new things into your already busy life. You don’t always have time to pick up a new hobby or rearrange your schedule to fit something new. But it’s important to remember to enjoy the ride.

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