Week 2 Reflection

So out of the four goals I'm aiming for this month, I did really well with two of them: sleeping and being organized. I've been getting plenty of sleep and cleaning up my room every night.

The other two goals I didn't do very well with. Overhauling my poor eating habits will be a long road, but I intend to keep trying. My new goal is to not eat after dinner unless I'm actually hungry. Therefore, I plan to have three meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner), two snacks a day (in between the meals and something small and healthy), and then if I keep to my eating goals dessert in the form of a fat-free meringue or a few m&ms or something else small. I also plan to keep a diary of what I eat so that I can make sure I'm getting enough nutrients each day.

As far as stretching goes, I'm going to try and do this at night while I watch TV before bed.

This week I'm also going to work on my inspiration board, so hopefully it'll be done by next week.

Start of Week 2

So reevaluating and strategizing for the week ahead.

Goal # 1: get organized. So I haven't undertaken any vast getting organized projects because I've been working a lot. However, I have been cleaning up my room every night and making sure it stays that way. This week, on my day off I plan to organize my desk and dresser.

Goal # 2: Do yoga. okay epic fail, but I have been stretching, so kind of? I'm not sure if I'm a yoga kind of person, so perhaps I'll just stick to stretching.

Goal #3: Sleep. This I have been doing. I've managed to get at least 8 hours several nights last week (yay!). This week I intend to keep a sleep journal everyday.

Goal #4: Eat better. I've been doing this 50% of the time. This week I intend to tackle late night eating. I also am going to keep a food journal every day and evaluate my problem areas at the end of the week. My rule for this week is that once I eat dinner, I'm allowed one healthy snack before I go to bed at night. No more late night constant grazing.

So here's to week 2!!

My Commandments

As I'm not religious at all, I've decided to come up with my own set to guide my journey this year.

1.) Be Julie.
2.) It's not as important as it may seem.
3.) Let it go.
4.) Take time to relax
5.) Stop procrastinating
6.) Figure out what's really bothering you.
7.) It's okay to have bad days, just learn how to deal with them.
8.) Make time for people you love.
9.) It shouldn't all be work.
10.) Keep focused.
11.) It's okay to ask for help.
12.) Have fun.

Week One Day One

So I'm going to reflect on how I met my goals for today:

1.) Get organized. I worked all day so I wasn't able to undertake a major organization project, but my room is sufficiently clean, so go me.

2.) Do yoga: okay, I epic failed. Although I did stretch. So maybe a part way yay?

3.)Sleep: Well I slept well last night, but I doubt I will tonight. So not a win at all.

4.) Today I focused on getting through work as opposed to eating well so better luck tomorrow.

Hopefully, I'll be in a better mood tomorrow. Although I had to call in sick to work, so not likely.

First Months Goals

While I was reading Gretchen Rubin's Happiness project toolbox, I realized I needed to make a change to how I was going about my happiness project. I had previously been setting extremely vague goals: get more sleep, eat better, etc. However, none of these goals have a path of how to get to these goals, just the ultimate endpoint. Therefore, I've decided I need to not just make goals, but make mini-goals that force the goals to be a part of my everyday life.

So here are my goals for the month of september:

1.) Get organized.

        This goal is going to start with reorganizing my bedroom before school starts and hopefully getting    a bookshelf to make this easier. Then it is going to be incorporated into my everyday life by updating my whiteboard calendar every night, making sure my room stays clean, putting everything back where I got it from when I use it, updating my planner, making my index cards every night(once school starts), etc.

2.) Do Yoga.

          One of my constant goals is always to get a peace of mind. I've heard yoga is an active form of meditation, so I've decided to do yoga for 20 minutes every morning when I wake up.

3.) Sleep better.

         My method for this goal is simple: I'm going to restart the better sleep challenge on sparkpeople, keep a sleep journal and establish a pre-bedtime routine that I will stick to every night.

4.) Eat better.

         I have a tendency to eat poorly when I get busy, which leads to weight gain and makes me feel bad about myself. Although I plan to have an eating plan, I'm not going to call it a diet, I'm going to call it an eating plan. I plan to stick to 1500 calories a day and eat many more fruits, vegetables and proteins than carbs. I also plan to take a few extra minutes to cook healthier meals for myself. My goal is to make a meal plan every week and shop according to that meal plan. I won't keep temptation foods in the house. I will also stop snacking when I'm not hungry. Also, I will keep an accurate food diary along with how I feel after eating to keep my digestive issues under control.


So I feel accomplished now that I've laid out my goals so blatantly this month. Here's to September!

Day 1 of the new project

Since I have to spend the next week basically in my house (ew). I've decided to take the next week to organize my happiness project. I think the reason it failed the first time is because I didn't take the time to properly plan it out. A few moments, here and there, during class doesn't really give it the attention it deserves.

So I'm going to start by doing three major things:

1.) reread Gretchen Rubin's the happiness project
2.) reset first months goals (I've decided to set each goals every month instead of setting them at the beginning)
3.)making lists of (1) things that currently make me happy and (2) my rules for life

This way I'll have a whole week to prepare and then hopefully, even when I get busy, I'll still be able to stay on track.

Cheers!

My Happiness Project Revamped

So I started this happiness project started with the best of intentions. I was ready to put myself into it full force. However, I quickly forgot about it. Jobs and school and life took over and time flew by.

I've decided to restart. I'm going to push all of my resolutions back and go back to the start. And along with the happiness project, I'm going to start a healthy lifestyle project as well. The plan for my healthy lifestyle project isn't to lose weight, but to establish a healthy eating plan and exercise more consistently and try to avoid being sick so much.

So here's to restarting and renewing resolutions!

Mid-point Check In

So I'm halfway through my project and I've decided since I haven't totally been consistent in keeping up my project, I would evaluate each of my resolutions up to this point:

1.) Work Out Better--Although I haven't had time to work out every day, I've still managed to be consistently active, even if I just walk to run errands. I'm proud that I've been able to keep this one up somewhat.

2.)Sleep More--I've been epic failing this one so I've decided to start a sleep challenge through Sparkpeople which hopefully will help.

3.)Look and the positive in every task & 4.) only have happy facebook statuses--epic fail on both of these parts, but understandable considering the amount of doctor's appointments and issues I've been having this month.

4.) Read more often--one word: school

I defintiely need to step it up for these last few weeks and it's what I intend to do, starting tomorrow.

Week Three

So I've definitely been neglecting my project, however, I'm totally justified as I've been busy with work/school/life and I've recently been dealing with health issues and preoccupy a lot of my time. I suppose I'm not really cut out for this kind of project but I'm going to try and keep going with it. 

I have to get surgery soon which is going to make some of my resolutions much much harder to keep. However, having this project as a distraction is definitely a positive thing. 

I've also been unable to sleep well in my new home, but hopefully now that I've cleaned and finished unpacking (ish) and decorated, it'll be a much less stressful environment.

Here's to attempting to keep up week 3!

Bad news comes in threes...

..or so I like to believe.

These past three days have been absolutely awful, but I guess because I believe bad things come in threes, something good will happen soon right?

At least I'm trying to see the positive.

Welcome to Atlantis...

Sometimes it feels like you're always miles away from where you want to be...

...and sometimes you feel like you've finally made it.

These past two days have definitely been of the former variety. And I have no idea why, which is driving me crazy. It's also making me realize that this project is going to be a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. Which has made me come up with my second rule for this project (I really have to get on coming up with the rest). But anyway, this second rule is as follows:

Whenever I'm in an irreversibly bad mood for no apart reason, try the following steps:

1.) Come up with ten positive things about the day.

2.) Go workout.

3.) Call a Friend.

4.) Have a low key night and watch a movie.

I probably should come up with more things to try, but I'm not really in the mood and I'm extremely tired because I've been epic failing at the Sleep More Resolution and I have a CT Scan in the morning. So for now I'm going to watch tv and then go to bed.

ps: this is not my picture, but fitting nonetheless.

Sometime you just have bad days.

When I read The Happiness Project (which I finally finished today), Gretchen Rubin specifically says that she isn't saying that this project will work for everyone (especially people with depression). However, it's an admirable goal, nonetheless and I intend to keep trying. 

By any normal circumstances, today would have been a good day. I woke up at about nine, bought myself breakfast, got a massage, bought myself some new stationary, went grocery shopping, hung out with my lovely housemates and a few added guests, went to work, got a ride home from a co-worker and I'm now lying in bed in my lovely new room watching tv and trying to fall asleep.

However, I was in a really bad mood earlier today. I have no idea why, but I spent my morning stuck in the past and felt like I was going to cry for hours (I never did). And when my friend Carrie called me (who I've known for ages and I love), I was really distant and finally had to just get off the phone.

Today has taught me something that I'm going to add to my list of commandments/rules to follow for this project:

Sometimes you'll have bad days. It doesn't mean it isn't working or that something bad is happening, but emotions aren't just based on will power and it's how you face your bad mood that matters.

Instead of hiding in my room and hating the world and listening to depressing music, I took a few minutes to relax and then I went and joined my housemates out by our kiddie pool and sat in the sun and tried to keep a positive attitude. It didn't work all the way, I was still in a bad mood and I still feel a bit sad now, but forcing myself to spend time with others made me infinitely happier than being by myself would have.

I choose this picture for today because it represents the fact that the shadows are always there, and it reminds me that I can acknowledge that and still spend time helping myself become happier.

Also, I've determined the perfect song for today is Another Day from the musical Rent. But only this verse:

The heart may freeze,

Or it can burn.

The pain will ease

If I can learn

There is no future

There is no past

I live this moment

As my last.

This is definitely something I need to work on. Overall, one of my main goals is that I need to break free of my tendency to ruminate on the past whenever I am reminded of someone or something that is no longer a part of my life. I'm not sure how to avoid this attachment to thoughts and memories that make me sad, but it's something I'm definitely going to start working on.

Sunsets

Sometimes just looking at a picture makes me happier. This one was taken in New Zealand last January :-). 

Although I was really busy today (I managed to unpack about 75% of my new room), I still made time to work out (I swam this morning). I didn't sleep as much as I should have, but it has always taken me about a week to adjust to a new sleeping situation. I didn't get a chance to read today, but I did take some time to watch tv with one of my new housemates, truly worth the time.

Tomorrow I'm getting a massage as my reward for sticking to my diet thus far (which I really haven't, but I've also been getting good grades lately). But I do have to work until midnight, so at least I'll be making money.

The first day and other things

Today was technically the first day of my happiness project, but I spent the day moving, so I ended up not having enough time to actually concentrate on the first day of my project. However, I did come up with my first rule for the project:

Regardless of what you have to do, you always have an hour to take time and enjoy yourself.

For example: I moved today and I have about a million things to do to get my new room ready, but once I got to my new home, I sat in the kiddie pool drinking with my new housemates. An infinity better choice.

Tomorrow, I will finish my list of rules and report on how my first week is going :-)

July

I'm almost finished reading Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project and it's inspired me to start my own. I've recently been making a lot of changes in my life, but my own happiness has been put on the back burner while I worked on grades, health and jobs.

Now I've decided to spend some time focused on my happiness, which is probably one of the most important things. After all, they do say that you can't make anyone else happy unless you're happy.

So from now on, I will make four resolutions to follow each month. I'm not sure if I will keep it up for an entire year like Gretchen did, but I'll do it for as long as necessary. For July, I've decided to:

• Work out better
• Think more positively (only have positive facebook statuses, think of positive things in bad situations)
• Get more sleep (or at least 8 hours)
• Read More Often 

While the last one may seem like an odd task, reading is something I truly enjoy, but never have enough time to do. Now that I'm taking two classes instead of four, I've decided to try and read one book a week.

Here's to starting!