Working on my happiness

The happiness planner.

“Happiness is a journey not a destination” – Ben Sweetland.

Ever get that icky down feeling and not know why? feel frustrated throughout the day and wonder why and you can’t put your finger on whats making you feel upset?

Sound familiar? 

I believe you choose to be happy, you don’t just wake up and BAM your happy, I believe you need to work at it and identify the things that upset you so you can react better to them. 

Nowadays we live long lives ( if were lucky enough), I don’t want to live my whole life not having been truly happy in myself, or wishing I had chased dreams and goals and let the ” what ifs” get to me. 

I also just want to say that suffering from depression is completely different, however hard you may try to think happy you may need help from your Doctor, friends an family, I don’t want to sound condescending to people suffering from Depression or Anxiety as I know the frustration and upset caused

 when people tell you to “calm down, get over it” I just want to share my experience so far on my happiness journey. 

I am going to sound very like Oprah in this blog but if I can help one person reading this feel enlightened then its worth it.

Also there are going to be some ass holes who take the piss out of you actively working on having a better life, guess what these people are not worth giving a fuck and probably won’t ever find true happiness. 

Fair play for wanting to have a better life, a lot of people settle, feel they need to conform to societies norms and end up feeling like shit and want to sabotage other people happiness. 

My response to these is “Fuck them!” 

Happiness is individual. 

What makes me happy might not make you happy and that’s great, growing flowers and floral china make my heart smile but you might love reading books, travelling to far far places or action movies. 

Surround yourself with people who share in your interests. 

I am on day 14 of my happiness planner, in this post I am gonna share some mini happiness breakthroughs Iv had. You could call them epiphanies. 

The planner itself. 

I am using the 100 day planner. 

The first 12 pages are the hardest to fill out. They took me a week of hard thinking to do them but do these and you will identify your happiness triggers and unhappy triggers.

I got my 100 day planner off Far Fetched Accessories and they are 26 euro, click this for a link to her facebook page.

Daily logs and weekly review.

Each day you will fill out the daily log.

 It is broken down into 

– Today I am excited about.

– Exercises

– Main focus

– Meals

– Schedule

– To-do’s

– Notes 

– Good things about today

– What I hope for tomorrow

Each day you fill these in, I find the to-do list the most helpful for me and keeps me organised. Also by filling in the good things from the day I feel like I am focusing more on the positives.

You will be so surprised by how many positive things happen in a day and they out weigh the negative things, my mind tends to dwell on the negative but I’m starting to thing differently already. 

Weekly review. 

So tonight I will fill out my second weekly review, the first week I was still a bit negative but the second week I can genuinely see a difference in my mood. 

This page is broken down to,

– Describe the past week in three words.

– This weeks highs/happy/ proud moments.

– This weeks low/ frustrations/ challenges/struggles

– What I learned this week

– Who & What I am thankful for

– What I’d like to improve /What I hope for. 

I forget lots of nice things that happen during the week so I write them down and then reflect on them at the end of the week. 

Also by thinking differently about the low points and things that frustrate me I can change my thinking and see them as oppertunities to grow.

The things I have learned so far.

Simple things bring me joy. 

Now don’t get me wrong a Royal Albert tea set also brings me joy but its shorter lived than doing actual things. 

I love making and creating things, I love the buzz of finishing off somebodies teddy bear or hand painting a chair, I love woodland walks, I love flowers and animals, I love making people feel good.

Now the things that make me happy today can and will change, if I had of wrote in this journal at 20 it would of been full off disco dancing, Ugg boots and cocktails that made me happy. 

Being bored makes me blue. 

Biggest reason I got into upcycling and sewing was because I was just after getting my house, I worked all day doing the same thing and came home to sit and watch Coronation street, this was great for about two months and then I started to feel anxious, bored and a bit blue. 

So I went on a painting workshop, I filled my evenings with painting projects, I went to sewing classes. I filled up my week with things I loved and I started to feel less anxious and more fulfilled.

You might like cars, wood work or fashion, whatever it is you like try and find like minded people and go to a one evening a week class. 

I promise you will see a difference. 

” The minute you stop improving yourself is the minute your life becomes stale, Never stop challenging yourself to become the best you can be.” – Mo Seetubtim

I choose what happens in my life.

This was a big one for me but the moment the penny dropped on this one for me I immediately felt better. 

I am at the age were people ask those intrusive questions, “so when are you getting married?, you should really think of starting a family in case you can’t later in life, maybe you should settle down now”

These flippant statements were getting to me, well they used to until I had mt epiphany that I have control!, I don’t have to lead a life like everyone else just because I am heading to thirty and might be deemed as odd for having cats instead of kids. 

When or if I have a family I want to be happier in myself so I can teach them to make better choices, to live a fulfilled life, not to conform to societies norms and come home from a 40 hour week to watch Coronation st. 

Also I realised that the people who ask these questions probably couldn’t care less if you had kids or not, they just ask those questions to be nosey, their the sort of people who even when you’ve had a child ask when your having another. These people are just ass holes and couldn’t care less they just want to annoy you and have something to gossip about. 

” Oh that Dainty one lives with cats, ah she’ll regret not having married and settled down”.

Lol!

These people, we all know them, are so unhappy they have nothing better to do than gossip about others, don’t waste any energy on these people. Go and live your life by your terms, follow your gut and cut these type of people out. 

The last thing you want to do is make a huge life decision from pressure. You will feel empty and down if you do something out of haste and pressure from other people, You live your life not the people who are putting pressure on you. 

The people pressuring you to have a child won’t be there at 3 am when your nursing a baby back to sleep. That person pressuring you to be an accountant won’t be there when your stuck at the desk when all your dreaming of is London fashion week. 

I’m also picking on Coronation st in this post but I never understood why people watched other people dramas. 

Which leads me onto my next epiphany. 

Other peoples dramas are not mine.

” Not my circus, not my monkeys”

Other people’s problems are not mine, I let people dump their problems on me and I then feel empty after listening or giving them advice. 

I now only want to give my time people who are closest to me and that I know can help, I don’t want to know Mary from down the roads problems, their none of my business and I can’t control them.

I am now going to walk away from small dramas and stop listening to other peoples small problems that I have no control over. 

Sometimes you have to be selfish with who you give your time to. 

Your glass is full and if you let everyone sip from it, it will become empty. 

What I need to change over the next 100 days. 

Over the next 100 days the biggest thing that makes me unhappy and frustrated is negative people and when people moan, I have absolutely no control over people so I shouldn’t get frustrated but I still do. 

I want to learn way do deal with these people so I feel more enlightened and that these frustrations don’t effect me. 

I also want to get better at not sweating the small stuff. 

That car that cuts me off, that rude sales person, the kid who knocks over my flower pot with a football. I want to be at a point were I only get a small bit frustrated not full on steam out of the ears when these things that I have no control over happen. 

I want to work on my negative thinking and think less anxious thoughts, I want to be more mindful and able to slow my mind down and feel calmer. 

I want to grow as a person and get better at identifying whats making me feel blue. By identifying the things that get me down and by changing my thoughts and actions I believe I will lead a happier life. 

I hope by sharing this post you feel that you are not alone, life nowadays is full of noise, social media, society, careers etc. 

Its fast paced and that is amazing but sometimes you need to stop, reflect and get your Zen back. 

Let me know if you have any tips or can recommend any books for helping on the happiness journey. 

I will do another update around the half way point in my journal and let you know my progress.

Chat soon, 

Catherine. 

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8 Comments

  1. Unknown
    August 14, 2016 / 12:27 pm

    Loved this post. Thank you so much for sharing it. I needed to read it xx Claire

  2. Claire Sinnott
    August 14, 2016 / 12:28 pm

    Loved this post. Thank you so much for sharing it. I needed to read it xx Claire

  3. The dainty dress diaries
    August 14, 2016 / 1:03 pm

    Hiya Claire X thanks so much for reading the post and I'm so glad the post helped you!

  4. monte
    August 15, 2016 / 1:48 am

    VERY inspirational and helpful!! Thanks so much for writing this!! It's gotta be exciting knowing that you are on the right path and that your journey is going to be a happy one. πŸ™‚

  5. The dainty dress diaries
    August 15, 2016 / 5:40 am

    Thanks so much for reading monte! I'm so glad this post helped you.

  6. laura Devine
    August 19, 2016 / 3:49 am

    Motivation… Book got, now to start (need to think of goalsπŸ™Š)really don't know what but this just inspired me to take up something, some sort of course, hopefully something will come to me πŸ˜ŽπŸ‘

  7. The dainty dress diaries
    August 19, 2016 / 9:10 am

    Aw thanks for reading Laura! Autumn is a fab time to start a course, lots on in local schools in evenings. Maybe a craft? Or photography or even a book club? Let me know how you get on. X

  8. Coco Chatter
    January 21, 2017 / 8:26 pm

    As you know I purchased the annual happiness planner as we've spoken about it. I've been feeling down for a while and I've had my ups and downs with the happiness planner but after reading this I'm feeling more motivated. We can do this girl! Love Cocowww.cocochatter.blogspot.com

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