This month I am focusing my happiness project on doing things I love. When I mapped out my happiness project at the beginning of the year, I felt it was important to do more of what I love. In recent weeks I have come to realize that I am very good at doing things I do not want to do and not good at doing things I actually want to do. This may sound counter-intuitive, but I still struggle with looking at life as something that is a challenge and is supposed to be hard. This in turn becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as I make my life harder than it has to be and I find the most difficult/convoluted way to achieve my goals, further complicated them if I am unsuccessful. I also sometimes find that doing what I want to do feels indulgent, and my mind wants me to tell myself that I have to earn my joy through suffering. I am actively working to change my underlying thinking, but I also want to take action to do things I enjoy.
When I mapped out my year the three main components of things I enjoy included- blogging, baking/cooking and reading. Most of the time I participate in those activities out of pure joy. I blog because I love to write and to spend time gathering my thoughts. I appreciate exploring my thinking and understanding of the world in a cohesive way. I enjoy sharing my learning and creative ventures in the kitchen. I love sharing my journey. I have been working this month to blog more regularly than I have in the past and I will continue to work towards that. As you can tell from my last post, I have been baking up a storm, more for the process than the product, which is what I find fun. I also have noticed that when I slow down in the kitchen I make less mistakes, have fewer kitchen accidents, enjoy myself more and my results actually usually end up better. I have been cooking quite a bit too, mostly other people's recipes. I have not shared that here recently but I am one recipe away from finishing cooking through the book Bread and Wine. Next I am diving wholeheartedly into Chrissy Teigan's book Cravings. I love figuring out how others cook. I also have found some recipes I love this way and some I plan on tweaking and switching that have inspired me for ways I plan on blogging in the future. Reading is something I love to do. If I am being honest I find I do have a competitive streak when it comes to reading. I am working more and more to stay in my own lane and keep my eyes on my own mat so to speak. I have only been reading books I am excited about or books for book club and I have thoroughly enjoyed that. I am deep diving into topics that matter to me and I may post more of that here. What are the things you love that you want to do more of? I hope you find a way to enjoy this life, because I truly believe it is not meant to be a slog, or a struggle, but that we can enjoy the process.
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My focus for this month's happiness project is loving my body. This includes cultivating my style, eating foods that make me feel good, accepting myself just as I am and exercising. Now I know the mention of exercise will make some people cringe. I feel like many times we turn exercise into a competitive sport. We use our exercising or lack of exercising to shame other people or ourselves. I am not about that. AT ALL.
Exercise or don't exercise; the choice is yours. Yes, I do feel like this is a choice we are all capable of and able to make for ourselves. I am not judging you for your choice, frankly I do not care. I like exercise. I enjoy the feeling I get when I sweat a lot, which is true most times I exercise. I am pretty sure that sweat is genetic so let's not get competitive about that either. My problem tends to be that sometimes I feel lost and although I want to exercise I have found over time that having a plan helps. In a way for me it provides a logical stopping point. I like having a place to stop and say I have done enough so I do not spend all day exercising. I used to exercise because I felt I had to, or because I wanted results. A year or two ago I realized that for me, exercise provides me with mental clarity. I feel better when I exercise on a regular basis and so I try to exercise regularly. I have tried many exercise methods and I like most of them, but I find for me I tend to get bored so I need either to change my plan or have a plan that builds upon itself changing as the weeks go by. I have also found that if I try to achieve a goal instantly I will fail and feel bad, I instead do better when I break my goal down into smaller parts and incremental changes. For example, a couple years ago I wanted to build my endurance running (or more likely jogging). I wanted to be able to run for a full 45 minutes. I was unable to do so at the time. I then broke it down to what I was able to do then, my baseline was being able to run for 27 minutes and every other day when I ran, I added a minute. It took me a while, but I was able to work my way up to running 45 minutes. More recently I wanted to run at a higher speed, and I realized that my bullheaded way of just running until I felt ill was not working, I have accepted that I will build speed slowly. Currently my plan includes four days of lifting with brief intervals of cardio (jogging on a treadmill, because it is COLD here), one day of longer cardio, and daily yoga practices. Also, when I am feeling particularly motivated I try to make sure I get in ten thousand steps. If you are wanting to exercise and need a plan, start gradually. Begin with one thing and build. I think in more recent years I started with yoga, then added cardio and weights and finally added steps. Even steps can be broken down, start with where you are and see if you can add a thousand steps per week until you are where you want to be. Exercise is not an all or nothing pursuit. My other key is that I do NOT exercise for the results. Otherwise I would be frustrated and feel like a failure, which is not useful to anyone. Take it slow and remember you get to make the plan, you can modify and shift to make the plan work for you and only you. Also enjoy it, exercise is fun. I have been struggling lately with finding myself and being myself. I like to think I know what that is and what that looks like, but in reality I am not so sure. I know that we are ever-changing and the person who is typing this in this moment will not be the same person in the next moment. I struggle with finding the balance between what I am supposed to do and what I actually enjoy or want to do. I have noticed this pattern in my life as of late. I feel overwhelmed and exhausted, so I pare down my life to the essentials. Then I feel external pressure to do, be, have, act more. I call this my more more more instinct. I usually relent and give into this instinct and add things to my life. The types of things I add are usually of the unessential or mundane type, TV, movies, etc. I then am watching the thing or doing the thing and I realize I do not like this. I do not want to do this, why am I doing this? Sometimes I realize I am doing something because that is something the "old" me used to like to do, or was accustomed to doing is more likely. In this season of my life, I struggle between who I am supposed to be and who I actually am. One way this plays out is in gender roles, I think of the things I have somehow come to assume women like to do- get their nails done, watch romantic comedies, read romantic books, watch dramatic television, put on makeup, care about my outward appearance, or have a distinctive sense of style. I look at this list or just type out this list and I feel tired, exhausted. I am not that person, yes there are parts I am willing to ascribe to; I will put on a bit of makeup to feel more confident. I am currently working on finding a sense of style so as to make shopping and getting dressed in the morning easier. Most of the rest though, I have to let go. And yet as I say that I still struggle. I wonder if letting go of those things that I do not do or care about makes me somehow less of a woman, less feminine. I have to accept that in reality, I do not care about being very feminine, I feel like I should, but I don't. I have been reading and listening to the work of Emily Freeman lately and I am coming to be wary of what I should do. I find when I say should it indicates things I do not want to do but feel a compulsion towards. I know this letting go process will not be easy, or simple or concrete. I may get to another season where I feel the more more more impulse, but I am slowing down and learning to recognize that it is just an instinct and impulse, probably one of those given to me by evolution that is not helping me. I can see the instinct for what it is and let it go, knowing I have enough and I am enough just as I am. Not spending all my time trying to be the person society tells me to, not trying to be someone other than who I am. I am not saying that those things are inherently bad or not worth my time, but I know when I do them I feel like an impostor. I am tired of always being an impostor, I just want to be me. If you need permission to just be yourself, to let go of what you should do , to let go of who society, or family, or friends or loved ones think you should be, permission granted. I think we would be better off if we stopped trying to evaluate our self worth based on others and instead accepted each other as we are, all our quirks and all. I have found living based on the more more more impulse to be unfulfilling and exhausting. I am tired of being tired and I want to instead feel alive and grateful for what I have. I want to live in a way that feels like me. I am not saying that I plan on living in a way that is stagnant, but rather do things that feel true in my soul, even if they make me nervous or afraid at times. I am embracing me, in all my changing glory and hoping that in this new month and in this new year I can find a way to make being myself the norm, to ignore the pressure of the world and just live my life in a way that is working towards my purpose in life, living my life intentionally.
January of my happiness project is focused on cultivating routines. I have to say that my evening routine was much easier to cultivate than my morning routine. My evening routine is time-consuming and I am more likely to change it around depending on the day and how much time I have. My minimum routine includes meditating and journaling. I do those no matter what and will add as time permits. I go from more active to less active and I find that this allows me to find comfort in the way I end my days.
Full Evening Routine
The next routine I am focusing on is meal planning. Yes, I already meal plan and I have mentioned it before, but I am testing out new strategies to try and figure out what works and what excites me. As I shared in a prior post, I am doing a happiness project this year. I am taking it slow this year and trying to be more like me, so rather than just do it all. I am working towards one goal at a time. The first routine I have worked to cultivate is my morning routine. I started working towards this in December and only as of the beginning of January have I found one I like. In being true to myself, I started with someone else's routine and it was bad. I mean like horrible. Not as a routine, all the components worked in theory, but for me it did not work. I ended up more miserable than at peace and ready to conquer the day after the first attempt. Here is why, I started off showering in the morning, which sounds like a great idea, but my entire life I have showered in the evening so I associate showering with sleep. Ergo, I showered felt more tired and cold and grumpy than I intended to be and yeah it was not great. I then worked out some redundancies and have finally found something that works for me.
It took me 7 attempts total to find a routine that works for me, and I am sure it will change in time. I am trying this because I appreciate routine and structure and I like having an idea of how all my mornings start. This routine works for weekends and weekdays, which is important for me too. My routine is the following:
I am now moving onto creating an evening routine. I expect this to take a few tries as well. The point is that I am finding what works for me and it make take some trial and error to figure that out, but that is okay by me. This is my life, I do not feel like I need to rush it and I think finding things that make me feel whole and at peace when I start my day and when I end my day are important skills for me to feel sane. Do you have any useful routines in your life? What does your evening routine look like? I have been inspired by Gretchen Rubin to create my own happiness project for this year in 2018. I decided this year that I can choose to be happy and I can choose to do things I want to do. I have decided to share to hold myself accountable and because feedback always helps for these types of goals. I am starting with my own commandments to live by:
January: Cultivate Routines February: Love My Body March: Do What I Love April: Challenge Myself May: Tend to the Spirit June: Laugh More July: Be An Activist August: Be Creative September: Go Slow October: Trust My Intuition November: Be Playful December: Achieve Elfhood I look forward to sharing my more detailed plans on the first of each month and throughout. Are you starting any projects in the new year or any resolutions? I love resolutions and reflecting on the past year and here are some of the ones I am doing. In addition to thinking of a word for the year and answering some questions in my new planner. Happy New Year All! |
About MeI'm Sarah; a wife, traveler, foodie, and adventurer. Archives
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