My Happiness Experiment Part 2

So here it is… 2018 already! With the New Year, the normal resolutions make their appearances to be a better you. I guess I made my resolution early with my happiness experiment back in December.  If you didn’t see that post, you can read it here, but in summary I basically made a promise to myself to try and be a better me by being more positive, looking for the positive and therefore being a happier version of myself.

I’m happy to report (see what I did there) that I have been pleasantly surprised with my results so far. Lucky for me, my family is very patient with me and willing to play along with my crazy ideas. They jumped on the idea of sharing three appreciations at dinnertime along with our usual best part of our day and worst part of our day.

I feel like I have been paying closer attention to find the positive in situations since I started my little experiment. I know I will be sharing with the family at the end of the day, so I like finding appreciations that I’ve experienced and are unique from previous ones. It isn’t always easy to find the positive and I certainly don’t expect to be happy all the time as that isn’t realistic. However, I have noticed that when I am in a bad mood, or something happens that in the past would have possibly ruined my day for hours, I am able to rebound quicker.

Another habit I have picked up during this little experiment is taking time in the beginning of the day to make a list of everything I am grateful for. Then I just do a brain dump of everything on my mind that I need to get done. I have a tendency to procrastinate and then let to-dos swirl around in my head and build up stress. When I write anything and everything down that I want to accomplish even if it is an unrealistic list, I feel like I unload some of that anxiety that would normally build up without me even realizing it. This little list also seems to help me maintain more productivity during the day and when I get to cross one off, I feel a nice sense of accomplishment.

 I also did a little experiment with my class that I will be sharing in my next post. I had them do an activity called The Twelve Days of Christmas Kindness where they worked on sharing positive compliments with each other. It was nice because other classes at our school also joined in and did the activity in their classroom as well.

As I carry on with my experiment and finish reading the book Choosing Happier that started my little experiment, I will continue to update you on my progress. I'm optimistically hopeful that the changes I've experienced thus far will continue. I hope the next time I report back, I'll have some more helpful tips to share if you're interested in trying your own happiness experiment. Until then, choose the positive!