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| Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
“Every piece of the universe, even the tiniest snow crystal, matters somehow. I have a place in the pattern, and so do you.”
—T.A. Barron |
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| Photo by Carolyn V on Unsplash |
Does anyone make a New Year’s resolution anymore? There’s a
lot of talk about how resolutions are rarely kept, and how most people give up
on their goals just a few weeks or months into the year. For a person who wants
to set and achieve goals, it can be a frustrating dilemma. If resolutions
aren’t an effective way to a better and happier life, what is?
Here are seven alternatives to New Year’s resolutions that
just might help you make 2018 your happiest year ever:
Choose a Word of the Year
I’ve done this for eight years, and written about it several times on Catching Happiness. I choose my word to focus on an overall theme or feeling I want to carry through the entire year. I choose it to offset tendencies I want to correct, or to remind myself to choose happiness (“delight”). My word for 2017 was “deeper,” and going deeper into life last year added brilliant new dimensions to my experience. My word for 2018? Flow. For a free Word of the Year tool, click here. To explore the concept further, visit oneword365.com.Adopt a “Do More ______, Do Less_____” philosophy
For example, “Read more, watch TV less” or “Walk more, eat less junk food.”
Deceptively simple, but baby steps work.
Commit to a 30- or 90-day challenge
Choose a habit
you want to adopt or a small goal you want to achieve, and work on it for 30
days straight. For larger goals, make a 90-day plan, treating each week as the
equivalent of month (see The 12 Week Year for more inspiration and ideas
about how to do that.)
Make a list of simple pleasures and everyday adventures you want to experience
How often do we pack our goal lists with things we
want to change or have to work for? This is simply a list of things you look forward to in 2018.
Family vacations, books you want to read or movies you want to see in 2018, or
a loved one’s wedding/baby/grandchild belong on this list. Try breaking it down
like Laura Vanderkam does with her seasonal “fun lists”.
Write a letter to your future self
Include such
things as what you hope to accomplish, how you want to feel, what you’d like to
leave behind in the coming year. Open it on Jan. 1, 2019 to see how you did.
Start a gratitude journal, jotting down at least one thing you’re grateful for every day
(Read The Gratitude Diaries for
an inspiring look at how gratitude can make your life happier.)
Join the 7 Things x 2018 Challenge
Fill in the following blanks, and you’ve got some
goals for the year:
Learn how to ____________
Start ____________
Stop ____________
Take a vacation to ____________
Find ____________
Try ____________
Be more ____________
Growth contributes to happiness, so setting and reaching
goals is one way to feel happier. I hope 2018 holds plenty of growth and
happiness for you!
What do you have planned for 2018?
Note: Starting today, I’m changing the usual Catching Happiness posting schedule from Wednesdays and Fridays to Mondays and Fridays. Happy New Year!
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| Will there be carrots under the tree for me? |
Wishing you happiness, love, and peace today and every day.
I'm taking a break from posting this week. I hope you and your family enjoy the last week of 2017.
See you in the New Year!
I'm taking a break from posting this week. I hope you and your family enjoy the last week of 2017.
See you in the New Year!
“This is a book about designing your life to make it
happier.”
With a description like that, how could I resist picking up
this book?
There’s plenty of food for thought in Dan Buettner’s new
book, The Blue Zones of Happiness: Lessons From the World’s Happiest People
(2017, National Geographic). Buettner, the author of several best-sellers about
the “Blue Zones”—five places in the world where people live the longest,
healthiest lives—focuses this book on what makes people live happier,
not just longer. He introduces readers to some of the happiest people in the
happiest cities in the world, shares the research-based “Three P’s of
Happiness” (pleasure, purpose, and pride), and plenty of strategies and
suggestions for creating healthier and happier habits for a greater sense of
lasting well-being.
I especially liked the recognition that there are multiple factors that boost happiness. I think everyone is different in what makes them
truly happy, and it’s reassuring to think that if one area of your life isn’t
bringing satisfaction, other areas can help to make up for it.
Other takeaways:
1. We should set up our lives to make it easier to feel
happy—no willpower involved. We have finite amounts of willpower, and even
something as seemingly no-brainer as doing something to make yourself happy
shouldn’t rely on willpower:
“What does lead to greater happiness is making changes to your surroundings—to your home, workplace, community, and ultimately your nation. The more you design your home to favor good habits, the better your family will feel simply by living in it. The more friends you make at work the more you’ll look forward to getting the job done. The more your community nudges you out from behind the steering wheel and onto your feet, the better you’ll feel. The more trust you put in your government, the more secure you’ll feel. The challenge is to reshape your life so that you’re constantly being nudged into well-being.”
2. How many moments of happiness we should have to offset
negative experiences and feelings:
“Moments of joy, serenity, or inspiration can be easily quashed by worries, doubts, and demands. As a result of their urgency, negative emotions such as fear or anxiety packed a bigger punch than positive ones such as amusement or awe. So people who want to experience an upward spiral of positive experiences could start by organizing their days to include at least three ‘heartfelt’ positive feelings for every ‘heart-wrenching’ negative one. That appears to be the difference between people who are flourishing and those who aren’t, [Barbara] Fredrickson said.”
3. Seeking happiness doesn’t just benefit us—it helps
others, too. People who experience more happiness are more resilient when
setbacks occur. And happiness ripples through social circles, so that if you
become happier, you will likely help those who know and love you become happier
also.
4. Happiness boosters, if done too often, can become routine
and fail to provide the positive feelings we seek. Learn which happiness
boosters to try and how often, and keep varying them.
There are plenty of suggestions throughout the book of
practical (though not always easy) steps to take in order to boost happiness.
Towards the end, you’ll find the “Happiness Power Nine,” which includes such
things as sleeping 7.5 hours+ a night, engaging with the world by getting out
of your house and participating in a club or team, volunteering, living in a community
that supports well-being, and looking forward by setting goals and monitoring
your progress.
If you’re interested in creating a happier life—one of true
well-being, not just superficial pleasure—The Blue Zones of Happiness is
a worthwhile read.
Please share your happiness habits in the comments below!
For more information:
Take the Happiness Test to see how you rate on the Three P’s
of Happiness
The Blues Zones of Happiness website
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| Photo by Ciprian Boiciuc on Unsplash |
Introduction by Ted Kooser: Sit for an hour in any
national airport and you’ll see how each of us differs from others in a million
ways, and of course that includes not only our physical appearances but our
perceptions and opinions. Here’s a poem by Ada Limón, who lives in Kentucky,
about difference and the difficulty of resolution.
What It Looks Like To Us and the Words We Use
All these great barns out here in the outskirts,
black creosote boards knee-deep in the bluegrass.
They look so beautifully abandoned, even in use.
You say they look like arks after the sea’s
dried up, I say they look like pirate ships,
and I think of that walk in the valley where
J said, You don’t believe in God? And I said,
No. I believe in this connection we all have
to nature, to each other, to the universe.
And she said, Yeah, God. And how we stood there,
low beasts among the white oaks, Spanish moss,
and spider webs, obsidian shards stuck in our pockets,
woodpecker flurry, and I refused to call it so.
So instead, we looked up at the unruly sky,
its clouds in simple animal shapes we could name
though we knew they were really just clouds—
disorderly, and marvelous, and ours.
