The Happiness Project

I saw this idea on Jenny's blog just after Christmas or early on in the New Year and thought it was such a great idea. I've tried to find a good way of explaining this online and I just can't find anything so I'll try my best to use my own words and I'm maybe best just doing it and showing you as I go along.

Each month of the year has a 'theme' or a big main goal. You can pick different themes depending on what you want to achieve to make you happy each month. For mine, I tried to think of things that I already had planned each month and how I could use The Happiness Project to either incorporate them or help get me through things each month. Once you have your main theme or goal, you start picking little goals, tasks or pieces of advice to follow for that month. I have my themes and goals all written out, but I'm not going to put my year plan up all at once (not that I'm going to change it!). I'll talk about my big goal and little goals at the end of each month and then I'll say what my next months big goal is going to be without releasing the little goals that I've set until the end of that month.

Also, the Happiness Project have some books and journals that you can use if you visit:  http://gretchenrubin.com/bookstore/ - Becca bought me a journal a few years ago for my birthday and it's so cute and organised but I'm yet to start filling it in! I didn't start planning this until a few days into the New Year, so I will start using it next year for another Happiness Project. I might invest in one of the books as well at some point, to give me a bit of inspiration.

My January goal is unfortunately a bit boring but I thought it best come before anything else as it's probably the most important. The main goal was:

"Be healthy - look after your body"

The here's my little goals and how I got on with them:

• Be strict - I don't think I completely achieved this if I'm honest but I have been so much improved. I'm really bad at doing things and eating things that I'm not allowed. I'm always strict with onions and garlic and will never knowingly put anything with those in, in my mouth but in terms of my celiac and lactose intolerance I do sometimes have a little nibble. I've definitely had more restraint than usual this month and I've tried really hard but I've made the odd poor decision and still had nibblings of naughty food. It's really hard as well when I don't fancy anything but maybe I do fancy something I shouldn't be eating so sometimes I think "well, it's better than nothing and maybe it's giving me some calories." Since it usually just makes me ill though or ends up coming out of my drain... it isn't really calories. So although I've been better, I'm still working on 'being strict'. 
• Drink lots of fluids - I do struggle a little bit with drinking because it makes me sick if I have too many big volumes but I think I've definitely achieved this one. I'm quite a big tea drinker and so I've been trying my best to have a cup of tea on me as much as I can, and just keep sipping it all the time and taking breaks if I've gone too far. With having a broken tube I've had even less feed this month so this one has been double important!
• Packet check - Yes! I've definitely achieved this one even if I've still been a little bit naughty on occasion. I'm a bugger for not checking packets because I think if I don't check, it doesn't count as being naughty. I always check anything that might have onions or garlic in but I will turn a blind eye and not check the box if it might have wheat or dairy in. Checking packets more has lead to me being stricter though, as in my first little goal.
• Exercise - This one has been really tough on limited feed because I've had so little energy. I went in the swimming pool once with Little Meg and did do a few lengths but I was so dizzy when I got out and had to take a minute to sit on the side of the pool. Then I spent most of the time in the steam room. But... I've been going on a walk every night before bed with Hannah which has been good exercise, kept me moving and got me out the house when I hadn't really moved out of bed all day. So, with the limitations in place I still think I achieved this one as best as I could this month!
• Rest - I really struggle to discriminate between rest and being lazy. I also struggle a bit with mental rest - for example I might stay in bed, or sat at my desk all day so I'm not physically doing anything but I'll be doing loads of uni work or paper work which is quite heavy on the brain. Since I'm only in uni two half days a week, I have certainly done plenty more rest than I was doing when I was working and doing uni before I went into Salford. Also, since I'm only in uni two days a week and have no work commitments my sleep pattern has been a bit messed up so I've been working on that one. Sometimes I find that the more I sleep the more I want to sleep so I've been trying to set alarms even when I have nothing on just to wake me up early.
• Go to pilates - Pilates always made me feel better and I've been once with Hannah this month and I found it so tough. I just didn't have the energy and all my muscles are shaky because of my lack of nutrition. I'm going to say I achieved this one still because I still went to pilates and gave it my best shot. Once I've got a few more nutrients inside me I will be back on the pilates bandwagon.
• Take tablets - Improvement but still not great. I struggle with this for many reasons - I'm just not in a routine and I'm also always out or busy and don't get chance to take them (which is NOT an excuse). I've tried the little tablet organisers but they don't fit all my tablets in and so I just end up taking what's in them and then forgetting to take the rest. Can anyone recommend any where the compartments hold lots of tablets/fit big bazooka sized tablets in? But at the same time, aren't so enormous that they aren't portable? 
• Be honest - This one was partly about listening to my body - not telling myself I'm ok and not denying that I'm overdoing it because I want to do something. The other half was about being honest after I'd either overdone it or done something I know I shouldn't, rather than denying that I've ever done anything to make myself feel ill. For example I might eat something that I know I shouldn't and then later I'll be ill, but when someone asks me if I know what's caused it (or when I ask myself!) = 'No. no idea!' Also, at appointments I leave out details of not taking tablets and doing things wrong. Which is bad. So, I guess this one is about being a bit more accepting of everything and not being in denial? I've tried really hard to work on this one, and although I've done things wrong I've admitted them and not tried to hide them, and also, I've admitted them in this blog post!

That's all my goals for this month! Obviously not I'm not perfect but I'm not too disappointed because improvement is better than nothing and I'm going to try and continue to make progress in all these areas for the rest of the year (which reminds me - it's almost midday and I still haven't taken any tablets.)

My goal for February is going to be "Stay busy and be creative".

Thank you so much to all my hardy regulars and hello to loads of new readers. My last blog post had the biggest number of views out of all my posts which felt great because it was on a subject that means so much to me. I've also had an influx of follows since then which I'm putting down to the amount of awesome people who tweeted or re-tweeted it for me. Thank you! I have a couple more blog posts lined up I just need to get round to finishing them, and also an update on what's been going on with me because it has been quite a hectic month. Watch this space.

Lots of love to you all.