In the summer of 2017, while browsing shelves at The Strand, I came across this little blue and yellow book called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. And after reading that book, I was inspired to read more self-help and make some changes in my life too. After a few months of thinking about it, I started up this blog and started documenting my own version of The Happiness Project, where I worked on some areas in my life that I wanted to improve.
So…did it work?
For the last year, even as indirect results of this project, I’ve picked up a lot of information on personal development (although, in the grand scheme of things, I still have a ways to go). Knowing what I know now, what would I have done differently if I had to do this over? Was The Happiness Project as good of a book compared to other self-help? What worked, and what was hard to implement? Here are my thoughts for 2018’s Happiness Project.
Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project
I picked up this book in 2017 not having read much self-help, yet I was definitely interested in the non-fiction genre. This book is actually nearing it’s 10-year anniversary soon, and since then Gretchen Rubin has published more books, and even started a podcast called Happier.
The book, which I based my year-long project on, is one where she documents resolutions each month for the purpose of finding happiness and growth in her life. Each month featured a category with a few goals for that month that would fufill that category. In the end, December becomes the month of reflection and perfecting all of the year’s resolutions. I did the same in my project, but devised my own categories and resolutions.
This book obviously inspired me to do a lot, but if I read the book again, how would I feel about it?
As I’m reading more self-help books, I’m finding that many of them iterate very similar concepts and don’t bring too much new to the table. That being said, The Happiness Project does bring a unique concept to the table. It is written by someone who, at the time, was still figuring things out, and I find that to be a unique perspective. But in terms of being informational, that’s where this book may lack. It is one of her earlier personal development books, and it does show. Again, it’s been ten years since this book was published, and she has produced so much more content in the genre since then. I’d be interested in reading her more recent books and seeing the progression since The Happiness Project. I’ve already listened to a few episodes of her podcast and enjoyed it. I’ve also read her blog posts describing the concepts behind her new books, and I do have high expectations for those books for when I read them.
In sum, although this book wasn’t as mindblowing as I originally felt it was, it was my introduction to self-help as a whole and it was a big push for me. It may not be the book for someone that’s read so much self-help already, but it was great for someone who was new to it, and it was interesting to see someone figure it out themselves.
What Worked? What Didn’t?
My execution of this project, while it was ultimately beneficial, wasn’t perfect. Some things were on me, but I also found that the format of this project was difficult to execute depending on what my resolutions were.
Starting off with the good, I found that the initial planning phase of this project was incredibly beneficial. 11 months meant 11 different opportunities for change and growth. And for each of those months, I really had to think about what wasn’t working in my life. What could be better? What could I improve on? When we live our day-to-day, sometimes we don’t ask ourselves these questions, but in reality, setting this time to ask these questions can be the key to making our lives better.
The key phrase I adopted from this book was “Identify the problem.” What’s bothering me? What’s stopping me? Why? When I identified the problem, finding the solution was much easier. Sometimes, asking the series of “why’s” leads you to the root of the problem, when it seems impossible otherwise.
Rubin’s encouragement of blogging has been incredible as well. Being able to open up about your experiences and what you’re looking to improve upon is a big step. I think this was a big key in really being open to myself.
Some issues I had with the project were due to my own lack of organization. Looking back, I could have been keeping a daily log of my progress, similar to what I’m doing with reading now. “Did I do X, Y, and Z today? If no, why? If no, how can I fix this tomorrow?” Rubin was more organized in this regard and I think more frequent check-ins with our goals are more helpful than not. In the future, when making bigger goals, I will keep this in mind.
I think the biggest flaw of this project is, depending on what goals you’re going for, is the sustainability of these terms in the long-term. It takes longer than a month to build a habit, and each month felt like a hard transition to the next thing. For some months, such as decluttering and keeping my space clean, this was easy to do as most of the work is done during that month. But the month where I tried to get back into my fitness routine? Crashed and burned. In hindsight, I should have done something else for that month, since fitness goals take a tremendous amount of time to achieve and maintain. But I found overall that one month was too short to impact one area of my life.
My biggest question lies in December’s “boot-camp-perfect”, where the year’s new habits and resolutions are perfected. If this was the case, does that mean Rubin was not perfect in executing her new habits after the month ended? I think it would be interesting to take this project as a way to try new things (and stick to what ends up being beneficial in the end), but the expectation of sticking to all of these habits progressively building up would be very difficult. That is unless the goals you are incorporating are smaller.
For the future, unless the goals are more task-like, I would think to do something like this isn’t incredibly sustainable in the long run. This is the kind of thing that’s meant to be done one year as an eye-opening experience, not something to be done every year. I think it has overall been a great experience, but if I were to do it again, I’d make sure that the resolutions I made were more attainable over the course of just one month, and be more organized with it.
Am I Happier?
Yes, I’d say so!
The ultimate takeaway of this project was how to approach the things in my life that were making me unhappy. I also added a “growth” element into my own Happiness Project as a core theme to work on for the year. By getting started on some self-improvement topics that I hadn’t delved into before, I would be growing as a person, therefore becoming happier.
I’ve learned how to remain positive, practice gratitude and find the good, or at least the lessons learned, in the bad. I decluttered my space and made room for the things that keep me happy, as well as peace of mind. I’ve found out my long-term goals and where I should be going now to achieve them. And lastly, I’ve learned to be content with myself, despite my need to be perfect with everything, because letting that aspect go will enable me to keep growing.
This project helped me understand what exactly I needed to be happier because, before all of this, I really had no idea! I feel that my life is a little more cohesive, and although I still have a ways to go to get there, I feel as though this acted as an introduction of how to get there. Some of my months did not go as planned, so I’d like to revisit some of them and achieve what I wanted to originally. But overall, it was a good start and progress made to what is turning into a better version of myself.
Unexpected Outcomes
Doing this project has led me to a lot of unexpected positives, which I am very grateful to have. I didn’t know what starting this blog would lead to, but I’d say it led to a lot of great things.
For one, I was introduced to blogging as a community, and met a lot of amazing people as a result. There are so many stories out there from so many people, and I’m glad I could be introduced to those people’s stories as they supported me on my own.
I also rediscovered my love of reading, which always seems to dwindle while I’m in school. During my college years, I read 10-15 books on average. Which, may still be quite a bit compared to the average, but I intentionally took some book-club-type electives so I could read. But I always read so much more over summer breaks, and when school started again, the reading slumps returned. I read about a book a month after graduating college, but after starting blogging, I discovered the bookish community, and have been exposed to so many amazing books. This year, I read almost 90 books. Without blogging, I’d still be reading, but I wouldn’t have had so much exposure to books that changed me.
Lastly, I feel that doing this project and blogging has helped me open up more in life, and I’m more open to others about…well, everything. I knew that’s what Rubin intended but I didn’t understand the scope of it until now. And now I find I’m more open to doing more things, because who knows what I’ll learn as a result?
If you did this again…how would you do it?
I think the end of my project comes at interesting timing because Gretchen Rubin is offering her own guided course on sticking to The Happiness Project, stating that it is right for you if it is difficult to follow through on your own. My ultimate takeaways on goal-setting for this year is that I need to be better organized with my goals, and find ways to hold myself accountable, whether that is making others aware of my plans, tracking my progress, or reflecting often.
If you’re looking to set any type of goals in the near future, here are some things that I’ve learned to do, or wish I would have done earlier, to stay on track with this experience and keep my goals at the forefront of my everyday life:
Be specific.
What exactly is it that needs to change in your life? What is the problem you are trying to solve? Why do you want to solve that problem? What are the results of solving that problem?
I’ve been finding that understanding the true root of the problem is where change begins. So if you are looking for an understanding of what needs to be resolved in your life, asking questions until you find the root of it is a great place to start. After that, devising an action plan of smaller steps can thoroughly define the solution to that problem.
I think I did an okay job of this, but I am currently learning how to do this for larger, longer-term projects. For your own goals, being specific about your problem, as well as the solution steps, is easier to achieve and maintain than keeping that goal broad.
Baby steps.
I’ll do this in my daily planner, so I think it makes just as much sense to state it in terms of goal-setting. If your goal is going to take a lot of steps, break them down into tiny steps – even if those tiny steps are seemingly small, they still equate to progress. Not only that, but they become less daunting, and it’s less overwhelming to look at your overall plan.
This ties into being specific in that you have a more complete structure and expectations for your goals, why you want to set them, and what those results will be. If your action step is to clean your house, there are a lot of variables flying around that are overwhelming to think about. But if you break that down into action steps of decluttering specific areas, building and executing a regular cleaning schedule, and re-organizing common trouble spots, it becomes much easier to execute.
Be realistic about timing.
As I mentioned earlier, my fitness-based month failed because I needed more than a month to get back into my routine. Some goals are too big for that short of a time, and if your goals are overall larger ones, that is something that needs to be taken into account, especially for a project like The Happiness Project.
I noticed that on Rubin’s course page that each month is already chosen for everyone to follow. I originally wanted to do my own because I wanted my resolutions to be more meaningful to me, but looking back, much of it already would have been with just very minimal tweaking.
Check-in often.
Over the course of the month, I spent one time checking in on what I was doing that month – and that was when the month was over. I believe I would have been more successful in setting goals if I was checking in more often, perhaps once in the middle of the month, to review what was working, and what wasn’t. From there, I could have made some tweaks if needed.
This is something I’d like to apply to my goal-setting in the future, and I think it’s something we could all truly benefit from because we tend to set goals for ourselves, but often don’t set aside time to look back on them or track our progress.
Ditch perfectionism.
I ended up being a perfectionist and not even knowing it, because when I didn’t have 100% days, I tended to give up for a while and come back. Humans are not perfect beings – it is okay if you don’t hit all your goals sometimes, or if your day wasn’t executed as you wanted to, even after all the planning you went through to make it right! This is something I’m working on right now and I’ve been sticking to my goals much better than I had before. I had the tendency to believe I couldn’t be a perfectionist because my room doesn’t look like a showroom 24/7, but that’s not necessarily what perfectionism is. Realizing this was a huge eye-opener for me and working on managing that has been making setting my goals easier.
Where to go from here?
In terms of personal growth, I’ll still be trying new things. Right now all I have is my 19 for 2019 in my bullet journal, and while some of those goals are more serious, I have some fun reading goals to challenge myself. I’ve decided I want to take my growth day-by-day. I’ve found many of my revelations for The Happiness Project that way, which is why my original resolutions changed over time. So when I come across those things, I will address them right there and then.
I will still have monthly goals written in my bullet journal, but I am not setting unattainable deadlines, nor am I waiting for a new day, month or week to start over. My goals will carry over month-to-month instead, and my days, weeks, months etc. will serve as check-ins for myself and my progress. I’ve found that waiting for a clean slate is not needed. I can start over, or start something new as soon as I want to. I don’t have to wait for a new day, week, month, or year, because if that new goal is important to me, I will start it as soon as I am able.
Despite this, I still enjoy planning things for the new year. Things like reading challenges, and things that I can measure over time, I enjoy the new slate for, because these are the things that I am guaranteed to do every year. But for everything else, things that I am starting anew – if I wait for a clean slate, I find that it never gets done.
As far as the blog goes, I’ve been finding it difficult to keep up with over time. I’ve been enjoying writing productivity and personal development posts, but there’s so much for me to learn, and therefore so little I can post. I’m experimenting with taking this blog in a different direction to keep my passion for it alive. I love bullet journaling as well as reading, and if I could create content around anything right now, I’d want it to be about that. I think I would still post about self-improvement occasionally, but I’ve realized throughout the year that it would be hard for me to produce a lot of quality content in this area. For me personally, it’s difficult to stick to one area of interest, so I hope that my intended changes will make this blog better!
I’d like to thank everyone here – to those that have read my posts, supported me this year, and to all the fellow bloggers I’ve met this year. The greatest outcome of this project was the support of people like you! You’ve helped my accountability and pushed me to leave my comfort zone, and I truly appreciate that. Even if this is the first time you’ve ever visited this blog, it means a lot! I didn’t expect people to be interested in this portion of the blog and that ended up not being the case. So, thank you for a great year – and wishing you all the best and more in 2019!
Sincerely,
Julie Anna
