The current state of my happiness project
It's been more than a month since the beginning of the happiness project. There have been some progress. I think I'm happier than I was since last month. I'm also healthier and overall have more energy.
But I haven't exactly had build consistent habits. I wasn't really disciplined. I didn't achieved each goal I fixed for myself.
Since I got back in school it's been hard to keep up. Being back in school definitely took a toll on my habits. And by extension, on my well being.
But that's not how it's supposed to work. This framework was supposed to be there to help with during those hard times. To help me stay healthy and happy when it's really hard to. It was supposed to be a strong foundation of my life that I can rest upon.
But that didn't go as expected.
I think that the way I was going about this wasn't right. I just made one plan and tried my hardest to stick to it. But I wasn't supposed to try my hardest at all time. It was supposed to be habits I had to keep for the rest of my life. Habits that I will automatically do even when really tired. Habits that I will do without even thinking about it.
If I have to make a conscious effort to keep an habit, I don't think I will be able to keep it. I was able to keep it up this month. But what about next month? And the month afterward? Or the rest of the year?
No, it can't work like that.
I have to think about another way to work through this. Or else I won't achieve a lot.
What is the solution then?
I've been thinking about a solution to build habits easier to keep. Or at least a better framework for that project.
That's when I stumbled upon this post by Scott H. Young. He told something really simple in his post : Take action while learning about it.
It's something that I simply wasn't doing. For example, for this last month which was about Vitality, I didn't learn anything about it. I took action, yes, but I was only relying on what I already knew. I don't think I read any book on sleep or tidying-up.
I also didn't change my goals at all. It's clear that some of them could be changed to make them better. Some goals aren't clear at all, like exercise for example. And when I noticed that, I didn't though about how to make the goals better. But that's because I didn't bother to learn more about my goals.
But worst of all, I didn't share any insights on the state of the project. The last post I did about the happiness project was the first one. I didn't gave any second thoughts to that project. I was just mindlessly trying to do what was on my daily list. But that's because there wasn't anything new to think about. I didn't bother to adapt my goals.
That mean that the solution is simply to take action, yes, but also learn more about my goals.
What are you doing next then?
I will restart the happiness project. Let's redo the first month and make sure that I am more aware of my goal. I will learn more about the areas that I want to improve. And with what I've learned, I'll improve my goals to make them more effective.
And to make sure that I will learn the things, I will talk about it here or on my garden.
Let's see how that one goes.