My Happiness Project 2018

I hope your first day of the year was great! Mine was relaxing, however I’m already dreading the thought of coming back to work after one week vacation (I suffer a lot from Sunday blues)!

I had heard of the Gretchen Rubin’s book for years but ended up never reading it, it kept popping up in some blogs but it continued on my to-read list. However, after I listened to this episode of Officina podcast (unfortunately the podcast is in Portuguese!), I decided to join in the fun and create my own happiness project for 2018. I’m still reading the book (currently in July) but the facebook group that Claudia created (and her template) allowed me to get plenty of inspiration on what to focus on.

I’m definitely cheating because I haven’t set up a specific theme for each month but I also know that I wouldn’t enjoy this project if it was too strict.

The first step was to find out which would be my overarching principles and I came up with 7, they speak a lot about who I am and who I want to be.

Commandments

• Be Catherine
• Follow your instincts
• Better done than perfect
• Your work is not your life
• Don’t demand so much of yourself
• Don’t compare
• Don’t overthink

And what areas I thought it would be nice to focus on and their respective goals.

Home/Organize (January)

• Complete January Cure
• Organize receipts once a week (continue throughout the year)
• Don’t put off ironing more than 2 weeks (continue throughout the year)
• Sell everything that I can in OLX

Relationships

• Date with Daniel once a month
• Plan 2 trips with my friends
• Stop waiting for “gold stars” from my family and Daniel

Self-confidence

• Publish that blog post even if it’s not perfect as you wanted it to be
• Stop telling myself “I’m not good enough to do this” and replace it with a positive affirmation
• Talk, without being afraid of criticism, of my personal projects and what I think
• Follow my instincts more, even if it disappoints other people

Create

• Work in something creative at least once a week (knitting, sewing, home projects, etc.)
• Make homemade soap

Me/Energy

• Take a walk by myself or go to the library in the weekend
• Take a mini trip by myself
• Start writing in my journal more frequently (at least once a week)
• Go the gym 2x a week
• Read 20 books
• Don’t buy books until I’ve read all that are in my shelves

Get outside my comfort zone

• Go to a meetup of a theme that interests me even if I find it intimidating. Ideas: Porto International Book Club, Tricotadeiras do Porto…
• Share my “Hapiness Project” in the facebook group and in the blog

Self-knowledge (October)

• Reevaluate my values – at work and in life. Figure out if I’m living my life in accordance with these values

Personal Projects

• Write at least once a week in the blog
• Continue to find traditional stores that sell in bulk
• Whenever I get a new idea, write everything about it that comes through my mind so the idea doesn’t consume me if I don’t have time (or reason) to work on it
• Sell all my cross stitch products that I made for my Etsy shop years ago

What about you? Will you have your own happiness project? Share your 2018 goals, I’m curious to hear about them!