Category: Choose Happiness

Good Habits = Success

I am sitting in my living room at 7:30 in the morning looking at my nicely decorated Christmas tree. My honey is sleeping and Fenway is waiting patiently by the front door, a sure sign she is ready to go out for a walk. I love a quiet, lazy morning with time to reflect, relax and strategize. After the walk that is!

I am not a technical person, but have been experimenting with a new app called Productive. The free version let me track 3 habits that I wanted to incorporate into my life and I had so much fun (and success) doing that, that I asked for a 1 year subscription for Christmas. So now I can track unlimited habits and am enjoying the process. This is not a review of Productive, there are a bunch of apps available to help develop good habits and increase productivity; this is just the one I stumbled upon, liked the look of and decided to check out.

Still learning to embrace technology!

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Flip The Switch

In the past, I tended to get in a groove and just flowed from one activity to the next. I would go to work and stress out about it. I would grab a beer with friends and complain about it. But I wouldn’t spend much time thinking about what I wanted or how I could make life better. There is something to be said for being in the groove but it can lead to complacency.

Even now, I get comfortable working a few shifts, doing my yard work on the side, cooking awesome meals for my honey, helping Child #1 and her honey with some small projects and writing my blog posts. I like my life and tend to get comfortable sitting on my couch. But as we know, life doesn’t get better while simply sitting on the couch.

To keep from getting too comfy on the couch, I have been spending some time thinking lately. Can you smell the smoke? See the flames? Hear the crackling?

For me, thinking is a powerful but underutilized tool!

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The Hell with Being Perfect!

You know that saying “practice makes perfect”? The idea being that if you keep working at something you will get better and as you get better you near perfection.  I don’t totally agree with this idea as there are plenty of things that I do frequently but don’t  get better at. For instance, I have been tying my shoes for over 45 years but still find that they come undone during the day. I played squash for several years; playing in a league, practicing drills and playing with others but I never felt competent. I could practice drawing a picture of my dog for the next decade but the picture would always look like it was drawn by a 3 year-old. 

If only I could draw this good!

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Could You Live in a Van?

Have you ever thought about living in a van? I don’t mean being homeless but purposefully living in a van that has been converted into living space. This is kind of like my Tiny House idea but with a twist!  With a conversion van, I could travel without ever leaving my home. No need to pack, to get someone to check in on the house, to worry about forgetting something important. Everything I own would come with me wherever I went. Just gas up the van and get on the road. A friend of mine owns one and she recently gave us a tour. It had everything one needs for living a simple life and you can take it with you wherever you go.

I would love to wake up to that view!

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Sharing a Gratitude Letter

2018 is winding down and I have a few goals I haven’t yet reached. One of my happiness goals is to complete a 7 Days/7 Gives. Every day for 7 days I plan on doing something for another person, an animal or the environment. One small  step every day for 7 days. I haven’t yet figured out what steps I will take but I figured I could get myself in the mood by sharing something I did last year in an effort to not quarantine gratitude.

Last year, I wrote a letter to my friend Sue who was my first boss when I was in high school. She and her husband Chris (who has passed away) ran the one and only local restaurant and I worked for them all through high school and college.  Both of them have had a tremendous influence on me and I wanted to express my gratitude to her for everything they did for me. If reading this inspires even one person to write a gratitude letter themselves, I will be thrilled!

So happy I wrote it

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Everyone I Know Needs Therapy – Even You!

I use this blog as my therapy. There, I said it – my secret is out. I don’t write for you or for my friends or family. I write this blog for me. I write to keep myself sane. I write to figure out how to solve big and small problems. I write to make better decisions day in and day out. If you follow this blog at all, you know that I have been slacking lately. One of my goals for 2018 was to average six posts per month. I am currently averaging less than four. Oops – time to get back on track.

It is all about me…

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Is Your Bucket Overflowing?

My local library has a huge book sale twice per year in a warehouse. Wandering the aisles is entertaining and you never know what you will find. I bought and just finished  reading “How Full is Your Bucket?” by Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton. It is a short, easy to read book that uses a metaphor of a dipper and a bucket to help us increase our happiness and improve our relationships.

According to the book; “Each of us has an invisible bucket. It is constantly emptied or filled, depending on what others say or do to us. When our bucket is full, we feel great. When it is empty, we feel awful. Each of us also has an invisible dipper. When we use that dipper to fill other people’s bucket – by saying or doing things to increase their positive emotions – we also fill our own bucket. But when we use that dipper to dip from others’ buckets – by saying or doing things that decrease their positive emotions – we diminish ourselves.”

Let’s fill each other’s bucket!

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“I Could Never Do That”

How  many times have I said these 5 little words; “I could never do that?” I have said those 5 little words more times than I care to remember. How about you? All to often, it is easier to put up fences than to risk embarrassment, easier to not even try than to risk failure.

I am good at putting up fences…

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Do You Love the Water?

I have been hanging out in Florida this week with Mother Fran and Child #7. The weather has been ok but regardless, it has been nice to get away from the cold and the snow. They live in what feels like a pretty congested area with busy roads full of traffic and every store you can think of within a 10 minute drive. Usually I would hate this type of area but they have something I crave with every ounce of my being. They live on the water. Don’t get too excited, it isn’t the ocean or even a lake; they live on a small pond. They share the pond with a bunch of other houses, each one faces the pond with their back porch.

Mom’s  back porch is screened in and the entire thing overlooks the pond. It has a table and chairs, small couch and comfy chair. You can also walk out the porch door and set up a lounge chair on the grass when the need overtakes you.  You can’t swim in this pond or even toss in your kayak (apparently that is frowned upon) but people do fish and enjoy the view.

The pond looks like this!

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7 Days/7 Gives

Do you know what it feels like to be stuck in a rut? Every day seems the same and the Joy Meter is reading empty. I hate when I get stuck like this. It is a gnawing feeling in my gut and an emptiness in my mind. I go through the motions of living but in reality I am just trying to get through each and every day. I think that in order to get out of the rut, we have to do something different. We have to step out of our comfort zones and take a small step in the direction we want to be going.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be something huge but it has to be out of character. It has to be something that makes you think, feel, believe just a little bit differently than you do when stuck in the rut.

How to break free?

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