There’s a writer I’ve had my eye on for the past year. I’ve watched her go from blogger to #1 New York Times Bestseller—all because of a mission she set herself: to spend 12 months trying to find ways to be happy.
Gretchen Rubin called it ‘The Happiness Project’. She wasn’t particularly unhappy to start with. In fact, she had a great husband, two beautiful daughters and a satisfying career; yet she realised her outlook could do with an overhaul.
Here are some of the approaches Rubin swears by (and you needn’t book a ticket to Italy/India/Bali a la Elizabeth Gilbert!).
Rubin sees sleep as the foundation for excellent energy levels. So she made a pact to get her eight hours worth each night—a mission she accomplished by forcing herself to hit the hay eight hours from the time she needed to rise (even if that meant dozing off at 9:30pm), making sure she didn’t read emails or surf the net in the hour before bed (instead she read in bed), and also by devoting 10 mins to tidying up her house before turning in (which she said gave her a peaceful ‘everything is in order’ feeling). Hey presto: more energy to use in the pursuit of happiness.
Most happiness literature addresses life outside of work as being critical to our wellbeing, and while that’s true, we as spend so much of our time working, it’s worthwhile ensuring that this, too, is a happy activity. Almost any job can get monotonous with time. So the key is to keep yourself challenged—and to enjoy what is that you’re doing as much as possible. If you’re already in a job you love, set yourself a task and aim high! If you get stuck, ask for help.
For Rubin though, getting happy at work required an entire career shift. She’d been working in law but writing in her spare time. She wasn’t as enthusiastic about law as she was about writing—so that was her trigger that a change was needed. After making the decision to do so, she set herself tall orders (getting published within great newspapers and magazines) and said the key to her success and happiness was to find failure fun. While plenty of editors rejected her, some didn’t… and she was soon on her way to a whole new way of working.
It may sound trite, but Rubin said her mood shot upwards when she started singing in the mornings. This formed part of her ‘act like you’re happy’ approach—fake it til you make it! Even times when she didn’t feel like it (such as when she woke up a with swollen eye) she reported that picking a fun song and belting it out had a cheering effect. The same mood lift came from bringing happy memories to the foreground. Rubin made happy memories vivid by putting mementos from great trips and occasions on display—prompting her to re-trace, and hence strengthen, her recall of good times.
Read up on Gretchen’s tips for getting started: http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2008/07/six-tips-for-de.html
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin is published by Harper Collins Australia.