Paige of Running Around Normal did a great, positive post today (Friday Link Love) that started with her admitting that she was going to write a more negative post about how she’d had a blah Thursday. But then, she decided to share some inspirational links from the blog world, and keep things positive.
I feel like my morning has been going the way Paige’s Thursday went. If you follow me, you’ve probably noticed I’ve been a bit of a Debbie Downer so far today, tweeting about this stupid yucky stomach feeling I’ve had the last couple of days that will not go away and has been really screwing with my appetite. But it’s Friday, I have a lot of great plans lined up for the weekend, and I’m going to try to stay positive.
One of my favorite happy pics ever.
I’ve been getting tons of little ideas for things I can do to help me get to my goal of finding balance. I definitely am still working on it – cutting back on planning, on being so rigid on things, on following little “rules”, on being less hard on myself.
I decided to put those little ideas into a list of happiness goals. That sounds so cheesy, but I’m not going to apologize for it. I’m just excited to make this list!
Happiness Goals:
1. Take a bubble bath. Yes, a bubble bath. I have not taken one in eons. I just got a new bottle of bubble bath from my foodie pen pal and it made me realize this. I also have a huge pile of magazines that I want to read. I am going to fix up a luxurious bubble bath, pour myself a glass of red wine, and read magazines. It’s going to be fantastic.
2. Make a daily to-enjoy list. This idea comes from Heather of Where’s the Beach? – each day at the end of her post, she makes a “daily to-enjoy list” that lists all the things she enjoyed about the day. It sounds like a great idea to keep focus on the positive things in life and take focus away from the negative stuff that my brain always seems to grab onto. Really, I have so much to be thankful for, and I certainly know that. I find myself using #firstworldpains in tweets all the time – I know a lot of my “problems” are nothing compared to those that others in the world experience. A daily list like this would help to remind me of that. I’m thinking about tweeting it – Lindsay even suggested using a #toenjoylist hashtag. I’m a hashtag freak like my girl Katelyn, so I’m all over it. I hope that I remember to do this daily tweet at the end of each day!
Definition of enjoyment.
3. Practice meditation. After about a two month wait, I finally got “Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation” by Sharon Salzberg from my library. It comes with a CD that contains four guided meditations, and these are what I really would like to focus on. I’ve been reading the book itself for a little over a week now, but haven’t “had time” to get the meditations in. I want to make sure that I practice each type of meditation in the book, including all four guided CD meditations, at least once before I have to return it to the library. Maybe the potential overdue fees will be another incentive for me to make the time to get the meditations in! Each is only 20 minutes, and I am really interested in learning how to quiet my mind. I may not seem like the most loud person in the world, but my mind is sometimes on par with a heavy-metal concert in terms of volume.
OK, so those are only three goals. But I think it’s a start. Hold me accountable, OK guys?
Now I’m off to go find my lunch appetite. I seem to have misplaced it. It better hurry back because there’s sushi and sake on the menu tonight!
Do you have any “happiness goals”? Anyone care to join me on any of these?
