The Happiness Project

New Year's Resolution: Four tips for writing your personal commandments.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: Four tips for writing your personal commandments.

I’m doing a happiness project, and you could have one, too. Join in! Start your own! January 1 is a great time to try something new, to turn over a new leaf. Forty-four percent of Americans make New Year’s resolutions, and I certainly always do.

In starting your happiness project, you might begin by writing your personal Commandments. I've posted about this before, but because this exercise was one of the most challenging -- and most helpful and fun – tasks that I did in preparation for my happiness project, I'm posting about it again. It's really worth doing.

Here are my Twelve Commandments:
1. Be Gretchen.
2. Let it go.
3. Act the way I want to feel.
4. Do it now.
5. Be polite and be fair.
6. Enjoy the process.
7. Spend out.
8. Identify the problem.
9. Lighten up.
10. Do what ought to be done.
11. No calculation.
12. There is only love.

So how do you come up with your own list?

First: Listen to what’s buzzing in your brain.
When I look at my Twelve Commandments, I realize that five of them are actually quotations from other people. My father repeatedly reminds me to “Enjoy the process.” A respected boss told me to “Be polite and be fair.” A good friend told me that she’d decided that “There is only love” in her heart for a difficult person. “No calculation” is a paraphrase of St. Therese (“When one loves, one does not calculate”), and “Act the way I want to feel” is a paraphrase of William James.

Second: Follow the metaphor.
When I was working on my biography of Churchill, Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill, I was repeatedly struck by the literary quality of his life – how rich it was in symbols, foreshadowing, motifs, all the elements of the novel.

I came to believe that this was true of my life, too, I just wasn’t paying attention. As Keats wrote, “A Man’s life of any worth is a continual allegory – and very few eyes can see the Mystery of his life…a life like the scriptures, figurative.”

So you might find that your commandments would be better expressed through metaphor. Consider Howell Raines’ commandments, from Fly Fishing Through the Midlife Crisis:

“Rule One: Always be careful about where you fish and what you fish for and whom you fish with.
Rule Two: Be even more careful about what you take home and what you throw back.
Rule Three: The point of all fishing is to become ready to fly fish.
Rule Four: The point of fly fishing is to become reverent in the presence of art and nature.
Rule Five: The Redneck Way and Blalock’s Way run along the same rivers, but they do not come out at the same place.”

Third: Aim high and fight the urge to be too comprehensive.
I’ve found that my commandments help me most when I review them at least daily, to keep them fresh in my mind, and to do this, it helps to keep the list short and snappy. I suspect that Twelve Commandments is too much. Maybe I only need two, “Be Gretchen” and “There is only love.”

After all, Jesus got down to two commandments. When asked, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus answered, “Thou shalt love the Lord they God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matthew 22:36-40.

Fourth: Think about what's true for YOU.
Each person’s list will differ. One person resolves to "Say yes," another person resolves to "Say no." You need to think about YOURSELF, your values, your strengths and weaknesses, your interests.

Whenever I write about commandments, people post their own lists in response, and it's always fascinating and inspiring to see what they've chosen. Here are some commandments that other people have adopted. Some might work for you, or spur your own thoughts.

Forget the past.
Do stuff.
Talk to strangers.
Stay in touch.
Make haste to be kind.
Don't wait.
Action, not reaction.
Always with love.
Baby steps.
Reverence.
Recognize my patterns.
Be present.
Don't rehearse unhappiness. [This is one that I really need to think about!]
Live your values.
The more the merrier.
Love is all around.
Notice the color purple.
Friends are more important than sex.
Choose not to take things personally.
Be loving and love will find you.
Encourage others.
Enjoy simplicity.
Rejoice in beauty.
Deeds not words.
Slow down.
Please yourself.
Nothing lasts.
Music helps.
Only a bore is bored.
Do something different.
Consider the source.
Be the fun.
Cut your losses.

If you come up with your own set, please consider posting them. It's very valuable for me and other readers -- seeing other people’s commandments helps clarify what our own commandments need to be.

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Interested in starting your own Happiness Project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. No need to write anything more than “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.

What you can learn about happiness from bullfighting.

I do a lot of reading, and one of the few downsides to that habit is that I often lose track of the source of an idea or phrase. I’ve spent hours trying to track down an anecdote or a fact that didn’t strike me as important when I read it, but that later on, I wanted to look at more closely.

Sometimes I even jot down a note without remembering to include the source. For example, I’m very intrigued with a new word: querencia. Where the heck did I come across it? I thought perhaps it was the name of a short story discussed in Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer, but I can’t find it there. Oh well. For some reason, the word caught my eye, and I spent some time tracking down its meaning.

During a bull fight, the bull will sometimes stake out a particular part of the ring where it feels safe: its querencia. Perhaps it’s a corner, in a square field, or perhaps it’s a place where the bull successfully toppled a horse. Whenever the bull has a chance, it will return to its querencia.

This is a term that has great metaphoric resonance.

Each of us should find our own querencia, our sanctuary, a place to which we can retreat from the lances that pursue us. Maybe that querencia is a place, like a bedroom or a bikepath – or a mental area of refuge – or a frame of mind.

But the useful metaphor doesn’t stop there.

Apparently, the bull is often most fierce and unpredictable when it’s fighting its way to its querencia. Sometimes, perhaps, it’s so important to us to gain our querencia that we’re hurtful when anyone blocks our way. Maybe it’s so important to believe that a marriage is strong that we ignore what a spouse is saying. Maybe it’s so important to believe that a child is well-adjusted that we don’t understand what a teacher means.

Also, although the bull feels safer in its querencia, its querencia didn’t necessarily afford it any greater protection from the matador.

So what’s the lesson? Identify your querencia, find comfort in it -- but use it as a strong base, not a hiding place.

This is very relevant to me these days, because I read Munro Leaf's wonderful book, The Story of Ferdinand, at least once each day to the Little Girl. Now, Ferdinand was a bull who had found his querencia.

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Zoikes, this Smashing Magazine post has some amazing photographs of split-second events.

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Reflection: Take Questionnaires to Help Develop Insights Into Yourself.

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

I’m a big believer in using milestone moments as cues for evaluation and reflection. Hitting a milestone like a major birthday, marriage, the death of a parent, the birth of a child, the loss of a job, an important reunion, or the accomplishment of a career marker like getting tenure or making partner, often acts as a catalyst for positive change.

The new year is, of course, a milestone that we all share. The tradition of making New Year’s resolutions reflects the fact that a lot of us want the change in the calendar to prompt a change in our lives.

If you’d like to do some self-reflection, but you’re not sure exactly how to get started, check out the questionnaires on the University of Pennsylvania’s Authentic Happiness site. It has nineteen scientifically tested questionnaires that cover your overall happiness, your character strengths, your optimism, your perseverance, your compassion, and many other aspects of your life and character.

Even if you don’t agree with the scores you get, merely taking the test and seeing the results helps to act as a catalyst for self-reflection. Plus it’s fun – I love taking these kinds of tests.

Have you found other methods to spur self-reflection and to build self-knowledge?

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Interested in starting your own Happiness Project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. No need to write anything more than “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.

How to stick to your New Year’s resolutions – 12 tips.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: How to stick to your New Year’s resolutions -- 12 tips.

It’s almost New Year’s Eve, and that means it’s the season for resolutions. I’ve always been part of the 44% of Americans who make (and also break) New Year’s resolutions; I’m a big believer in the power of small changes to make us happier.

Along the way, and especially since I started my resolutions-based happiness project, I’ve hit on some strategies for helping myself stick to resolutions.

1. Be specific. Don’t resolve to “Make more friends” or “Strengthen friendships”; that’s too vague. To make more friends as part of my happiness project, I have several very concrete resolutions like: “Start a group,” “Remember birthdays,” “Say hello,” “Make plans,” “Show up,” and “No gossip.”

2. Write it down.

3. Review your resolution constantly. If your resolution is buzzing through your head, it’s easier to stick to it. I review my Resolutions Chart every night.

4. Hold yourself accountable. Tell other people about your resolution, join or form a like-minded group, score yourself on a chart (my method) -- whatever works for you to make yourself feel accountable for success and failure.

5. Think big. Maybe you need a big change, a big adventure – a trip to a foreign place, a break-up, a move, a new job. Let yourself imagine anything, and plan from there.

6. Think small. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that only radical change can make a difference. Just keeping your fridge cleared out could give you a real boost. Look close to home for ways to improve and grow.

7. Ask for help. Why is this so hard? But every time I ask for help, I’m amazed at how much easier my task becomes.

If you have an especially tough time keeping resolutions, if you have a pattern of making and breaking them, try these strategies:

8. Consider making only pleasant resolutions. We can make our lives happier in many ways. If you’ve been trying the boot-camp approach with no success, try resolving to “Go to more movies,” “Entertain more often,” or whatever resolutions you’d find fun to keep. Often, having more fun in our lives makes it easier to do tough things. Seeing more movies might make it easier to keep going to the gym.

9. Consider giving up a resolution. If you keep making and breaking a resolution, consider whether you should relinquish it entirely. Put your energy toward changes that are both realistic and helpful. Don't let an unfulfilled resolution to lose twenty pounds or to overhaul your overgrown yard block you from making other, smaller resolutions that might give you a big happiness boost.

10. Keep your resolution every day. Weirdly, it’s often easier to do something every day (exercise, post to a blog, deal with the mail, do laundry) than every few days.

11. Set a deadline.

12. Don’t give up if something interferes with your deadline.

13. “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” Thank you, Voltaire. Instead of starting your new exercise routine by training for the marathon, aim for a 20-minute walk each day. Instead of cleaning out the attic, tackle one bureau drawer. If you break your resolution today, try again tomorrow.

What else? What are some strategies you've discovered, to help you stick to your New Year's resolutions?

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Just as my friend Marci Alboher has been writing about Laid Off From My Non-Job, Lisa Cullen of the TIME blog Work in Progress has been writing about How I Decided to Vamoose. I'm fascinated and heartened by reading these honest accounts of very difficult situations.

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Interested in starting your own Happiness Project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. No need to write anything more than “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.

Back in Kansas City, I get some happiness-boosting SLEEP.

The more I've reflected on happiness, the more convinced I've become of the importance of SLEEP to staying happy.

We left new York City for Kansas City on Saturday, for our annual eight-day holiday stay -- and upon arrival immediately started on our traditional KC activities, like going to Winstead's, going to the Plaza, etc. But although we feel like we have a lot to do here, we really don't.

Last night, after a tiring day of buying some gifts at a bookstore and watching the girls decorate gingerbread cookies, I went to bed at 9:00 pm. I slept until 7:00 this morning. Ten solid hours. I felt ridiculous going to bed so early, and figured I'd be awake by 5:00, but I guess I was more tired than I realized.

I wouldn't be able to get to bed at 9:00 every night, of course, but as a consequence of my happiness project, I have definitely gotten better at going to bed as soon as I feel sleepy. It really pays off. I feel a lot more energetic today than I have in a while.

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Interested in starting your own Happiness Project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. No need to write anything more than “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line. I won't send it until after the holidays, though, so don't be surprised if it doesn't show up right away.

Happiness quotation from Christopher Alexander (again).

If I consider my life honestly, I see that it is governed by a certain very small number of patterns of events which I take part in over and over again.

Being in bed, having a shower, having breakfast in the kitchen, sititng in my study writing, walking in the garden, cooking and eating our common lunch at my office with my friends, going to the movies, taking my family to eat at a restaurant, going to bed agin. There are a few more.

There are surprisingly few of these patterns of events in any one person’s way of life, perhaps no more than a dozen. Look at your own life and you will find the same. It is shocking at first, to see that there are so few patterns of events open to me.

Not that I want more of them. But when I see how very few of them there are, I begin to understand what huge effect these few patterns have on my life, on my capacity to live. If these few patterns are good for me, I can live well. If they are bad for me, I can’t. -- Christopher Alexander

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I'm on a Christopher Alexander kick right now. Just finished The Timeless Way of Building, now on to The Oregon Experiment.

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Through Dooce, I discovered Momversation. So many great bloggers to watch! I must be strong, or I'll spend two hours sitting in front of the computer screen.

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New to the Happiness Project? Consider subscribing to my RSS feed: Subscribe to this blog's feed. Or sign up to get email updates in the box at the top righthand corner of my blog.

Make your bed.

I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in -- no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.

A few days ago, I was writing my list of tips for how to keep your surroundings uncluttered, and I included the extremely important tip, “Make your bed.” But I realized that making your bed is an act important enough to deserve being its own resolution.

Now, it’s true that some people thrive on a little chaos. They find a disorderly room to be comfy and casual. When one of my friends was growing up, her mother made such a big deal of keeping the house clean that now my friend has gone far in the opposite direction. Very far. Most people, however, even if they may find it tough to keep things tidy, prefer to live in orderly surroundings.

I love a calm environment, and making the bed is one of the quickest, easiest steps to keeping our bedroom orderly. Also, I get a real feeling of accomplishment from having completed this small task. It’s nice to start the day feeling that I’ve crossed something – however minor – off my list. It starts me off feeling productive, disciplined, and efficient.

Especially if you’re feeling overwhelmed, picking one little task to improve your situation, and doing it regularly, can help you regain a sense of control. Making your bed is a good place to start. It might help you build momentum to keeping other, more significant resolutions.

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Interested in starting your own Happiness Project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. No need to write anything more than “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.

And now for a moment of blatant self-promotion...

'Tis the season to buy presents, so I’m going to make a plug for my biography, Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill.

I wrote that biography thinking, “Churchill is the most interesting person ever, but if you don’t know anything about him, and want to dip your toe in, learning about him requires a huge commitment. Every WSC biography is at least 800 pages long, if not multi-volume, and almost all his own work is multi-volume. I want to write a manageable book so that people can learn enough about Churchill to want to tackle those other volumes.” I wanted everyone to be as interested in Churchill as I was.

When my book came out, however, I learned that the people most likely to want to read about Churchill are the people who already know a lot about him. If you know someone who is a big Churchill fan, I offer Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill for your gift-giving consideration. I’m biased, of course, but I do love that book – of course, it’s simply not possible to write a boring book about Churchill. He is supremely fascinating. And this is my one book that became a bestseller.

Ok, enough self-promotion!

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A reader who started her own happiness project realized the importance of being grateful. To help other people appreciate the power of gratitude, she worked every morning from 5:00-7:00 for months to create an iPhone application that allows you to keep a gratitude journal in your phone. So cool. Check it out: happytapper.

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Interested in starting your own Happiness Project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. No need to write anything more than “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.

If you're still annoyed by the multiple emails from Feedblitz...

...hang in there. Typepad is working on the problem. Turns out the problem isn't with Feedblitz but someplace else in the chain.

I hope to get this will be fixed soon. I know it's a pain to get those unnecessary emails. Please bear with me!

Clutter: One big tip – don’t “treat” yourself – plus eleven quick tips for keeping your home uncluttered.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: One big tip – don’t “treat” yourself – plus eleven quick tips for keeping your home uncluttered.

When you’re feeling blue or overwhelmed, it’s tempting to try to pick yourself up by indulging in a “treat.” Unfortunately, a guilty pleasure is often just that – an ice-cream sundae, a cigarette, an extra glass of wine, an expensive splurge, and other treats give a short-term boost, but then just deepen your blues as guilt and remorse set in.

I realized that one of my personal “treats” is the decision not to pick up after myself. Instead of trying to tidy as I go, as I usually do, I let small tasks mount up. “I can’t possibly be expected to do something like that,” I tell myself. “I’m too busy/too frazzled/too upset/too rushed. I deserve a break.”

The problem is that, in the end, the mess makes me feel worse. Maybe I enjoy a tiny buzz from flinging my coat onto the hall floor, but the disorder just makes my bad mood deepen. (Plus it’s not nice for anyone else, either.) On the other hand, serene, orderly surroundings make me feel better. Outer order brings inner calm.

Now, instead of “treating” myself to a mess, I make a special effort to keep things tidy when I’m feeling low.

Here are my tips for quick, easy steps to keep your surroundings uncluttered. Practically all of them are simple enough to be followed even when you’re feeling extremely overwhelmed:

1. Make your bed.

2. Put your dirty clothes in the hamper.

3. Hang up your towel.

4. Keep magazines out of sight (people disagree with me on this one, but I find it impossible to keep stacks of magazines from looking messy).

5. Shut all drawers, cabinet doors, and closet doors as you go.

6. Pick up the mail, immediately sort it, throw away junk mail, and put real mail in the proper place (I have drawer for bills and a file for invitations).

7. Put dirty disher in the dishwasher, or failing that, the sink.

8. Deal with the recycling. It differs a lot from place to place, but you know what you’re supposed to do.

9. Put books away in the proper place: back on the shelf, in the library-return pile, or in the donation pile. Speaking of that…

10. Keep a bag of things you want to give away. As soon as you decide you don’t want or need something anymore, put it in the bag. Every so often, drop off the bags at a thrift store.

11. Hang up your coat. My epiphany: I never hung up my coat – why? – because I didn’t like dealing with hangers. Eureka! I decided to start using a hook. Problem solved.

“Treating” myself to overlooking these steps feels illicit and fun for a moment (yes, I realize how boring my life must be if throwing my coat on the floor feels illicit), but in the end, I just end up feeling worse. If I follow these de-cluttering steps, even if I don’t do anything else to keep my apartment in order, the chaos stays at an acceptable level.

What have I missed? Are there other quick steps to take to keep your home uncluttered?

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I get a bick kick out of Dumb Little Man, and never fail to find very useful and interesting material there – very engagingly presented.

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New to the Happiness Project? Consider subscribing to my RSS feed: Subscribe to this blog's feed. Or sign up to get email updates in the box at the top righthand corner of my blog.