The Happiness Project: What Was Your New Year's Resolution? Are You Keeping It?

The Happiness Project

My book, THE HAPPINESS PROJECT, is a memoir of the year I spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, the current scientific studies, and the lessons from popular culture about how to be happy--from Aristotle to Martin Seligman to Thoreau to Oprah. THE HAPPINESS PROJECT hit the shelves in December 2009 (Harper) and, happily, was a #1 New York Times bestseller. As one of the hundreds of happiness experiments I conducted during the research and writing of the book, I started this blog. Here, I recount my daily adventures in pursuit of happiness. –

Gretchen Rubin

What Started Me Thinking

"Whoever is happy will make others happy, too." Mark Twain.
“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.” Robert Louis Stevenson
"Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." Luke 10:41-42
“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.” Simone Weil
“What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.” Colette
“It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.” G. K. Chesterton
“A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart.” Joseph Addison
“Best is good. Better is best.” Lisa Grunwald
“Order is Heaven’s first law.” Alexander Pope

Happiness Theories I Reject

Flaubert: "To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness; though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless."
Vauvenargues: “There are men who are happy without knowing it.”
Eric Hoffer: “The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.”
Sartre: "Hell is other people."
Willa Cather: “One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them…”
Alexander Smith: “We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once.”
John Stuart Mill: “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.”

It's February 1, so the first month of the new year is over. What was your New Year’s resolution? I’m curious about what resolutions people are making. One reader wrote me that her resolution was to “Write shorter emails.” I love that! I’m adopting that for myself.

What resolution did you make? Have you made it in other years? I find that many of my resolutions crop up year after year.

Having made a resolution -- are you still keeping it? Why or why not? Did you find any strategy that helped you stick to a resolution? For me, the Resolutions Chart has been the key to sticking to my resolutions.

* 2010 Happiness Challenge: For those of you following the 2010 Happiness Project Challenge, to make 2010 a happier year, this month’s focus is Love. Last week’s resolution, in the month of Energy, was to Tackle a nagging task. Did you try to follow that resolution? Did it help to boost your happiness?

This week’s resolution is to Give proofs of love.

If you want to read more about this resolution, check out…
A secret to happiness and love: PAY ATTENTION.
Like me, do you crave praise and recognition for the slightest good deed?
And one of my personal all-time favorite posts –
The movie “Twilight” inspires me to do a better job with some of my resolutions.

If you're new, here’s information on the 2010 Happiness Challenge (or watch the intro video). It’s never too late to start! You’re not behind, jump in right now, sign up here. For more ideas, check out the Happiness Project site on Woman’s Day.

* I love reading about books, so I was very happy to discover Book Snob.

* 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 gretchenrubin1 [at] gmail [.com] -- and don't forget the "1". (Sorry about writing it in that roundabout way; I’m trying to thwart spammers.) Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.