Happiness. It's a decision.

Picture taken from Chookooloonks

I recently stumbled onto this blog and have been captivated. I particularly liked this post on deciding to be happy. I think that what she has to say is really relevant and applies to what we have been talking about here on this blog. You can choose to be happy. Just like you can choose to love yourself. Granted there will always be things to cause pain and hurt. There will always be days where life gets you down, but how you choose to deal with it really is up to you.

I believe that it comes down to positive self talk. I'll admit that saying positive things in the mirror wasn't really my thing, but I think it works for some people (check out the movie at the end of this post). What I have learned is that if I talk nice to myself in my head it makes a huge difference. When I look in the mirror and starting thinking, "wow I'm fat," I have been consciously trying to instead say, "I'm getting there," or "I've got a ways to go, but I'm trying," or if nothing else "My husband loves me just as I am." It's amazing how just this small change makes a difference.

Being happy is an important goal that I have. That's why I think I'm going to take on a mini happiness project of my own. I'm going to start with a few suggestions that I found on the Chookoolonks blog.

1. Separate myself from the media. But instead of separating myself from the news (which I already do to some extent) I'm going to be separating myself from all those ads and things that tell me how I should look. I don't have to buy into it anymore. I may be just one person, but I'm boycotting it anyway.

2. Journaling. I need to journal more. I love doing it. It is just time consuming. I often use my blogs as a journal, but I want to do more than that. I'm going to try to fit that in somewhere.

3. Read more. I love, love, love, love, love to read! It's hard to read when you're a working mom, but I need to do it. Even if it is just reading to my son.

4. Start a Life List. I'm super excited about this one. I've done several before, but never really done a good one. You can read more about creating your own life list here.

We can all use more happiness in our lives. Even if you are already a happy person, I feel like there is always room for more. Going through life in a mist of self imposed misery is just not worth it.