Happiness Project 2018 – Mid Year Progress

by Cath

I thought it could be interesting to share how my happiness project is going, it has been interesting to learn some things about me but it’s definitely too easy to go back to old habits. If you want to know more about the happiness project and why I decided to join, take a look at this post. I’ll try to not be too specific otherwise it will get too boring but probably the end of the year happiness project post will be super exhaustive so get prepared!

Your work is not your life

This past month I’ve been working a lot, way more than I’d like to, so the commandment “Your work is not your life” definitely went out the window. It has been consuming me so much, not only hours but stress as well. When my stress manifests itself as lack of hunger (if there’s one thing that I don’t have is lack of appetite) or poorly slept nights, it’s definitely serious.

Not only that but it also affects other areas of my life, it takes all the motivation to actually accomplish something at personal level: one of the things that has been neglected? my blog, apologies for that! Who wants to be productive after working until 11pm? No one (or is it only me? 🙂 ). I hope these troubling times pass or I can control better the effect they have on me so I can focus on myself too.

Self Love

Ignoring the above, I feel that mostly I’ve been giving time to do the things I need to keep me sane. I’ve been going to the gym, write in my journal, take walks by myself, doing something creative. These are all vital for me at this moment and I need to have time for them, even if it means saying no to others.

Going to the gym has been particularly important, it’s a good way to relieve some stress and it’s giving me more energy which is odd but true.

Don’t buy books until I’ve read all that are in my shelves

Buying books was not something I thought it would be so hard but honestly it comes out a lot. I see book recommendations and I immediately want to buy the book. It’s also hard every time I go to flea markets to resist at a super cheap book. I’ve always been a saver and it surprised me how often the buying impulse is showing up when talking about books. I’m glad I challenged myself to do this, it was definitely something that I needed.

Better done than perfect / Don’t overthink

In terms of perfectionism and self confidence, it’s hard work. I still think too much, I still leave blog posts in draft for months because I think no one cares or I don’t have enough knowledge to talk about something, I still want “gold stars” from my favorite people. There’s still a long path ahead of me but I’m trying to be better. One step at a time.

And since we’re talking about perfectionism, for a short time in May I dropped it and launched “Em Segunda Mão” (in english, “In Second Hand” – the whole website is translated to English if you want to check it out), something that was in my mind forever, but because of perfectionism I was not launching it. It’s a directory of stores in Portugal that sell used items. After “A Granel” and the impact that it had, I really wanted to launch this, especially since buying in bulk it’s less accessible to the general population than buying used, not only because of the lack of stores but also because of the cost. The logo is definitely not the biggest work of art but I had to launch anyway. Can you believe that the project was stopped for 6 months just because of the logo? I had to accept what I had and move on.

The post actually was shorter than I expected! I edited it down a lot but still.

What about you? How is it going? I’d love to know our your happiness project or your goals are going!

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