Well, I’m into another week of The Happiness Project, a year long project developed by best selling author Gretchen Rubin. This past week’s resolution was to Enjoy the failure.

Enjoy the Failure?! That’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one. Or is that a paradox? Hmmm, maybe I’ll just enjoy the failure of knowing my rhetorical devices.

Okay, okay, I do understand the meaning behind this week’s resolution. I really like it too. We need to see failure as a learning experience, which it is, rather than as a defeat, which it isn’t. When you fail, you need to remember to consciously choose to fall in the direction of your next goal, treating the fall as a sort of awkward but valuable step along the path. It is hard to enjoy the failure when it’s upon you but one of the keys is to remember that a seemingly hopeless situation may be exactly the disaster you fear, but it may also turn from catastrophe into triumph in ways that you are unable to predict. So, how you deal with that failure, or crisis, has a dramatic impact on how you will succeed from that point forward.

Edison failed 10,000 times before he made the electric light. He took his failures and made them work for him to ultimately reach his goal.

Failure is an attitude, not a destination. Get up and keep crawling, clawing, and sliding forward in the direction of your dreams. Go ahead and fail your way to success! Failure is wonderful!

Really.

It is.

I’m serious.

Ok, so maybe it might possibly be hard to convince myself of this on the 10,000th fail of getting Muffin to eat his veggies. Damn you Peas!

Oh oh. I’m not sure I like this month’s focus of The Happiness Project. The resolution for the first week is Aim Higher. Oh dear. This seems a bit daunting when sometimes I feel like I’m already just treading water to stay afloat. Can’t we just have another resolution like Kiss More, Hug More, Touch More? I like that one! Okay, okay, I do agree that aiming high and achieving (or at least knowing that I tried really hard) does indeed make me happier. Hmmm, so what should I aim for? Should I aim to help build my children into happy well-functioning, thoughtful, caring and productive members of society? Oh wait, no, I’ve already charged myself with that small ridiculously easy not-at-all-time-consuming task. No pressure there at all. How can I aim higher than that? Okay, forget the kids. Maybe I’ll make this week’s resolution about outside work (as opposed to family work) and aim for a consulting project…or better yet, I’ll aim higher in my blogging efforts. Yes, that’s what I’ll do…thanks for the think aloud. How about them apples?!

One of my favorite Theodore Roosevelt quotes seems apropos here:
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‘em, “Certainly, I can!” Then get busy and find out how to do it.”

Kiss more, touch more, hug more is the Happiness Challenge for this week. This is my kind of challenge! Way better than getting through that 3 foot (now 1 foot) stack of magazines beside my bed. This challenge sounds easy. Though…is it? I am now thinking of when I last kissed Dr. CutiePants and I’m ashamed to admit that it was yesterday sometime around 6:30pm. That’s a whole 21 hours ago and we’ve only been apart for the last 7 of those! Shameful. Time to go get my smooch on.

I’m a little behind in my Happiness Project for this month. The baby, Madam Poopsalot, who is only 13 weeks old got her first cold and because she is a preemie and so young, it really hit her hard. It was really very scary (breathing issues and choking on mucous) so I have fallen off the project a bit. I’m happy to report that she is doing much better now and I’m back at it. So, for the month of February, I’ve missed writting about the following 3 weekly project Challenges…

Give Proofs of Love
Fight Right
Don’t Expect Praise or Appreciation

Give Proofs of Love
To me this means staying mindful and present and giving undivided attention. This is not an easy feat with a baby and a toddler. We don’t watch TV (don’t subscribe) and I think this has really helped my husband and I in keeping focussed on each other. However, we I have a long way to go. He’s actually really good at staying focussed on me. I’m a lucky girl

I really like this challenge. It really resonates with me and I think it would go a long way in not only making me happier, but in making Dr. CutiePants happier, which in turn makes me happier (see how it always comes back to me?!). One little thing that I am trying to do now to live this challenge is to start greeting Dr. CutiePants at the door with a hug and a kiss when he comes home from work, or soccer, or wherever he’s coming home from. Okay, actually, not soccer. I’m not that much of an evolved wife – he absolutely reeks after soccer (not very delightful)! If I can’t always get to the door (or I want to keep to my 10 foot radius) then I at least holler out a “hello”. This is much better than what I used to do, which is ignore him since I’m usually busy when he walks through the door. My toddler son gave me the idea for this actually because several months ago he stopped greeting Daddy at the door and would even sometimes tell him to “go away”! Poor Daddy! I figured that I better set an example. Kill two Happiness Challenge birds with one stone: Give Proofs of Love and Act the Way I Want to Feel.

Fight Right
This is an interesting one. Dr. CutiePants and I don’t really fight that much, and when we do, we are pretty respectful. Two things that I am really trying to do is to:

1) Put myself in Dr. CutiePants position and try and see his side.
2) Pick my battles. Some (most) battles are just not worth it and I’d rather focus on the ones that are important to me.

Don’t Expect Praise or Appreciation
This one deserves it’s own post (or several). I am the Queen of Self-Accolades. Fortunately, I think my husband finds this more endearing than irritating. It irritates me though and I need to dive down and figure out why receiving praise and appreciation from others is so important to me. On the flip-side, I get really stressed out if someone doesn’t feel appreciation from me. This is critically important to me. Another thing my navel gazing has made me realize is that if I express gratitude myself, then I feel less needing of it back. I’m not sure of the mechanics of this, but it seems to work for me. One little thing that I do is to express gratitude to the universe is to write “Thank you” in the memo line of all of my cheques. Even on annoying parking tickets to the City of Del Mar! It practically killed me to write “thank you”, but I am grateful to be able to write that cheque.

I am sooooo digging The Happiness Project. Hats off to Gretchen Rubin for her fabulous idea.

So, as you all know I am committing myself to the yearlong Happiness Project and so far it’s going really well. The project’s challenges that I have completed thus far have been really eye-opening and have actually made me happier! My intention is to make this project a lifestyle, rather than just checking the box and moving on.

Last week, best selling author and creator of The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin, posted another little gem on her fabulous website/blog and I wanted to share it here because it really resonated with me and inspired me. I love how her suggestions are so simple to implement and yet they really have a high impact factor. So, what is this inspiring nugget-to-live-by? It comes from a Snoopy poster she remembers from her 6th grade class and here it is…”If you want to make a friend be a friend.” Simple, effective…brilliant!

So, my new Happiness Guru is Gretchen Rubin… or Snoopy.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out Gretchen’s fabulous website you really should. It’s something that everyone could benefit from and anyone can do. I am sure her book is also fabulous. Maybe one day soon I’ll actually have the time to pick up a book and read again. Ahhhh, that would make me happy.

February’s challenge for The Happiness Project is: “Remember Love”.

We think that we act because of the way we feel, but in actuality we very often feel because of the way we act. So, for this month (and hopefully for forever more) when I feel annoyed I will act thoughtful, when I feel impatient I will act patient, when I feel irritated I will act calm and lighthearted. And since this is also Valentine’s month and now with two kids and not much time, I have a goal to really make time for my marriage. I am a very lucky girl to have such a wonderful husband and sometimes I am in such a frenzy to get stuff done that I forget to stop and tell (or show) Dr. McCutiePants how much I love him. So to make me feel more calm, tender, and romantic…I’ll just start acting that way! The hard part is going to be to stop and remember to actually do this! Thus, February’s challenge…Remember Love! I’ll let you know how it goes.

Resolution: “Toss & Organize” – this is a big one. Having had a baby 12 weeks ago and a very active toddler, I have things piling up a bit. I’m way more under control than I was after my firstborn but still far from where I’d like to be. I find that, for me, a cluttered space makes for a very cluttered mindset (and I hate having a cluttered mindset). In the past year I have accumulated a lot of magazines from my subscriptions (had to use up expiring Delta miles) that have gone unread but I haven’t wanted to throw them out b/c I ambitiously (insanely?) think that I’m going to be able to do some reading at some point in the near future. They are mostly parenting magazines and fitness magazines. I can’t throw those out unread! I just had a baby and I have a toddler, which means I need every tip and trick possibly in those magazines to help me get back my pre-pregnancy body as well as develop my children into the best people they can be! No pressure! Anyways, to make a long story short, there is a two foot stack of magazines sitting beside my bed (I kid you not. Might be closer to 2.5 feet). It makes me feel stressed every time I look at them (which is every day) so I am going to have to really pair down and get rid of some of them and start reading too. So, by the end of this month that pile will be gone. I hope I can accomplish that mission. I am sure it will bring me happiness!

Update: (March 1) I was able to get through most of that 2.5 foot pile. Most. It now stands only about 4 inches tall, which is pretty damn good for me right now. It did indeed make me happier! I do wish I could have gotten rid of it all, but hey, February is a short month, right?!

As for the other resolutions for January, I was able to accomplish those in a single day.

Resolution: “Under-react to a Problem” – Mostly to me this just means trying to be more patient with my toddler. Oh, is that all?! It’s a tall order, let me tell you. My son is a spitfire and I love him for it but it does present many challenges. So, last night when he was going boneless on me when I’m trying to get him dressed and we are running late for dinner at a friends house, I didn’t freak out. I walked away and started to get the bags in the car. If he didn’t want to cooperate then I’d just go without him (this often works although I’m not an advocate of threats that you can’t follow through on and this is clearly one of them). Alas, I did use it out of desperation – no one is perfect, certainly not me. The point is…I didn’t loose my cool. Under-react to a Problem – check!

Resolution: “Tackle a Nagging Task” – One word for ya…LAUNDRY. Laundry of the clean variation. Oh, Laundry, how you are my nemesis! It seems I cannot get rid of you. You are a daunting mountain but I overcame you yesterday! I carved out the time to sort, fold, and put-away and while it didn’t particularly make me happy whilst I was doing it, I certainly was happy when that mountain was gone! Of course, it’s back this afternoon but those brief few hours it was gone made me sooooooooo happy!

Have you heard of this?! I was reading one of my mags and came across mention of The Happiness Project by Gretchin Rubin, best selling author. She wrote The Happiness Project, which is an account of the year that she spent test-driving studies and theories about how to be happier. You can find her blog here. What a great blog and such a great idea! I am so excited to try it and I’m going to commit to take the yearlong Happiness Challenge for 2010. I’m starting in one month late, so I’ve got to catch up! January was energy month and the resolutions were to “toss and organize”; “under-react to a problem”; “tackle a nagging task”. So I’m going to do these all today to catch up! I’m sure there will be ample opportunity to do each thing today, especially the “under-react to a problem” (no shortage of “problems” with a 12 week old and an almost 3 year old).

I’ll let you know how I fare and if each thing really does make me “happier”! So, why is this post about the Happiness Project illustrated with these super cute shoes? Do you even have to ask?! Cute shoes make me and my husband happy. What a team! These are one pair of my new shoes Hot Guy bought me for Christmas. More on those later.