So after reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, I’ve started my own happiness project. I started at the beginning of this month, and started where Gretchen started, with Energy and Vitality. As part of the project, you create a series of resolutions to work on each month, and keep track of whether or not you have kept those resolutions on a daily basis, by making either an X for no, or a check for yes on a chart. While I am not doing well at keeping the chart, I have been working on the resolutions a little every day!
Gretchen points out in her book, that one of the biggest drains on energy is clutter, so one of her first resolutions was to Toss, Restore and Organize. I have been doing fairly well with this resolution and I’ve tossed quite a few things! Additionally, I read Gail Blanke’s book Throw Out Fifty Things: Clear the Clutter, Find your Life , which is Book 27 for 2012! The book is a great read and provides a usable framework for clearing the physical clutter from both your home and office, as well as, the mental mess! The last part of the book addresses what you do after you’ve cleared away all that clutter and CAN finally see your life!!
There were a several chapters in Part Three of the book, Attacking the Mental Mess that really struck home like: Chapter 11 Letting of Feeling Inadequate, Irrelevant and Just Plain Not good Enough, Chapter 13 Letting Go of Regrets and Mistakes of the Past, and particularly Chapter 16 Letting Go of Thinking the Worst! It’s nice to know that other people suffer from Thinking the Worst. I made myself crazy worrying about a projet this winter and early spring – irrationally fearing the worst only to have everything work out ok!! Got to let it go!
Now while I’m finished reading the book, I am not finished with the book. I’ve got 21 more days in October to work on my resolutions and part of that time will be spent using the workbook I found at Throwoutfiftythings.com, and I know I’m going to throw out way more than fifty things!!! Here’s Gail talking about throwing out fifty things!!
