How Can I Be Happy

I find myself thinking about happiness a lot, recently. It's not necessarily that I am unhappy, but I know that I have been happier than I have recently been, and that I want to get back to that point.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery said, "A goal without a plan is just a wish."

Well, I don't wish to be happy. My goal is to be happy. And therefore I need a plan.

In these upcoming new few weeks I have a number of things to worry about, with the two largest things being exams and moving out of my townhouse--and to say "worry" is an understatement. I'm more than worried, because this semester has been largely more stressful than previous semesters. I am taking six fairly difficult courses, five of which have exams, and all of which cover a wide variety of topics... everything from macroeconomics to biology, philosophy to italian, sociological theories to sociological application. It's been quite a roller coaster, but I'm not about to give up with only three weeks of the semester left.

And so, instead of panicking like I've grown accustomed to doing in the past when things get tough, I'm making a plan--a plan to help me contain my stress and get things done while still maintaining my happiness.

But how can I go about doing this? Well, I've got a pretty good idea. It's just a matter of implementing my ideas and putting them to action.

1) I can cut back on things that are not necessary.
While, yes, I love my over-achieving, highly involved self, sometimes it is important to realize that extra-curricular activities can (and should) take a back seat. Just because I've attempted to join and participate in every aspect of campus life does not mean that I have to exhaust myself with my involvement. Now, don't get me wrong. I do love the things that I participate in, but sometimes a little rest and relaxation comes first. Over the past two years I've begun to realize that I just can't do it all, no matter how much I want to. If it means that I need to miss practice once a week in order to set my homework in order and be on top of things for classes without having to stay up until 2am every weeknight, I'm going to do it. If it means that I have to say no when someone asks me to do something extra for my job, I'm going to do it. Being the person who "does it all" takes a toll, and my happiness is worth more than someone else's opinion of me. Therefore, I'll make an effort to cut back and say no if it means getting an extra hour or two of homework or sleep in.

2) I can surround myself with good people.
This is so important for happiness. I've found that when I surround myself with people who complain about literally every. little. thing. it really begins to take a toll on my own happiness. Griping is contagious. If someone you see all the time does nothing but complain, whine and... I'll say it... bitch about his or her life, you'll find more and more that you're going to complain, whine and bitch, too. Instead, I've made an effort to spend time with people who make me laugh, make me smile, and make me feel relaxed when they enter the room instead of stressed out. I don't want to feel on edge the minute someone walks into my current space--I want to feel happy. And I think I've been able to achieve that by being more in tune to who I choose to spend the most amount of time with.

3) I can stop procrastinating.
Yes, it's difficult not to, but procrastination is a losing battle. Once you start, it's hard to stop, until suddenly a paper is due the next morning and you realize you haven't even read the prompt. So, instead, I'm going to make a conscious effort (and I have been doing so in the past two weeks), to use my time wisely. Instead of spending thirty minutes on Facebook, I'll choose to spend thirty minutes reading from my sociological theories texts. Instead of watching an hour of television, I'll spend an hour going over my Italian flash cards. If I have 40 minutes to spare before a class, I'll head to the computer lab to answer e-mails and work on a reflection paper. All of these sound easy enough to do in theory, but applying them to real life is the difficult part. It means being conscientious about how I spend my time and how much of my time I spend "doing nothing."


These are just three things, out of many, that I know I can do in order to be happier and maintain my happiness in the upcoming weeks when life will certainly get more stressful as exams approach and I begin to start moving.

What are some things you can think of that make you happy and help you maintain your happiness during stressful periods of life?

Fundraising: Part 2 - How To Retain Membership In Your Organization

The first presentation that I attended for the SHH Fundraising Summit yesterday was called: "How to Retain Membership At Your School's SHH Chapter."

This can apply for any organization or association, however, and not just a chapter of SHH at a university.

Hold interest meetings year round. These don't have to be weekly, but perhaps once every other month in order to allow people to come out and learn around your organization. It's important that new members feel welcome, and interest meetings are a great way to obtain this goal. Create conditions that make it easy for people who come to interest meetings to attend your regular meetings. Send out reminder emails three days before a meeting, and also the night before or the day of so that people won't forget. It's easy to forget meeting times, locations and details, especially if you're as busy as I am, so being the head of your group means that it's your responsibility to make sure new members have reminders. You can also distribute flyers, post signs, market your events, and use social networking sites like Facebook.

Once you get some new members, make them feel welcome. Don't scare them away. Involve them in meetings through icebreakers, where both new and old members can introduce themselves and have fun getting to know each other. Also give newcomers simple tasks that make them feel needed, but be sure not to give them too large of a task, or else they will feel overwhelmed and not come back.

Make sure you have an agenda for your meetings. Have an activity planned. Make the meetings fun and enjoyable, so that people desire to return to upcoming meetings. Plan events for fundraising, socials, or whatever it may be. Get people involved & feeling needed.

Make sure you distribute evaluation or suggestion sheets on a fairly regular basis. Allow members to input their own thoughts about what they life or do not like. Members are full of good ideas for how to make your organization stronger and better, so give them the opportunity to voice those opinions in a constructive way.

Make phone calls instead of emailing every once in a while. This gives your organization a more personal tone, and shows your members that you're interested enough in keeping them involved that you go out of your way to individually talk to them. Have socials, as well, because bonding is important for groups. This gives your members the opportunity to form lasting friendships with you and with each other.

Don't let your members get:

1) Burnt-Out - don't give them too much responsibility, because this can overwhelm them and deter them from coming back.

2) Cooled-Out - don't give them too little responsibility either, because this will make them feel unneeded and again, deter them from coming back.

3) Kept-out - make sure new members don't feel alienated from the group. Involve them through icebreakers, activities, and socials. Avoid inside jokes amongst veteran members, as this makes newcomers feel unwelcomed and "outside" of the circle.

4) Pulled-out - Keep your meetings fun! Crack a joke, have a reflection, learn something new, invite a speaker to your meeting. This gives diversity and variety to your meetings and keeps member from drifting away over time, or pulling out of your organization.

Establish challenging and creative goals. Don't set your sights too low, instead set them fairly high so that way you challenge your members to go above and beyond their perceived "limits." Once you achieve your goal, or even if you come up short, show your appreciate for all of the hard work by sending your thanks to your members, or by holding a social in order to celebrate. Perhaps institute a "Hustler of the Week" award so that each week you can honor a member who went above and beyond the expectations. Keep your group focused on the serious issues, but have fun, too!

Make sure you educate new members about the issues you discuss or the topics you cover. If there is any unfamiliar terminology, define it so that new members can understand what you are talking about during meetings. Discuss the mission of your organization often, so that everyone can be familiar with it.

Increase motivation of your members by allowing them to choose the jobs they want to do. Instead of assigning jobs, give them the opportunity to pick. That way you will gain the most out of the work your members do because they are doing the jobs they enjoy. During your meetings, create an enjoyable and comfortable atmosphere, perhaps by playing relevant music, having a slideshow of photos from past events, or allowing a member to talk about their ideas for fundraising or other goals.

There are so many ways to retain your membership, and these are only some.

Do you have any ways that you retain membership for an organization that you are involved in?
Have you ever started an organization?

Leave a comment with your ideas and thoughts!

February: Organization & Time Management

Already January has come and gone. The "New Year" is already 1/12th over. Hard to believe how quickly time flies!

Anyway, as part of my Happiness Project for the year 2010, I set up a syllabus of sorts for my year in terms of goals I set for myself. January, which has come and gone, was "Maintaining Healthy Relationships." Just because January is over does not, however, mean that the goal is over. It means that I worked towards establishing and maintaining healthy relationships in January as a start, and that it will now carry on throughout my year, and years to come.

I feel that maintaining relationships in life is important. It's difficult to maintain a relationship with every person that you meet throughout your life--in fact it's impossible to do so. Think of the hundreds and thousands of people you've met throughout your life. You can't. Because there are far too many to count. However, keeping up to date with certain people is absolutely important. Family, friends, coworkers--all of these people are important people to keep healthy relationships with. If you find yourself in an environment surrounded by the same people day-to-day, it makes work, leisure and life much more enjoyable if you are able to be on good terms with those people instead of awkward, unsure, or even bad terms with them.

For February, I've set the goal of "Organization & Time Management."

I'm going to focus on keeping my environment organized. This helps to reduce stress in whatever atmosphere in which you find yourself. If your room is disorganized and a mess, it is much harder to feel comfortable and stress free (especially on a subconscious level). Therefore, keeping a clean and tidy living space is important. The same goes for work space, you car, your yard, or whatever area you spend a lot of time in. Keep it clean. Keep it tidy. It'll pay off.

I'm also going to focus on spending my time wisely. Instead of wasting time needlessly "surfing the web" or doing other needless activities, I plan to keep organization in the way I spend my time as well. This will also reduce stress, because I'll get my work done ahead of time, affording me more leisure time when I actually need or want it. This will also help me improve my quality of work for classes and other various extra-curricular activities that I participate in.

It's already 4 days into February, but these goals are certainly doable and important.

What are your goals for February?

Climb Your Mountain

If there is something I've learned from my experiences with programs like Outward Bound and the service projects and trips that I do, it's to climb your mountain.

It doesn't matter what your mountain is--just start putting one foot in front of the other and get yourself to the top. Don't stop. Once you stop, it's hard to start again. Motivation is often a fleeting concept, and if you allow yourself to stop walking forward, you might just decide it's much easier to turn around and head back to where you started--to walk away from the mountain and leave it for someone else to climb and conquer.

Maybe your mountain is a paper for a class that requires copious amounts of research and annotation. Perhaps your mountain is talking to a person with whom you've had a falling out. Maybe you haven't spoken with them in days, weeks or even months, but there is no time like the present to try and repair what is broken, especially when it comes to relationships. Maybe your mountain is a change in careers. Yes, it's tough. And yes, it's scary. It's unknown territory, and there is that thought of failure that lurks in the back of your mind, but ignore that thought. Go for the career change, and throw yourself into your new work, learning everything you can so that you guarantee yourself success.

Maybe your mountain is big, or maybe it's small. No matter the size, it's important to keep your eyes on the goal. Push yourself, because even though it may hurt, even though you might face some obstacles and challenges along the way, and even though there may be no one there to pick you back up if you stumble, once you reach your goal, the mountain seems a lot smaller and much less daunting than when you started. Looking at the world from the top is exhilarating, inspiring, breathtaking, and awesome, and you can know that YOU DID IT.

You made it to the top, and the climb back down is going to be easy going and swift, and so much sweeter. You can do it. You can climb your mountain.

My Happiness Project

There's a blog called The Happiness Project written by woman called Gretchen Rubin.

I've been following her for two months or so, now. I love her posts. She has a tip day every Wednesday, which always has awesome tips. Her book also just hit the shelves recently, and I'm going to be looking into purchasing it.

Anyway, the reason I bring up her blog, is she's been talking about New Years Resolutions a lot lately. Her concept of making resolutions is really interesting, and I've decided to try it out.

I want 2010 to be a smoother, more organized, and happier year. 2009 was good, don't get me wrong, but 2010 will be great.

My breakdown of goals is as follows:

January - Maintaining Healthy Relationships

February - Organization & Time Management

March - Mindfulness

April - Exercise & Nutrition

May - Spirituality

June - Family

July - Relaxation & Fun

August - Work

September - Energy

October - Attitude

November - Friends

December - Final Touches & Overview of Year

I've already started with January and Maintaining Healthy Relationships.

My overview of this goal is to be honest and open with people to the best of my ability. I want to confront situations and find solutions to any problems so that I can avoid problems arising in my relationships with people, whether they are family or friends. I want to be able to talk to people and be genuine with them, and listen to them when they talk to me. I want to form better relationships with people that I meet, as well.

I'll update each month with the overview of each new goal for every month.