Month 6: Friendship

I would consider myself a shy person, and I prefer to keep to myself for the most part.  I usually don't go out of my way to say "hi" to people, but I always try to be friendly if a neighbor or someone approaches me.  For month 6 of my happiness project, I decided to work on going out of my way to be more friendly to people.  Here are some specific goals I worked on:

1) Say "hello" to everyone that I pass by when I'm out running.
2) Talk to the cashier when I check out at a store.
3) When making a business phone call (to pay a bill, etc.) where a person introduces him/herself by name, remember his/her name and call him by name throughout the phone conversation.
4) Be open to talking to people at the park.  If the baby is asleep, while I play with Carter at the park, I usually have an earbud in one ear listening to a book on tape.  What can I say? I love to read!  But I realize this isn't very social.
5) At a church function, go up and talk to people instead of sitting back and waiting for people to approach me.

All these things may seem so simple to other people, but they were all out of my comfort zone.  It took a concerted effort each time.  It was a good goal for me to force myself to be more social.  I really enjoyed getting to know some people throughout the month that otherwise probably wouldn't have happened!

For the month of March, I indexed my goal of 200 names and completed my running goal of a half marathon to get back in shape after having Bryson.  I completely spaced reading a church book, so I'll have to do better about that this month.

My goal for April to improve my happiness can only be one thing: packing and getting our house ready to put on the market.  I don't have time to focus on anything else right now!  We'd like to have our house on the market by the end of the month (move-in date for our new house is June 1) so each weekend is precious time to knock out big projects, and during the week I need to be organizing and packing things we aren't using right now.  It is so overwhelming!  I HATE moving, and I'm realizing that I like it even less with children since it's more things to go through and more things to move!  I should work on not complaining and just do it. :o)

This is a small thing, but I also have set a goal not to bite my nails at all this month.  It's a habit I've had off and on again throughout my life and something I need to currently break right now.  I plan to meet my indexing goal and read a church book as well.  I hope to get ahold of a copy or purchase a copy of The Continuous Atonement by Brad Wilcox.