Reflections

As 12 months of Happiness Projects have come to a close, I can reflect back and see that I've made some "subtle but significant changes"in my life this last year. (Those that are LDS might recognize this as a quote from Elder Bednar's talk from Saturday morning General Conference.) It really is remarkable to set small goals to focus on throughout the year and then to look back and see how those small goals have led to something much bigger.

The goal that was the most important for me to change: making a conscientious effort not to yell at my kids--at all. Prior to that goal, I'd noticed that I was increasingly frustrated with their messes, their whining, their fighting and more and more often I was responding with losing my temper. I needed this goal to take a step back. To laugh more. And most especially to love more.

The goals that I loved the most: Without question my two favorite goals were the goals where I practiced the piano for an hour each day and when I read The Book of Mormon in a month. With the first goal, it reconfirmed to me just how passionate I am about music. I am ever grateful to a mother who pushed me to practice and develop this talent.

As I am now a couple months out from the goal of reading The Book of Mormon in 31 days, I can see now just how powerful and impactful this book is on my life and how there was an increase of the Holy Ghost that month as I devoted my extra time to reading in this book. It really was a different experience reading The Book of Mormon more quickly than I ever have before. It flowed differently rather than being a little disjointed with only doing a couple chapters per day. It gave me a different perspective and helped me link all the people and places together better. I'm excited to do this goal at least once per year.

The goal that provided the most peace: focusing on our food storage

The hardest goal: Sadly, not nagging my husband or saying anything negative for a whole month. I realized my positive to negative ratio was off and that I needed to put more effort into doing more of the little things--leaving notes in his car, sending him a random email mid-day to say "I love you," etc.

I made great strides and improvements throughout the year, but unfortunately old habits die hard. My goals of being more charitable, not judging, and being friendlier are probably areas I'll always have to work on improving.

Each month I also had the on-going goals to index 200 names, read a church book every other month, exercise regularly, and work on turning my blog into books by year.

-I am proud to say that I have now indexed over 2200 names since I started my Happiness Project!! (I missed a month of indexing when we moved. Too busy.)

-I ended up averaging reading a church book every 3 months...could have done better.

-I faithfully exercised most every day. I ran a half marathon 4 months out from having a baby, and I'm running another half marathon in a few weeks. This is a whole other blog post, but I've signed up for another marathon! After running the first one, I swore I'd never do that to myself again. Long story short: peer pressure from a friend. I'm just hoping to figure out some of the aches and pains that have been creeping up during and after my runs.

-Over the last year, I finished 3 blog books and am halfway through the 4th book. It's so fun to have a hard copy of "my journal" with lots of photos included!

Overall, my Happiness Project was a success. As the saying goes, "when Mom is happy, everyone is happy." While I worked on areas that I didn't like about myself or that I knew needed a little attention, I was able to more completely love me and feel happier. Most importantly, it was worthwhile to strive to reach the potential that my Father in Heaven sees in me. There's still lots to do in the refining process, but it was a neat experience to track some goals and, at the end of a year, look back and see the improvements.