Goodness I love projects. I love when a new idea comes, I love thinking about how to execute it, and I love starting them. I don't always finish them however. I realized this about myself and I also learned a few other things as well. I just got done reading Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin and I learned a lot. I highly suggest you read it for two reasons. 1- It's good. 2- I am going to mention some of her "lingo" here and probably won't spell it all out. So it will be helpful if you want to follow along.
So I learned that I am an Upholder, and that I follow rules are are expected of me (such as the speed limit) as well as rules that I place on myself (such as exercising 5x a week). It is this realization that helped me start getting up earlier. I have always wanted to, but have always told myself that I was not a morning person so I just couldn't get out of bed. After reading this book however, I decided that I could get up earlier if that is what I really wanted to do, so I did. After all, I set the expectation on myself, and now I carry it out.
Another thing I learned is what I mentioned before. I am not a Finisher. I always suspected this to be the case, but it helped to name it, you know? That means that I don't always finish every book I start (such as the five on my nightstand that I mentioned a few posts back). I have started writing a book and didn't get past the introduction. I began my cake business but then I abandoned it. I have had very good reasons for all of the above, but I also think it is just in my nature that I don't always finish what I start. I am not sure if I like this quality about myself, but I have also learned that in order to succeed, I need to work within my nature, not against it.
Okay back to the project. Gretchen Rubin also wrote a book called The Happiness Project, and to me this was GOLD. I loved everything about it. I loved the idea of focusing on areas in my life that I wanted to improve, and breaking them down into smaller resolutions that, when followed, could contribute to a greater sense of happiness because I am growing in areas that I want to grow. She did hers over a course of a year - she chose eleven areas she wanted to focus on and focused on a new one each month. January was Vitality for example, and then when she started on her February focus (marriage), she also continued along with January's as well and so on. December was the month she tried to do all the areas at once, a "Perfect Bootcamp". Now this was years ago, and many have hopped on the Happiness Project bandwagon and I am very late to the party. As a matter of fact, the Happiness Toolbox that she had developed to aid others on their own projects shut down about three years ago. As I said, I am late. I did see that a lot of people wanted to try theirs for a month or whatever, and I wonder if anyone tried to do a whole year like she did.
Well I decided that I was going to try my own project, and I was going to attempt to do the full year. When I wrote out my areas however, I only came up with nine, and I think I will start there. I am worried about my inability to be a Finisher, but I am still going to try. If nothing else, it allowed me to look at the areas that I wanted to improve in my life and develop some helpful resolutions to aid me in this quest.
I am a perfectionist and I really loved the idea of starting in January and going from there, but I am also really excited about it, and the idea of waiting two months just to start wasn't going to work for me. After all, part of her inclination to even start the project was because she wanted to prepare for - adversity - to develop the self-discipline and the mental habits to deal with a bad thing when it happened. "The time to start exercising, stop nagging, and organize our digital photos was when everything was going smoothly. I didn't want to wait for a crisis to remake my life." I totally agree. So I am going to start this in November, and go from there. She did a LOT of research before she started, but I am not sure that I want to spend as much time preparing. Especially because she did a lot of the legwork for me, and I am planning on modeling mine after hers in quite a few areas.
I feel a lot of guilt about not finishing things that I start, but I have found that most of the time I experience the guilt when I have told other people about my idea and then do not complete it. For this reason, I may not share this project with others right away, except for my husband. Or perhaps I will share it, but with the full disclaimer that I have no idea where this will go, but that I want to try.
I am going to spend the rest of the week preparing for the project, and coming up with my resolutions and then I will go ahead and begin in November!
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