The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

get to meet them all in real life one day.
    I can’t say enough to thank my blog readers, particularly those whose words I quote. Being able to exchange ideas about happiness with so many thoughtful readers has been extraordinarily helpful—and fun.
    A huge thanks to Christy Fletcher, my agent, and to Gail Winston, my editor—working on this book was a very happy experience.
    Most of all, thanks to my family. You are my weather.

YOUR HAPPINESS PROJECT
    E ach person’s happiness project will be unique, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit from starting one. My own happiness project started in January and lasted a year—and, I hope, will last for the rest of my life—but your happiness project can start any time and last as long as you choose. You can start small (putting your keys away in the same place every night) or big (repairing your relationships with your family). It’s up to you.
    First, to decide what resolutions to make, consider the First Splendid Truth and answer the following questions:
What makes you feel good ? What activities do you find fun, satisfying, or energizing?
What makes you feel bad ? What are sources of anger, irritation, boredom, frustration, or anxiety in your life?
Is there any way in which you don’t feel right about your life? Do you wish you could change your job, city, family situation, or other circumstances? Are you living up to your expectations for yourself? Does your life reflect your values?
Do you have sources of an atmosphere of growth ? In what elements of your life do you find progress, learning, challenge, improvement, and increased mastery?
    Answering these questions provides a good road map to the kind of changes you might consider. Once you’ve decided what areas need work, identify specific, measurable resolutions that will allow you to evaluate whether you’re making progress. Resolutions work better when they’re concrete, not abstract: it’s harder to keep a resolution to “Be a more loving parent” than to “Get up fifteen minutes early so I’m dressed before the kids wake up.”
    Once you’ve made your resolutions, find a strategy to assess your progress and to hold yourself accountable. I copied Benjamin Franklin’s Virtues Chart to devise my Resolutions Chart. Other approaches might be starting a goals group, keeping a one-sentence journal marking your progress, or starting a blog.
    Another useful exercise is to identify your personal commandments—the principles that you want to guide your behavior. For example, my most important personal commandment is to “Be Gretchen.”
    To help you with your happiness project, I created the Happiness Project Toolbox Web site, www.happinessprojecttoolbox.com. There, I’ve pulled together many of the tools that helped me with my happiness project. You can record and score your resolutions (individual or group), keep a one-sentence journal on any topic you like, identify your personal commandments, share your happiness hacks, share your Secrets of Adulthood, keep any kind of list, and create an inspiration board of your favorite books, quotations, movies, music, or images. Your entries can be kept private or made public, and you can also read other people’s public entries (which is fascinating).
    If you’d like to start a group for people doing happiness projects, e-mail me through my blog for a starter kit. If you’d like to join an existing group visit the Gretchen Rubin page on Facebook to see if a group has formed in your city.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
    Many extraordinary books have been written about happiness. This list doesn’t attempt to cover all the most important works, but instead highlights some of my personal favorites.
    SOME WORKS IN THE HISTORY OF HAPPINESS
    Aristotle. The Ethics of Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics, ed. Hugh Tredennick, J. A. K. Thomson, and Jonathan Barnes. New York: Penguin, 1976.
    Bacon, Francis. The Essays. New York: Penguin, 1986.
    Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus. The Consolation of Philosophy. Translated by Victor Watts. New York: Penguin, 2000.
    Cicero, Marcus Tullius. On the Good Life. Translated by Michael Grant. New York: Penguin, 1971.
    Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler. The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living . New York: Riverhead, 1998.
    Delacroix, Eugène. The Journal of Eugène Delacroix , 3rd ed. Translated by Hubert Wellington. London: Phaidon Press, 1951.
    Epicurus. The Essential Epicurus . Translated by Eugene Michael