Well, it’s been another week, another seven days to work towards accomplishing the goals I set out for myself a couple of weeks ago. For the first time since I set my goals from The Happiness Project, I think I can honestly say that I didn’t make a good amount of progress towards accomplishing all of my goals. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve made progress towards my goals this week, but I think that I honestly did not make much progress when it comes to one of my goals; my goal to be more open to others as well as comfortable with myself. I think that I’ve made large enough amounts of progress towards other goals in order to cover up for the spots where I think that I didn’t make so much progress.
When it comes to my goal of studying for classes, I think I have actually continued to make progress, because I not only continue to study, but I study more frequently and using different methods. I still make flashcards and type out notes as I read through textbooks, but I now have also started to flag passages in books. By flagging passages, I can easily go back and access passages that I deemed to be important, or just a passage I thought was just plain interesting. Flagging passages helped me through my chapter of Flow, and although I didn’t have a physical copy of Geography of Bliss, I jotted down quotes that I thought were important or interesting. I definitely think that Geography of Bliss was a much more entertaining read when compared to Flow, which worked to the advantage of my new studying technique. It seemed quite easy to sift through Geography of Bliss, which I think is evidenced by the fact that I made so many flags with quotes. I think this even helped me to more easily understand the reading, so I think I definitely will continue to flag passages whenever I read through something.
As I said earlier, I don’t think that I made much progress towards my second goal of being more open to others and comfortable with myself. I guess I just never really made a conscious effort to be more open, but I feel as though I wasn’t overly distant. I just kind of went through the motions without even thinking about being more open to others, which means that I will definitely have to make that much more of an effort to be open in the coming week. I don’t like admitting that I didn’t make progress towards this goal, but hopefully it will fuel me to make more progress next week.
I think I actually made the most progress towards accomplishing my last goal to clear my mind of negativity and to focus on the positive. I think this just kind of happened by itself because I have become more comfortable with my college life, most likely due to the fact that I have just spent more time here. Spending more time at college means that I’ve ha more time to fall into my routine, which means that I generally have less stress and negativity weighing down on me. Part of my daily routine includes working out every night and an hour and a half of yoga every Thursday night. I find that if I think about my workout later in the day, then the negative thoughts don’t seem to be able to get to me. I actually have a quote from Flow that I referenced in an earlier blog that helps to explain one of the reasons why exercising seems to make me happier. Csikszentmihalyi says, “In other words, with nothing to do, the mind is unable to prevent negative thoughts from elbowing their way to center stage” This is why focusing actually helps to make me happier and why I think I will continue with this goal throughout college, and likely even after college.
One quote that I will remember while trying to accomplish my goal of being open to others and more comfortable with myself is a saying from James Bryant Conant, the former president of Harvard. Conant says, “Behold the turtle. He only makes progress when he sticks his neck out.” I think this applies to me because this week I have kind of just been the turtle, not necessarily hiding my head, but definitely not sticking it out. This coming week I will definitely try to “stick my head out more often”, because it will almost certainly assist me in accomplishing my goal.
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