Tag Archives: everyday happy

Weekly Wishes – Hobbies

Posted on November 11 by Jillian416 • 4 Comments

Happy Weekly Wishes – Hobbies!

Weekly Wishes is a link-up started by Melyssa from The Nectar Collective. It is a place where you can post and share you wishes and goals for the week ahead on your blog, Facebook page, Twitter account, etc and then link it up on Melyssa’s blog. I LOVE doing this because it holds me accountable for the week ahead. I’ve shared my goals with the world (through my blog) and I know people will read and wonder whether I stuck to my goals. It definitely keeps me honest!

Happy Monday, all! We had a pretty good weekend in the Doodah household, you can read all about it here. I’m feeling really good this Monday morning, not dreading anything that this week might bring. I’m feeling positive and ready to take on the week’s ups and (of course) downs. Truly, I just hope there are more ups! 😉

This week’s Weekly Wishes theme is “hobbies.” Many of you may not know this, but I have an Etsy jewelry shop. Sadly I’ve had my shop closed since I went into the hospital to have Emmett, I just didn’t have the time to make anything new or to keep up with any orders that might have come in. And then around August, when I found that I had a little more time to work on items for my shop, I decided that I wanted to re-brand myself, which is where I am right now. I’m having a new Etsy banner designed for my shop and will then reopen! I’m super excited! Anyhoo – since this week’s theme is hobbies, I thought I’d share a picture of one of my favorite pairs of earrings that I created. I look forward to sharing the reopening of my store, once it happens.

And now, Weekly Wishes!

Last week I decided that I would keep it simple and only give myself two wishes. I think I was feeling overwhelmed with everything and giving myself so many goals to worry about completing was getting to me. In the end, giving myself two goals had a much better success rate!

My first goal from last week was to move my body. Admittedly, I did not do any super sweat sessions, but after reading Erika’s post last week talking about how it’s not so much how you move your body, but that you do it, I realized that even light walks with Emmett are good things. I realize with walks I likely won’t lose any weight but at least I’m doing something and not just being stagnant.

My second goal was to continue to do one load of laundry a night. Another success! Even with Emmett being sick I made sure to take a load of laundry down almost every night. This, once again, left me with only a few loads to do on Sunday, which leaves me more time with my two favorite guys!

This Week’s Goals:

Do one load of laundry a night. I’m sticking with it! It makes my life SO much better and I don’t want that to change.
Finish up Everyday Happy. Everyday Happy has ended but I’m still a bit behind, I want to finish off with a BANG!
Move my body! Another repeat from last week (and the week before and the week before), it’s a good one and a good one for me.

There you have it, my wishes for the week ahead.

Be sure to stop on over to The Nectar Collective and link-up!

Your turn!

What have you accomplished over the last week?

Do you have any new goals for the week ahead?

Filed Under: Weekly Wishes

Reflections of You – Everyday Happy

Posted on October 13 by Jillian416 • 0 Comments

Time for Reflections.

I’ve mentioned before that I am taking, and fully invested in the Everyday Happy e-course, and in one of our recent classes we were asked to stand in front of a mirror for 10-15 minutes and just look at ourselves. The purpose is to just look, take in our face, body or even things about ourselves that can’t be seen, but while doing all of this, our goal is to keep our personal criticism quiet. When I saw this on the agenda that day, I was both nervous and excited. I know how critical I am of myself in all things, but I was also excited to challenge myself, to see if I really could stand there and stare at myself without judging.

I apologize for the low picture quality, I did my exercise in my room where the lighting is very dim.

I set the timer on my phone for 10 minutes and I stood in front of the mirror. My immediate first thoughts were, how am I going to get through 10 minutes of this without thinking one negative thought. All I could see was every single flaw that I have and I couldn’t get my mind away from it. First my mind jumped to the outward flaws that I saw and then as I fought those off, I jumped into what I think I do wrong as a person.

I kept briefly looking down at the timer and the minutes were ever so slowly ticking away and my mind was still trying to jump to the negative. I was fighting it, every time I’d criticize something, I would stop myself mid-thought and try to come up with something positive. That was hard, so so hard. I’m sure for some of you, this may seem silly but I have always had a very low self-esteem and just looking at myself felt like pure torture in the beginning.

The next time I looked at the timer, 5 minutes had past and my negative thoughts had turned somewhat positive and I was beginning to note things that I did like about myself. Things like my hair, and how I frequently have good hair days or the arch of my eyebrows (which are personally done by me). These were ideas that I normally just pushed aside and allowed the critical comments, fill the empty space in my head. It felt good to finally see some positive features in myself.

Then, I even started thinking about positive attributes about myself. The way I care so deeply for people and how I’m always willing to do everything in my power for a friend in need. Or, how about the fact that my body grew a little human and now I’m raising that little human (with Seamus’ help) to be a thoughtful, caring but strong man? All these things came flooding in around the 3 minutes left mark, it felt good, empowering!

I won’t lie, I still had to wrestle pretty hard with those negative, self-doubt comments that were running through my head, but it was so much easier to see the positive once I’d been looking at myself for awhile. I was so surprised, that what I had originally destined (in my head) to be a completely unfavorable activity, turned into something positive. Something I actually got something out of.

Will I spend time doing self reflections in the future?

Yes, I think I probably will. Maybe I won’t sit in front of a mirror, maybe I’ll just take ten minutes whenever I can get them and try to review the uplifting things about myself, instead of the cynical pessimistic side.

And just because I adore him so SO much…

Your turn!

Have you ever spent 10 minutes just staring at yourself in the mirror? If so, what were your results, share them in the comments below?

If you’ve never done it, I challenge you to take 10 minutes today do some self-reflections exercises.

You can see some of my other Everyday Happy posts by clicking here.

Filed Under: All About Me

The Start of Everyday Happy

Posted on October 5 by Jillian416 • 2 Comments

I’m so so excited to be a part of the first session of Everyday Happy!

I started Everyday Happy and I’m really really excited. The thing is, I so often half-ass things. I’ll put in just enough effort to get through it but I actually want to get something out of this course. I want to be Everyday Happy, even if that sounds super cheesy.

Anyhow – in a recent day of the course they had us take a version of the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator. I found out that I am considered to be an IFNJ and before I get into any of the details of what that means, I want to say how much it describes me. It is uncanny how well it fits with my self-defined view of myself.

Can you believe that only 1% of the entire world are considered IFNJs?

I can believe it. It makes sense since I have a really hard time finding people that I truly relate to. I always find people whom I can be friends with but I have a very difficult time finding folks whom I feel completely 100% comfortable with. And when I do find them, it usually takes awhile to completely open up.

“INFJs are rarely at complete peace with themselves.”

This hit home, big time. No matter where I am or what I am doing I’m always thinking I can do something better, faster, different, even if things are going well as they are. I have a compulsion to change things.

The description also states that INFJs are natural nurturers and make loving parents. I couldn’t agree more. Though I struggled in the beginning with being a mom, because of postpartum depression, now I am so happy when I can reach out and touch my little boy. Or when he’ll climb into my lap or my husband’s and read with us. It is precious! I love watching every little thing that he does, this includes even mundane things like, him eating. I love pushing him to try something on his own, before running to me for help and I reward him with smiles, hugs and love when he succeeds. I truly believe that Emmett has the ability to do anything that he sets his mind to.

Apparently INFJs tend to need things in a systematic order. I tend to agree with this stance and think it’s probably the biggest hurdle to my happiness. Because I am always on the search for perfect, I can never just settle down and enjoy my surroundings. If I’ve been daydreaming of sitting on the couch with Emmett and Seamus, watching football all week and then Sunday comes and we do just that, what tend to happens is in the back of my mind I am thinking about all the things that I could be doing or getting done while we’re just sitting there. This leads to some high anxiety feelings, which catapults to unhappiness and so on and so on. I’d love to just live in the moment!

I don’t think people see me as intuitive. I can’t really explain why, but I believe this is probably the biggest part of being an INFJ that people just do not see. However, I (from an internal perspective) see it. I can tell immediately what type of mood someone is, just by looking at them. I can tell when someone is acting fake or just putting on an act in a situation. It bothers me slightly that my friends and family don’t see this in me, because I think being intuitive is a great thing. I’d like to find out how I can make people see this in me more, how I can make this a more prominent part of my outward personality.

I think the part that resonated with me the most or caused an “a-ha” moment would be the exert about how INFJs are usually considered to be extroverts, and have multiple personalities to deal with the different aspects of their life. I am a true introvert, but I can speak in front of a group with the best of them. I just find being in front of a group, or going to a social event extremely taxing. Afterward I often feel as though I did a full CrossFit workout. No one ever believes me that I’m an introvert, but I assure you that I am. I love quiet evenings at home, actually I prefer them to activities outside the home.

It’s important to note that your personality (mine included) play a huge role in how you live your life. The decisions you make or the paths you take, are all influenced by who you are as a person. For me, the aspects of my personality that effect my everyday life are primarily the need for order, or finding the best method for doing something. I spend SO much energy trying to decide how I’ll handle a situation, or how I’ll make something fit into my schedule. If things don’t fit perfectly or it doesn’t quite make sense in my head, I will to spend more time thinking about it, essentially wasting more time, instead of just doing it. I can’t even put into words, exactly what I mean. I seem to just be on a constant search for complete order and it has definitely had a negative impact on my life.

There is some positive in it, I think things through, I don’t often make rash decisions but on the other hand, I have wasted so much time trying to figure things out. There have been times when months have past before a decision was made. I’d really like to find a way to overcome this so that less time is spent thinking and more time is spent DOING!

So there it is, I’ve poured my heart out! I realize that this is a pretty personal post but I hope that those of you who read my blog will continue to do so as I take this adventure into being happier.

If you’re interested in signing up to take the course, check out the Everyday Happy homepage.

Your turn!

What is your Myers-Briggs Personality overview? Do you feel that it truly describes you?

Filed Under: All About Me, Everyday Happy