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What are your summer happy resolutions?

Over at The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin recently posted about a resolution of hers — "Take a Field Trip" — where she describes a recent visit to a perfumerie in New York to seek out good smells and cultivate some happy-making fragrances. It's a little touch that can make life a little happier, and it's got me thinking about how making (and, ideally, sticking to) some resolutions isn't just for January 1. Life in the spring and summer feels so different to me than it does in the fall and winter, so it's only fitting that I should have a different set of ambitions and projects.

summer res Masterfile

Over at The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin recently posted about a resolution of hers — "Take a Field Trip" — where she describes a recent visit to a perfumerie in New York to seek out good smells and cultivate some happy-making fragrances. It's a little touch that can make life a little happier, and it's got me thinking about how making (and, ideally, sticking to) some resolutions isn't just for January 1. Life in the spring and summer feels so different to me than it does in the fall and winter, so it's only fitting that I should have a different set of ambitions and projects. Here's my list, so far, in no particular order:

  • Getting more and more varied exercise, from playing badminton in the park and riding my bike to swimming at the gym
  • Wearing sunblock every day
  • Washing my face every night (regardless of what time I stumble in the door)
  • Eating at new places in new neighbourhoods instead of recycling the same old choices over and over
  • Deliberately spending more time with my family, instead of squeezing them in where my schedule permits
  • Reading every day
  • Spending some time outside every day
  • Spending at least 30 minutes a day relaxing/decompressing/breathing deeply
  • Sleeping at least seven hours a night
  • Drinking less bourbon
  • Working on increasing my patience levels
  • Eating more protein (on direction from my naturopath)
  • Eating less sugar (though I might have to make exceptions for treats of the frozen variety)
  • Cooking/baking more often instead of relying on store-bought items
  • Giving people the benefit of the doubt
  • Not over-thinking everything

I've selected all of these things because I think they'll make me both happier and healthier. Some of them are more straightforward than others (eating more protein), and some of them are part of an ongoing battle to adjust the things I struggle with (not over-thinking everything). So how about you? Any happiness resolutions for the summer?

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