{"id":1557,"date":"2017-12-29T03:50:14","date_gmt":"2017-12-29T08:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/?p=1557"},"modified":"2017-12-22T19:50:40","modified_gmt":"2017-12-23T00:50:40","slug":"week-172-did-you-love-your-life-in-2017-hows-the-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/?p=1557","title":{"rendered":"Week #172 – Did you “Love Your Life” in 2017? (How’s the view?)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"New<\/a>

NYE’05 (photo credit: Gina Buongiorno)<\/p><\/div>\n

[Editor’s Note: Re-post Alert<\/a>\u00a0— because celebrating is never a bad idea!]<\/em><\/p>\n

Week #172 – Did you “Love Your Life” in 2017? (How’s the view?)<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you answered “no” or “not great”…I want to assure you, once again, that you aren’t alone.<\/p>\n

For many people…2017 was another challenging year. \u00a0Health issues, death, divorce, job changes, financial problems, stressful news cycles…the list goes on and on.<\/p>\n

Believe me…I know how it feels to want to kick an entire year to the curb.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The end of the calendar year seems to be\u00a0a natural time to look\u00a0back and reflect on the highs, the lows, what happened, what went wrong, and how we can fix it in the new year ahead.<\/p>\n

This is exactly why on\u00a0January 1st<\/a>\u00a0of this past year, I challenged everyone to\u00a0look forward<\/a> into 2017 — and start keeping track of the good stuff.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because\u00a0it’s hard to love your life when it’s so easy to look back and come up with all the bad things that happened. \u00a0We have to, as Rob’s friend Rob Nicholson said in a Facebook post at the end of 2014:<\/p>\n

“Keep moving forward and celebrate and revel in what we have!”<\/strong><\/p>\n

So I challenged you at the beginning of this year\u00a0to, once again, look ahead…WAY ahead.<\/p>\n

To December 31st of 2017.<\/p>\n

By the way…that’s this weekend!<\/strong><\/p>\n

And I asked — Where do you want to be next year at this time?<\/p>\n

Do you remember your answer? \u00a0If not, don’t feel bad. \u00a0Because I said at that time that I knew one thing for sure —\u00a0It would take\u00a0REMINDERS.<\/p>\n

If you were one of the ones that kept track of your achievements, high points, and happy moments — please remember to SHARE and CELEBRATE<\/a> them with the ones you love!<\/p>\n

If you didn’t keep track, don’t worry. \u00a0Take some time this week to go back through your calendar, your emails, your phone — whatever it takes to come up with enough reminders of all that you accomplished and did right this year!<\/p>\n

Because I promise you…you did! \u00a0And there is probably a lot to CELEBRATE!<\/span><\/p>\n

Your Happyness Challenge for the week ahead:<\/strong>\u00a0CELEBRATE the completion of another year — and another trip around the sun! \u00a0SHARE your successes with others — and ENCOURAGE others to do the same! \u00a0There will be plenty of time to look ahead and set new goals, focus on new targets, and dream new dreams for the year ahead. \u00a0For this weekend — look back, and find things to LOVE about 2017!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bonus Challenge:\u00a0<\/strong>Don’t count on yourself to remember everything about the new year going forward! \u00a0Make a plan to curate the wins just as much as the losses so that you have a complete inventory come December 31st of 2018<\/span>. \u00a0Come up with a system for recording your achievements, successes, highlights, and otherwise happy times THROUGHOUT\u00a0the year! \u00a0The most obvious way is to keep a dated list — in a journal, on your computer, via email, or on your phone — where you take time each day to review your activities and take note of anything special or significant. \u00a0I keep a running list by date and habitually recount the day’s activities. \u00a0To be honest, most days it’s pretty mundane — but the habit assures that when something notable happens I’m going to capture and remember it. \u00a0Here are some other ideas from last year’s post:<\/p>\n