For Christmas in 2015 I received a “Happiness is” calendar; a small square flip-page calendar with a line completing the sentence “Happiness is…” and a little drawing for every day of the year (weekends shared a page).

By the end of the year I had read 312 reasons to be happy and felt inspired to do something to keep that positive chain of thought going into 2017. So on the first day of the new year I began the happiness project, where I take a minute out of every day to write at least one reason why I am happy.

Every day this year I have written at least one reason why I am happy- sometimes my notes are more like a diary entry and other days it’ll just be one word

The idea behind the project is to become more mindful and grateful for what I already have. It’s taking a moment out of every day to think about the positive aspects of my life and reflect on what I could change on days where I struggled to find any.

So far I have written 139 notes on what “happiness is” to me and already I feel a shift in my attitude. By giving myself the opportunity for reflection I have, in turn, made myself a happier person because I have become more self-aware and grateful every day for the things I have.

Already I have started to think about next year and I have several ideas on what I might do for personal growth in 2018. I might repeat the post-it note idea but write one thing I like about myself every day or something nice about a person in my life to change the focus of my reflection. Whatever I end up doing won’t be for a while though because I still have 225 days left of “Happiness is”.

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”