I can’t remember if I blogged about this originally or not, but back in March I made some decisions:

To take full responsibility for my own happiness at all times – If I’m not happy, it’s not anyone else’s fault. I made the wrong decision, I take the consequences (or my brain chemicals aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do for some mysterious reason that will probably never be explained. Which is no one’s fault).

To find sources of happiness in things I can control – This primarily means not relying on people to make me happy. This means I do get a reasonable amount of pleasure from possessions, experiences etc., but my main focus is on achieving goals, learning/improving skills, and creating things I get enjoyment from. I went through a phase of feeling lonely, of spending far too much time sitting around waiting for people, and it was wasting my life. Other people are fine with spending their evenings watching TV and drinking – that’s not really me. I need more stimulation, and I need to achieve more or I become frustrated and unhappy really quickly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still socialising a lot, and if anything I’m meeting a lot more new people than usual, but it’s not the focus of my life.

To not be whiny or act like a victim if I don’t get my own way – It’s either wrong for me (generally people-based) or it’s worth fighting harder/going down a different route to achieve. Not always clear-cut, but that’s just life.

And this one is going to sound cheesy, but…

To focus on being the best version of me I can possibly be.

All this probably sounds incredibly self-centred at first glance, but it’s actually not (and even the parts that are stem from me spending far too much time on other people’s happiness, especially when they don’t notice/appreciate it). Not blaming other people for things means I have much better relationships with them. I’m not a pushover, but I’m also not taking things personally. Being in control of my happiness has generally made me a lot less anxious and stressed out, which means my work is better, I am less reliant on the people around me for support, and I’m generally living my life in a much more positive atmosphere. Focusing on working towards being my best self means I’m learning more, seeing more, losing weight and getting fitter. I even, occasionally, feel proud of myself (woah slow down there). I don’t have wasted time. I still do take on too much, but I think that’s pretty inevitable.

A lot of the time it’s in the little things. Going to an informal industry gathering and meeting someone whose face lights up when I introduce myself because I was “one of the two people” he “really wanted to meet” that night on a professional level is very flattering. Battling anxiety to go to a cupcake class (ridiculous, right?) and silently panicking that I wasn’t good enough only to be told my cakes were the best in the class (and if you’d seen this woman you’d know she’s not the sympathetic/pitying type in any possible way. Also, I’m pretty damn good at hiding how I feel 99.9% of the time (hashtag HighFunctioning)). And these things make me happy. And motivated.

But that doesn’t mean that life has stopped slamming me with things I find difficult to cope with. And I’ve realised that part of it is down to when I’ve deviated from ‘the happiness rules’. ‘Get back up and push straight on‘ (it’s a terrible video, but you get the point) is one of my favourite lines at the moment. I have started asking myself ‘Does this help me achieve my goals?’ before I do stuff. It means I haven’t consumed anywhere near as much chocolate in the past few weeks for a start ;)

I still think I need to take a few more steps though. One of the things that makes me crazy anxious but really shouldn’t is my phone. Recently, Facebook keeps telling people I’m online 24/7 even though it should be displaying a mobile icon, so I’m constantly getting messages from people at very random times. Don’t get me wrong, I love messages, but it can mean I end up working (or chatting) 24/7. It also makes it inevitable that I end up chatting to the one person I have left in my life who is truly bad for me. So I’ve uninstalled Facebook, Messenger, Google+, work Twitter, and Talk from my phone. Unfortunately I can’t deactivate my Facebook account because it has all kinds of admin pages and apps associated with it that I will lose, but it’s a start. I felt so much better staying off Facebook over Christmas and I think I might just do another ‘detox’ and only stay logged into the business/day job side of things. I need a break, and to stop worrying about what other people are doing and what they think and why they think it. It’s time to kill two addictions with one stone.

Tonight I’m going to a programmers’ event (yeah, I know. I’m a massive geek, and a totally out of my depth one at that). Then tomorrow evening my friend is arriving for the weekend. We’re going to see an outdoor performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the castle, then on Saturday we’re probably going to one of my old work friend’s housewarming. I need some rest time and away-from-computer time so it should be perfect.