How easy it it to choose happy? Is it just a mindset? Simply a way of thinking? Or does it maybe have more to do with your surroundings and the way you react to them? I’m no therapist, but I did minor in Psychology, and I think choosing happy is an equal opportunity employer.
Don’t get me wrong, we will all have our fair share of sad and angry moments, we’re human and we feel things. Everything, actually. BUT, if you don’t struggle with mental illness, I think a large majority of those negative feelings boil down to the way that we choose to interpret and choose to react to them.
“I spent the majority of 2019 obsessing over what everyone else on Instagram was doing.”
And why??? That’s CRAZY! You know how far that got me? Reverse far. So much so, that I actually lost followers, because instead of working on my own content, I was too immersed in what everyone else had and was doing. When you do that, what you’re actually doing is watching their hard work pay off. I’ve decided to keep my peripheral vision in check, but focus more on my tunnel vision. Except for at Wal Mart, all of my visions work perfectly there because folks are getting snatched left and right.
“So what if they take the easy way, hard work always prevails.”
Coming in a close second to the negative energy that I allowed to consume these four walls is the amount of time I’ve spent yelling at my computer, “YOU ARE NOT A BLOGGER!!!”. An item or two may or may not have been thrown on occasion. Here’s the reality of it: If you don’t have an active blog, you’re not a blogger. An Instagrammer, yes, and influencer? Perhaps. But what you are NOT is a blogger.
Blogging is hard (yet so fun!). It’s way more than posing for a quick pic on your porch. We pay a photographer for multiple images, we then edit, upload, and WRITE verbiage. It can take a week+ for any of that content to publish. Not a damn bit of it is “Y’all! You neeeeeed this! Use code XYZ for 5% off!!! XoXo”.
I cannot roll my eyes far enough in the back of my head when I see this. Constantly.
This is my biggest vice, as I find it a huge disrespect to those of us that put in the work, I do understand and am trying to respect the whole “work smarter, not harder” mentality.
It’s not my business. It’s not my business. It’s not my business.
Saying it three times aloud works, right? We shall see.
“When everything is important, nothing is important.” -Rachel Hollis
Is there a truer statement? I feel it especially rings true in this season of life when we’re at the start of a new year. Resolutions, anyone? I wrote this post talking about setting intentions instead of resolutions or goals, but in all reality, it’s just a simple switch of wording.
If you really think about it though, it’s impossible to channel 100% of your energy at anything more than one thing at a time. Sure, we can go whole-heartedly at what’s at hand at the time, but when wanting to focus on bettering an area, it’s important to prioritize one thing at a time. Rachel talks a little about focusing on what is pulling at your heart and devoting a full 90 days to it and just see what happens.
That’s kind of where I am right now. I’m deciding to let go of my mile long I want to do that list and focus entirely on what’s been my #1 goal for 8 years now.
I’ll share a short clip of that interview below.
If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room”.
I cannot stress the importance of that statement. If you’re the smartest, the most hard-working, who do you have to look up to and learn from? Happiness starts by reevaluating the people that you surround yourself with. Which is perhaps the hardest part of finding your happiness. No one wants to cut people out of their lives. That sucks, y’all! I’ve done it, and it’s the opposite of checking something off of your list, because more often than not, it’s not that they did something.
I have found that it’s socially easier, yet internally harder, as you age. It’s harder to let go of someone that’s been a part of your life for what may seem like forever, but with age, people tend to have their own things going on. So gravitate toward who you admire!
I decided in late 2019 to go by the “Three’s Company” rule. I made that up, but whatever. Hear me out. I decided that in this season in life that I needed some help! I needed to find inspiration, aspiration, and some serious drive. After pondering on that for a while, I realized that I had two lady friends that not only possessed all of those qualities, but that it seemingly came easy to them. What?!?! Yep, I’m friends with unicorns and mermaids. Be jealous, very jealous. Kidding (kind of), it just makes me extremely blessed.
Crystal
A true bad bitch, y’all. She’s ran an MLM for 6 years and has a plethora of people under her that she mentors. Her success equally mimics her husbands successful career as an engineer, all while perfectly balancing her life as a mother to a child that’s on the spectrum. It hasn’t been easy for her, by any means, but she’s a forward thinker and an extremely hard worker and all of that has not only got her to where she is, but it’s made her my own personal hero. To know this girl is a true blessing, but to get to learn from her perseverance, determination, and drive, well, I’m pretty lucky.
Shalon
This ‘lil lady is an entrepreneurial genius. She’s launched a wildly successful wedding and event planning company, a consulting firm, and works in real estate/auctioneering. We first met in Gadsden Service Guild, where she encouraged and taught me the ropes of PR, and when offered to sit alongside her in the same position for United Way, I jumped at it. She not only intrigues me, but I find myself learning something new from her every time we’re around each other. Honestly, I don’t deserve to sit next to her, or even directly behind her, but I’m grateful everyday that I sometimes get too.
The one thing that I have in common with these two fabulous females is that we are all Type A. So why am I such a mess and their life isn’t? Well, it’s simple.
I wasn’t choosing happy. Like I said above, I was channeling all of my energy into focusing on what everyone else was doing instead of focusing on what I wanted to be doing. I guess I figured that I had a success and happiness tree in the backyard and I’d just go pick me some. Ha!
No, millinial Jaime. Not how that works. At. All.
So, I decided to apply Newton’s Third Law to my life.
I traded in scrolling through Instagram for hours a day for wedding planning.
I gave up my morning naps after carline for some serious BTS work here on Bottle no. 5.
I quit pouring a glass of wine at 5:00 pm and started cooking a healthy meal for my family.
Laying around on Sunday doing nothing? Not anymore. We shoot all of my blog content on that day now.
I also gave up spending my evenings binging Netflix and Hulu, and instead, I use that time to work on blog posts.
Changing the way I lay out my day has helped me tremendously. Instead of crawling in bed at night and feeling ashamed because I let yet another day pass me by, I feel accomplished. I’ve seen a definite change in my overall happiness since restructuring and can only expect things to continue to improve!