A College Student’s Letter to the Younger Generation

So here is my disclaimer: This is my opinion. These are the thoughts that have been going through my head. I am sorry if anyone gets offended. If you don’t read anything from this entire rant, at least skip down to my Stop/ Learn. That’s the message I really want to send.

Dear Current Middle School and High School Students,
Hey! College life is great. It is a lot of work, and definitely a struggle, but it is so worth it. But I didn’t write this to talk about me. I wrote it to talk to some of you.

Maybe this isn’t my place to judge. Maybe it’s not my place to talk. But I am tired of seeing it on Facebook. Kids are getting suspended. Kids are into drugs. And having babies.

I read my news feed on Facebook and I see people complaining about school and promoting the legalization of weed all over the place. What happened to playing with dolls or video games?

Last day of Month 1

   April has truly flown by. I can’t say that I did very good at my happiness project this month. There were a lot of days that I didn’t run, mostly because I was sore from the day before or had a crazy schedule. That is truly one thing that I need to get better at is making time for the real things that I need to do, and doing them when I do make the time.

  I did do a pretty good job making sure that I walked every day. I watched my steps and I could tell when some days were hurting compared to others, but I did it. I was more actively aware of how far a building on campus was from where I am and if I walked to that building I would have enough steps. I often times took the long way around just so I got more steps. I found myself challenging myself to get more steps than just the goal of 10,000, especially on the days that I ran. I found myself constantly checking to see how close I was to my goal, or how many steps I got from going the long way instead of cutting across the campus. It may not seem like much, but I did feel healthier at the end of the day.
    I kind of gave up on the eating clean half way thru the month because the dining hall has very limited options and I found myself eating the same things day after day. This is something that I plan to try again after I am cooking in my own kitchen. I felt so much healthier while I was eating clean.
   It was a crazy hectic month anyway, but I ran sprints with one of the guys from my unit, then ran them by myself. After I failed my pt test I have kicked it in gear to get myself to work more on my run. I have a PT test Saturday afternoon and I know I am going to kick that runs butt this time. The guy from my unit is running as my pacer. I ran it in 18:42 on Monday, so I am determined to take off another 40 seconds at least. My best time every is an 18:07, so I am personally determined to beat that, but passing would be great.
    I know I am not going to make weight on Saturday, but I know that I am going to make it after South Africa because we are going to be walking so much. I am determined to make weight right away when I get back from the trip, even if it means going in to SSG Rinehart’s office on the way home from the airport to weigh in. I have lost 4 pounds since last drill, which I would say is pretty good since that was only two weeks ago.
   I am determined to never see the numbers 150 on the scale again after I get down. I want to make weight for the rest of my military career without having to worry about it. I want to be able to eat chocolate if I want to and not worry about if I gain a single pound. Right now it is a stress about gaining one pound, but after this. I am going to be healthy. I want to start walking more often instead of taking my car places that I don’t need to do.
   Tonight, I met with the girls from South Africa at a restaurant downtown and I walked there from campus instead of going to get my car! Woo! I’m pretty proud of myself.

So. Does being healthy mean being happy? Yes and No. Being healthier did make me happier, but not for the reasons I thought it would. I had more energy on the days that I ran and ate healthy. On days that I choose to eat crap for food and felt too lazy to run.. I wasn’t as energetic and happy on the feeling like crap days. I have found that some little things make me feel better about my health though. I started doing body workouts every day and I feel like I have toned a little more than I was. I hope to continue to be healthy in the next few months.

So what does the next month bring…?
This month is about crossing things off on my bucket list. Creating memories and capturing them. I am going to put together scrapbooks and I want to make some kind of a smash journal, which I haven’t quite figure out yet, but bring it on.

Missed the first couple posts?
Check them out right here!

Question of the day??

What is your favorite thing that you have done or the favorite memory that you have captured over the years?

Let me know with a comment or a message! I love to hear your feedback!! Thank you!

Day 15 of Happiness!

I can not believe that I am half way through the first month of happiness.  I feel great. I have had some days of doing very good with all of my resolutions and I have had some days that I completely ignored all of it.

I have downloaded a pedometer app on my phone that DRAINS my battery. Every time I turn around I am plugging my phone into my charger. But I am surprised at the amount of activity I do on some days compared to others.

Mondays are the days that I walk the most. 

Sundays are the days that I walk the least (at least so far) 

  The app keeps track of how long I am active for as well as the average calories that would be burned during that time. On the last two Mondays, I was averaging 130 minutes of active time, whereas on Sunday I was only averaging about a half an hour.. Sad. (I do think I had slight malfunctions on Sunday with the app as well.)

   On the days that I run, I usually have about 5000 extra steps compared to the days that I don’t, and I definitely feel better when I do. (Mega Plus) If I don’t run, I try to take the long way to where ever I am going on campus. 

I have eaten more servings of fruits and vegetables in the last 15 days than I think I have in the last 18 years. Also sad. I find myself craving an apple or an orange. I had a plum in the dining hall one day. I’ve eaten watermelon with a couple meals, and fresh blueberries. YUM.

   Matt and I went on a date last Friday night and I definitely felt sick as I ate my first bites of supper. Only 3 days of eating really healthy and I thought I was going to be sick. Awesome, but a huge road block for a fun date. 

    I feel so great when I eat healthy and it is definitely making me happier and more easy going as I am feeling the results of weight loss and not feeling as bloated after I eat. 

I started off with a bed time routine of shutting my phone off and reading for 15 minutes before bed, but that quickly went out the window as impossible to follow and not realistic to continue at home. At home, I pretty much crash when I am ready. 

Call us cheesy, but when I am at the dorms, Matt and I usually fall asleep on the phone together. Yeah. Make fun now, but I think its cute and I quickly realized that I now am used to falling asleep talking to him, so it is really weird to fall asleep without him. After I do fall asleep, I don’t look at my phone at all in the middle of the night. I used to check it for the time, but I have put my iHome in my dorm so I always have the time without checking my phone. GREAT! (:

I have tried to run everyday, but there are some days that I choose to do other workouts that have been suggested by the people in my unit, but that are also accumulating on my pinterest boards.
One of the workouts that I have done with my unit was a High Intensity Interval Training which incorporated 20 seconds of an exercise and 10 seconds to move to the next station. Sounds easy. Right.
   You would be surprised at how much I was sweating as well as how sore I was afterwards.

So here is the honesty. I failed my PT test and height weight at drill this weekend. That really made me struggle to continue with my happiness project after that one. I struggled and I spent a lot of time thinking about it.

   When I sat down with my commander after I found out that I failed height weight, he wanted me to create an action plan to follow to get my body fat percentage and my weight down. Awesome..
  I told him everything that I had been doing for my happiness project this month and told him that I would be ready for it at May drill. I am gonna pass both h/w and my pt test at May drill. Sitting down with him to create the action plan was exactly the determination that I needed to continue with my happiness project. I am hoping that it will help.
   I have made a calendar that is posted on my board behind my desk with my stickers. For each goal that I have, there is a different sticker color. So when I complete that goal for the day, I put that color sticker on my calendar to show the good days and bad days.

So am I happier? It is far too soon to tell, but I can tell that working out and eating right down make me feel better overall!

So my question for the day…

What is your favorite way to burn some calories and get some exercise in (whether you consider it exercise or not)

Let me know what you think!

To the First Month of Happiness!

     It is here already. Today marks the start of my happiness project. As I sit here, I am nervous. I am excited. I am already a little overwhelmed.

     Research states that some of the happiest people are the ones that are healthy. Exercise has been shown to cure, or at least relieve some of the symptoms of depression, sleep apnea, poor sleep quality, and of course diabetes and heart problems. It has also been linked to lower stress, decreased heart rates, and lower risk of breast cancer. 

       As my happiness project goes on, much of it will purely be educating myself using books to read some of the research about why each aspect is so important. This month I will be reading The Exercise Cure, Lose Weight without Dieting, Drop Dead Healthy and maybe some other books.

• I am going to set up a great workout plan that I can actually stick to.
• I am going to spend time doing some research about getting a better nights sleep. 
• I am going to pass my PT test the 2nd weekend in April (Coming up sooo fast)
• I am going to start an awesome clean eating diet. With 2 cheat meals per week. This means for two meals a week I can have something that is processed, but the rest of it will be clean eating. It’s only for a month, and who knows maybe I will like it. 
• I am going to do push ups and sit ups at least 3 times a day. (probably during study breaks, for 30 seconds at a time)
• I am going to get a pedometer and find someone to compete with for who can take the most steps in a day. This makes it a little more fun than just walking. Plus, I walk so much on campus that it isnt even funny.
• I am going to take the steps instead of the elevator unless I am carrying a ton of stuff (bags/ laundry basket upstairs)

     There. These are my goals. this is all the things I am going to be doing. I am also going to keep an excel spreadsheet of my resolutions to track which ones I keep regularly and which ones I struggle with so I can work on those more. I am going to print it out and put star stickers on it as a reward to myself, but also as a way to track the things that I am doing in order to make myself happy, but to see if it makes me happier or not. 

My goal is to post about once a week if not more to let everyone know how I am doing with my progress, but also how I am doing workout wise.

I started off my morning by arguing with myself to get out of bed at 7:10, but once I decided that I was going to weigh myself this morning, I was up and outta bed. I needed to figure out the damage that spring break had done to my weight loss. If you haven’t read about my spring break you can do it here. You could see how that would easily ruin my weight loss progress.  We weren’t getting a lot of sleep, and we were eating a lot of fast food. I was guessing that I had gained about 10 pounds over spring break.

This morning when I got on the scale, I was scared for the results. As the numbers flashed, I prayed that it wasn’t as bad as I was thinking it was. When the numbers came up, I saw that I had lost 1.5 lbs. I was shocked. I was certain that I had gained a few, but instead I lost! 

11 days til my PT test! Woo!

Today, I made my check sheet to mark my resolutions and track how well I am doing with my resolutions.  I would say that so far today I am doing good. Half a day down. 29 and a half to go!!

If you have missed any of the other posts about my happiness project, you can read them all here.

Question for the day:
What is your favorite, non processed, healthy snack?

Let me know about your snack by sending me pictures, emailing me, or commenting on my blog post or link!

Thanks for reading!

Focus for the Next 12 Months

For my Happiness Project, each month has a specific focus and a goal for what I want to do for each thing. I want to make the most of every month, so I have made them into broad categories with specific goals that fall under each thing. to make the month as productive as possible.

Here is my plan:

April: Physical

My goal for this month is to focus on exercise and feeling better physically.
I will get more sleep, make better eating choices, and workout every day!
This also includes cleaning up my life, organizing my closet and getting rid of things I don’t need in order to clear my space and my mind.
Getting more sleep means looking into sleep studies and research and finding the “best” way to sleep in order to sleep through the night.

May: Memories

Since I am going to South Africa this month, I am making it all about making memories. I will take a picture every single day of the month. I will put together an online photo book from my pictures from 2013, and start one from the beginning of 2014.
I also want to start creating a smash book of random things that I like during this month.
This month’s goals are also going to be focused on doing new things and crossing things off my bucket list that I made last summer and haven’t put a dent in it.

June: Family

This month will be spent mostly at home with my parents and little brother. I plan to spend some time traveling to Grand Island and Ogden to see my sets of grandparents that don’t live in Beatrice. I want to spend a couple days with each set of grandparents, because last year made me very aware that they won’t be around forever and I can’t take advantage of them.
I also plan to spend a couple days taking Luke on trips to do some of the fun summer stuff.
This month I also want to figure out my family tree and trace it back as far as I can.

July: Attitude
This is the month that I will be gone for Annual Training for two weeks. Military days can get really long, but it is all about attitude. My goal for this month is to overall smile and not stop.
This also includes not complaining when it comes to things that I have to do. Not comparing my day to other peoples day and seeing whose is worse.
Complaining is one of the things that I tend to do more than I notice, so I am going to make it a goal to not complain and to just keep smiling. I also want to start talking to people that I normally wouldn’t talk to, whether it is within my unit or in the community.
This is the time that I am going to start a laugh journal. One of the speakers that I have listened to at a leadership conference said to write down all of the things that make you laugh and keep them in a journal of stories. This is a good way to keep your memories, but also remember the good times that you had laughing.

August: Time
Augusts focus is to make time for the things I enjoy in life. This is the month that I want to be able to read as much as I can, workout, take pictures, edit photos, lay in bed and watch movies, and spend time playing computer games.
My problem is that when I really enjoy doing something, I often feel guilty for doing these things before I do more productive things that I should be doing.
I also want to find a new hobby. Something that I will be able to enjoy for many years to come as well as something that is fun and I can include my family and friends.
This month will also be focused on using my blog as much as I can.

September: Work Hard
Because I don’t currently have a job, I don’t know exactly what this is going to consist of as of yet. I am planning on trying to go to Reclass school for the military or Warriors Leadership Course for the military. This would mean working hard towards graduating and putting effort into those things.
If I don’t go to reclass school, it would mean working towards things to put on my resume such as working with the FRG, honor guard, or another volunteer project that I decide to get involved with.

October: Money
Money is a struggle for many people’s happiness. Many have found that the happiest people are in fact not the people with all the money. While people with money can be happy, it is not always a direct correlation.
My goal this month is to figure out a savings plan to put some money away. But also to splurge on some of the things that I want to do or buy.
This month is going to be interesting

November: Be Grateful. 
This is the month to create a grateful journal. This is where you record the really big things that you are thankful for. I am doing it in the month of November because of the Days of thankfulness that many of my friends do every day all the way to Thanksgiving.
I want to take this month to make sure that the people in my life know that I am grateful for them, and my goal is to reach out to some of the friends that I don’t seem to talk to as much as I would like to. I want to make sure that over the month I contact at least 15 friends or family members that I don’t get to talk to enough.

December: Other Peoples Happiness
Many of the things I have read say that If you can make other people happy, you will be happy in return. I want to spend this month ringing bells, working with the food pantry or the wish list. Working at a shelter or doing other holiday things. This sounds really cliche because a lot of people only volunteer during the holiday season, but I also think it is a very good way to follow up a month of gratefulness.
Also with Christmas gifts, sometimes giving is better than receiving. I love Christmas because I love finding the perfect gift for my parents, my grandma, or my little brother. I will continue to do this, but this year I want to make sure that I focus on things they would actually use compared to things I think they would enjoy.

January: Mindfulness
This is the month that I want to focus on mediation and focusing on how I am spending the minutes of my day. Oftentimes I wasted time doing things that I don’t need to do.
This month will most likely involve deleting a lot of my apps on my phone, watching how much time I spend messing around on pinterest or social media.
I want to spend a couple minutes mediating or doing yoga each day to relax and refocus my mind. This is going to be the month of productiveness.

February: Love
Of Course, I wouldn’t be following the calendar if February didn’t have anything to do with love. Valentine’s day is often the focal point of February. This is the month that I am going to try to spend time focusing on how I talk to others. How I express my feelings for other people.
This is also going to be another month of expressing it to my friends and family.

March: Putting it all together
As it is in the book, The Happiness Project, the last month is trying to be “perfectly happy” The focus is to put together everything for the ultimate level of happiness. This month is not about being perfect, but not giving up. It is also about seeing which things work to make you happy because each person is slightly different with what makes them happy.

These are just the brief description of each month. There will be more things added to the project as I do more research and more reading about each topic. This is just the minimum over view!

If anyone wants to join me in their own happiness journey, Feel Free! I am excited to see what all happens in the next year!!

Let me know what you think!
Throughout my project I am going to post a question of the day with each post! please comment on the blog, my facebook link, simply send me a message, or talk to me in person, but I would love to put it all together and possibly publish some of the great feedback that I get from this project.

Question of the Day: Which month do you think will cause the happiness the most throughout the year? What other ideas would you add to your own Happiness Project if YOU were doing it!

Let Me Know!!

13 Commandments and the "Secrets of Adulthood"

Setting up My Happiness Project.

Okay, so if you missed the last blog you should check it out!
The last few days I have been doing some research trying to figure out the specific things that make people happy. I have come up with a list and tried separating them into months that correspond with the events within that month.

I will start my entire plan on April 1st and end it on March 31st of next year. The goal is to spend an entire year focusing on the different aspects that make you happy, then taking the last month to try and apply all of them, or the ones that really worked for you.

In the book, she creates the 12 commandments. These are set up for when she can’t figure out what is making her do something or for when she is struggling the most. These are also things to look at when figuring out what to do each month. Each thing can go back to one of her commandments in some way. This is great for when you just don’t want to do anything.

I made my own commandments, and took a few from her list because they seem to fit.

1. Be Me.
2. Happiness depends on me.
3. Stop waiting for happiness.
4. Get it done!
5. People love me, no matter what.
6. Lighten up and laugh it out
7. Don’t keep tabs on people.
8. Enjoy what you are doing/ live in the moment
9. Let it go.
10. when it doubt, smile.
11. Don’t over think things.
12. Be flexible with change.
13. And courtesy of my AIT sergeant. When you can’t do anything else.
    Drink Water.

Now, those are kind of the things that are set in stone. Things I either need to improve on, but also things that I need to remember when I start to struggle.

She also has the “Secrets of Adulthood” These are a handful of things that kind of sum up a lot of things in one statement. They are things that people don’t always want to admit, but oftentimes are things that hold very true in times of need.

Here is the list I came up with.

1. She who dies with the best memories, wins.
2. People don’t pay as much attention as you think they do.
3. It is okay to ask for help.
4. You don’t have to be good at everything.
5. You don’t have to DO everything.
6. You don’t have to like everyone, but you should be nice to everyone.
7. Love your body, it’s the only one that you will get.
8. Learning never stops.
9. When everything else seems to fail, laugh it off.
10. Life lessons are repeated until you learn how to do them.
11. Time heals everything.
12. People wait all week for Friday, all year for Summer, and all of life for happiness.
13. Objects don’t bring happiness. People bring happiness. Memories bring happiness. Success brings happiness.
14. Sometimes, it is okay to eat dessert before your meal.
15. Awesome things will happen today, if you choose not to be miserable.
16. Sometimes, you just need to pull your big girl panties up and deal with it.

.

Now, I do realize how cliche some of these can be. Actually, most of them are bad cliches that you hear your grandparents tell you or things you read on fortune cookies. All of those things that you used to laugh at when you were younger, but as you grow up, things start to make sense.

I really like these. It kind of sums up all of life in 16 phrases. In every situation, at least one of them will apply and help you find hope in the problem that you are having.

So here I am, getting ready for April 1st. Wish me luck.

My question for today is..? 
   What is your secret to adulthood or your cliche phrase that helps make each and every day better?
 Or what did one of your family members used to say to help make you  feel better, or give you hope/courage to make it through the day.

Happiness

  I just finished reading a book called The Happiness Project: Why I Spent A Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean my Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin.

    The book is an overall research project about what it takes to be happy, what makes you happy and what you can do to make yourself happier. She has an overall resolution for each month, and a couple small goals that fit in to each of them. One month, her overall goal is to boost her energy. For that month, she tracks the things that she does, such as gets more sleep, exercises regularly, organize, and just plain act more energetic. They say that you feel the way you act, and you act the way you feel. Each month she goes through what works and what doesn’t. (GREAT! book if you have the time to read it. Ironically, I think I found this in a stack of books that my mom had once started, but never finished.) 

When I googled “Happiness” and looked at the images, there were pictures of smiley faces, quotes about smiling more and feeling happy, but to me, a yellow face with black eyes and mouth doesn’t really define happiness. Webster’s dictionary defines happiness as “The state of being happy, or an experience that makes you happy.” Below it there was also “a state of well being or contentment.” That didn’t really help me either. 

Here is My Goal:

  I want to do something similar. I am going to start on April 1st, and I will be tracking my progress on my blog! I want FEEDBACK! In the next 2 weeks, I am going to be putting together the background for each month and what I am going to be doing for those months. 

Here is my question for the day? 

Simply, What is happiness to you? What makes you happy? What are the things that make you smile? 

Answer it on Facebook, in the comments or shoot me an email at Elylyons2013@gmail.com. Please. I am really interested to hear what people have to say as I start to shape my thoughts about this project.