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" I had much to be happy about. I was married to Jamie, the tall, dark and handsome love of my life; we had two delightful young daughters, 7-year-old Eliza and 1-year-old Eleanor; I was a writer, after having started out as a lawyer; I had close relationships with my parents, sister and in-laws; I had friends; I had my health. But too often I sniped at my husband or the cable guy. I felt dejected after even a minor professional setback. I drifted out of touch with old friends, I lost my temper easily, I suffered bouts of melancholy, insecurity, listlessness and free-floating guilt. I always figured I&amp;#039;d eventually stop twisting my hair and wearing running shoes all the time. I&amp;#039;d remember my friends&amp;#039; birthdays. I wouldn&amp;#039;t let my daughter watch TV during breakfast. I&amp;#039;d spend more time laughing and having fun. I&amp;#039;d be more polite. Then, one April day, on a morning just like every other morning, I had a sudden realization: I was in danger of wasting my life. I saw that the years were slipping by. &amp;quot;What do I want from life, anyway?&amp;quot; I asked myself. &amp;quot;Well\u2026I want to be happy.&amp;quot; But I had never thought about what made me happy or how I might be happier. I wasn&amp;#039;t depressed and I wasn&amp;#039;t having a midlife crisis, but I was suffering a recurrent sense of discontent and almost a feeling of disbelief. &amp;quot;Can this be me?&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;d wonder as I picked up the morning newspapers or sat down to read my e-mail. &amp;quot;Can this be me?&amp;quot; But though at times I felt dissatisfied, that something was missing, I also never forgot how fortunate I was. When I woke up in the middle of the night, as I often did, I&amp;#039;d walk from one room to another to gaze at my sleeping husband tangled in the sheets and my daughters surrounded by their stuffed animals, all safe. I had everything I could possibly want\u2014yet I was failing to appreciate it. The words of the writer Colette had haunted me for years: &amp;quot;What a wonderful life I&amp;#039;ve had! I only wish I&amp;#039;d realized it sooner.&amp;quot; Thoughts flooded through my mind. I grasped two things: I wasn&amp;#039;t as happy as I could be, and my life wasn&amp;#039;t going to change unless I made it change. In that single moment, with that realization, I decided to dedicate a year to trying to be happier. Did I believe it was possible to make myself happier? My conclusion: Yes, it is possible. What is &amp;quot;happiness&amp;quot;? I decided to follow the hallowed tradition set by Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who defined obscenity by saying, &amp;quot;I know it when I see it,&amp;quot; or Louis Armstrong, who said, &amp;quot;If you have to ask what jazz is, you&amp;#039;ll never know.&amp;quot; Even people who can&amp;#039;t agree on what it means to be &amp;quot;happy&amp;quot; can agree that most people can be &amp;quot;happier.&amp;quot; I know when I feel happy. That was good enough for my purposes. Now I had to figure out how, exactly, to make myself happier. So I designed a kind of calendar on which I could record all my resolutions and give myself a daily(good) or X (bad) for each resolution. I wanted to focus on a different subject each month, which gave me 12 slots to fill. Just in time for January 1, when I planned to start my project rolling, I completed my chart with dozens of resolutions to try in the coming year. For the first month, I&amp;#039;d attempt only January&amp;#039;s resolutions; in February, I&amp;#039;d add the next set of resolutions to the January set. By December, I&amp;#039;d be scoring myself on the whole year&amp;#039;s worth of resolutions. Research shows that happy people are more altruistic, more productive, more helpful, more likable, more creative, more resilient, more interested in others, friendlier and healthier. Happy people make better friends, colleagues and citizens. I wanted to be one of those people. I knew it was certainly easier for me to be good when I was happy. I was more patient, more forgiving, more energetic, more lighthearted and more generous. Working on my happiness wouldn&amp;#039;t just make me happier, it would boost the happiness of the people around me. And\u2014though I didn&amp;#039;t recognize this immediately\u2014I started my happiness project because I wanted to prepare. I was a very fortunate person, but the wheel would turn. One of my goals for the project was to prepare for adversity\u2014to develop the self-discipline and the mental habits to deal with a bad thing when it happened. The time to start exercising, stop nagging and organize our digital photos was when everything was going smoothly. I didn&amp;#039;t want to wait for a crisis to remake my life. Each person&amp;#039;s happiness project will be unique, but it&amp;#039;s the rare person who can&amp;#039;t benefit from starting one. My own project started in January and has lasted a year\u2014and, I hope, will last for the rest of my life\u2014but yours can start any time and last as long as you choose. You can start small (putting your keys away in the same place every night) or big (repairing your relationships with your family). It&amp;#039;s up to you. Gretchen&amp;#039;s Yearlong Plan Each month, she took on an additional challenge in pursuit of the final goal of happiness.    JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL MAY JUNE   Energy Love Work Money Mindfulness Order   JULY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER   Spirit Fun Family Friends Attitude Boot Camp Perfect    Kick-Start Your Happiness In order to figure out resolutions for your project, Gretchen recommends asking yourself the following questions: \u2022 What makes you feel good? \u2022 What activities do you find fun, satisfying or energizing? \u2022 What makes you feel bad? \u2022 What are sources of anger, irritation, boredom, frustration or anxiety in your life? \u2022 Is there any way in which you don&amp;#039;t feel right about your life? \u2022 Do you wish you could change your job, city, family situation or other circumstances? \u2022 Are you living up to your expectations for yourself? \u2022 Does your life reflect your values? Tips from Gretchen&amp;#039;s Secrets of Adulthood: \u2022 You can choose what you do; you can&amp;#039;t choose what you like to do. \u2022 People don&amp;#039;t notice your mistakes as much as you think. \u2022 Do good, feel good. \u2022 Most decisions don&amp;#039;t require extensive research. \u2022 What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while. \u2022 You don&amp;#039;t have to be good at everything. Become A Happiness Projector Each month, check out the magazine for Gretchen&amp;#039;s words of wisdom and updates on some of the people following Gretchen&amp;#039;s plan, including one of our own editors. Go online to womansday.com/happiness to meet other Projectors and get more feelgood resources. Follow us on Twitter for a daily dose of happiness at twitter.com/womansdaytweets Check out facebook.com/womansdaymagazine for support from other WD Facebook fans. Listen to RadioWD at womansday.com/radiowd for shows on looking good, feeling good and living well every day. Everyone can always be happier, right? Join us in this yearlong initiative to work on a great project: you! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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