Happy new year! I'm going to be honest, right now I don't feel particularly happy, and I suspect that it might have something to do with the fact that 2015 feels very daunting right now (that and it's quite grey and gloomy outside).
I said to my wonderful other half yesterday that I want to make sure that in 2015 I feel less sad than I did in 2014. Don't get me wrong, there were lots of lovely parts of 2014, it's not like I sat in sadness all year. However, there were definitely more sad times than I really wanted to deal with. Unfortunately, knowing that work is often the root of my sadness, dealing with it seems scary. If I do get to the point where I decide that the only way to make myself happier again is to leave my job and do something different, I would be leaving everything I know in the world of work, leaving my fantastic friends and colleagues, and leaving a well-paid job. This terrifies me. I'm confident I would be able to find another job, but I'm not confident I would find something I'd really enjoy as I don't know that I have the experience - I only really have business analyst experience, and I'd like to do something creative. If I did somehow manage to get a job that I thought I would enjoy, I would worry that I wouldn't be any good at it. And what if it didn't work out? What if I couldn't afford to keep up my mortgage payments?
Admittedly, that's the extreme version - who knows, maybe I can just deal with my current work better. But either way, I want to be happier.
Given that my lovely other half also suffers from periodic sadness due to work (we both work at the same place - although we are also both similar in that we worry and stress about things a lot, so I have no idea whether it's really due to the work or whether we'd do that in any job), I have decided that each day in January we are going to rate our happiness/sadness level. At the end of January, we'll look back at the month and see how many days we have felt sad, happy etc and why. That way, we can work out whether we need to be looking to change something, and hopefully work out what.
I'm definitely expecting that we're going to need to change something. However, my lovely other half is just as scared as I am, so it's not going to be easy.
I'm going to try to post my daily 'rating' on here each day so that I have somewhere to track it.
In the meantime, I'm going to try to start doing things I really do love in order to make myself happy. Work shouldn't be all consuming, and I'm going to try to make sure that it isn't. I joined a local gym yesterday, as they have a swimming pool (I had a week's trial there before Christmas) and not only do I enjoy swimming, it normally makes me feel better. We've also just bought ourselves as DSLR as a Christmas/wedding present, so I'm looking forward to using it, trying things out, and hopefully learning to take some good photos. Choir starts again on Monday, and that always gives me a good release, and I can now throw myself into wedding preparations! I have plenty of crafting to get on with, and that usually puts me in a great frame of mind.
Even just writing this has been quite cathartic and has improved my mood. I do have such a lot to be thankful for. Maybe I'll go swimming as well though...
Wishing everyone a happy, and healthy, 2015.
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