Having a happy pregnancy

So I started this blog mostly for my own therapeutic rambling into the ether, an attempt to document and thus legitimise my attempts to lead a happier life through making an effort to do more stuff. However I don't seem to have found much time to do much exciting recently and life is changing fast. Am I still blogging about Doing more Happy or what?

Well if ever there was a time to enjoy life and get the most out of it its now. I've put off starting a family for a long time with this selfish notion that having kids would ruin any future fun in my life. Weirdly since it's become a reality I don't have that feeling at all. Maybe I have actually grown up??! I guess I am realising that life is not going to end just because I won't be backpacking through the jungle or out raving til 5am for a while (plus I didn't really do that anyway) It will just be different.

These next days, weeks and months will be made of crazy changes and fleeting moments, never repeated, and I should appreciate it. It's amazing what is happening right now- My body is making another human! Pregnancy is a transient time and we do need to make the most of the last times before a new person takes over our life.  So the ethos of Do More Happy still stands. Let's make this a happy pregnancy...

Myers-Briggs

It's much easier to be happy when you understand what it is that makes you happy. Sounds easy right? There's lots of big obvious things which you can say make you happy, from a cute kitten video to getting a pay rise. But actually what makes you happy day in day out, what do you get satisfaction from doing, what motivates you?

A link on facebook led me to a quick personality profiler site which led to a more insightful result than you might expect from a 5 minute free questionnaire.  Myers-Briggs is a psychometric test designed to measure psychological preferences based on the theory laid down by respected brain doc Carl Jung. It's something I've done a bit of before at work, but I haven't really seen it in this way before.

The questionnaire puts you into one of 16 personality types, whether you have a preference for Extrovert/Introvert, Intuituve/ Sensing, Thinking/ Feeling, Judging/ Prospecting. I came up ENTP- the visionary, the innovator, the explorer. It made so much sense I was actually quite excited about what I read, and stayed up late reading more (we do that, us ENTPs)

My (ex) boss looks at me like I'm mental when I say that I'm bored, that I just do not have the attention span for the work I am doing, I hate routine. I feel like some disruptive school kid. I'm not a troublemaker, I am ENTP. I argue to understand and challenge existing rules and routines. I love to learn and do new things, I have a billion new ideas which rarely go beyond my notepad, and I get distracted easily.

I'm really excited about my new job now. I've been in a few meetings this week and this project has momentum. A real change of pace, some huge challenges and high profile. Its bigger than I realised, with a chance to work with some clever people from one of the world's most respected consulting firms. And it's such a good fit- room for ideas, lots to understand and challenge, brainstorming.

This is the profile:

 http://www.16personalities.com/ENTP-personality

January Joy: Refocus your Career

'Refocus your career' was a January Joy I was prepared to ignore. Thinking too much about careers and employment at the moment does not lead to joy. However something changed yesterday. An opportunity arose, and suddenly I have a new job.

My company went through a restructure just over a year ago, which made my husband redundant and at the same time offered me a new role. I had to accept given my husband was now unemployed but it was not what I really wanted to do. I used to love my old job as a manager of people and projects, working autonomously, rarely at my desk, solving problems, planning and making things happen. Let's just say I don't do so much of that now and it makes me sad. It isn't that its a bad job, but it's not a good job for me.

I haven't really ever known what I wanted out of my career. I didn't go out to train in a specific field or go looking for a particular job when I left university, and I found myself on my career path coasting along comfortably. I worked hard, I was good at what I did, I had friends and a good team and I hope I was respected. I was also stressed, overworked, underpaid and under appreciated and would grumble about work like everyone else does.

So now I find myself in a job I'm not happy in and I have spent a lot of sleepness nights, and tearful car journeys home thinking about all the things that make me unhappy. I also understand much more about the things that do make me happy and what I do want out of my job.

There's only really two ways to deal with anything you are unhappy with- change it, or change the way you feel about it. That's what I have tried to do- I've been completely honest (not completely wise!) with my manager, with HR and with other people in the business who may help me change where I am. Time to take the advice I used to give my team all the time- if you want something there is no point hiding it! In the meantime I have done my best to stop feeling sorry for myself, and get my head down and get on with the boring stuff, make the best of the interesting stuff and find opportunities to grow and improve where I am.

Yesterday I was pulled into a meeting room with one of those 'have you got 5 minutes' that I have learnt to dread in this role. Someone with my experience is needed asap to second to a project team working with external consultants on a board sponsored program. I'll be working for my old boss, someone who is a supporter and encourager, not someone who puts me down. It will be doing more stakeholder management and project stuff, which I love, and it will open opportunities- putting me back in touch with people around the business and a network of managers and board members. Maybe. It's all a bit unknown and could also be months of awful data analysis trying to fix the unfixable, leaving behind my lovely team and the safe fingers-in-my-ears- trying - to-be-positive comfort zone.  I had to decide TODAY. Arghhhhh!

I've been looking for an opportunity and now here one is. I'm not ecstatic. Its too quick and has lots of unknowns. But if I stay where I am I will still be here in 6 months time, bored, frustrated, wondering what might have been. Where will I be in six month now I have accepted this secondment? Somewhere else and that's what I want. That's quite exciting I suppose. So I'm ready to embrace the change, lets go get the most out of this!

Argghhhhh!

Appreciation

"If you're unhappy, embrace change... make a difference... if you're bored find something to do - Nice one Amy for helping us all to enact this in our life!!"

My friend just posted this onto facebook following on from our facebook group. Love the sentiment, and love even more that my quest to do more happy is reaching out to my friends too! :D 

Blue Monday

I was not buying into this 'Blue Monday" thing. The combination of post-Christmas blues, crappy weather, debt, dieting, sobriety and first day back to work is said to make this the most depressing day of the year. I was determined not to get into this negative mentality. 

But then I spent around 3 hours of my day on the M27, couldn't find a parking space and had a day full of dullness, disagreement and horrible reality.Why does that make it the most depressing day of the year? It doesn't, its pretty standard so I'm not going to let it get me down.

Tomorrow I leave the house half an hour earlier.

January Joy

New years day is a rubbish day to get focussed and get achieving. Surviving the day without puking is usually the best you can hope for. I've had a whole 30 hours since I went to sleep on New Years morning, drunk and cheered by good friends and funny games. Since then I've done some sleeping and mostly monged about on a rainy day with TV, cats and social media. Sum total of useful achievement for 2014 so far has been agreeing to maybe go camping. 

So I'm going to let someone else provide me some focus to start with. Florence Finds is a blog I dip into regularly. I do not do magazines but I find FF feels much more real, personal and relevant. This month is #JanuaryJoy, with the simple concept to bring more joy to January.

Its an idea I can deal with. No crazy ambitions and unachievable goals, just a few little things to plan to do. I might not even do them all and I won't feel bad. I might add some of my own.

I'll blog some January Joy and Instagram too.  

Do More Happy in 2014

1. Do More of What Makes You Happy

Well 2013 was pretty crappy. Not devastating, life changingly horrendous, no one in my life died, no illness or horror that would really justify saying it was a truly awful year. But I was sad, worried, disappointed, stressed and demotivated for much of it. 2013 will not be missed.

Nothing has changed since yesterday, except I have a bit of a hangover and discovered a funny, sick party game (Cards Against Humanity). A new year will not suddenly fix things or change things but with all this fresh start, resolutions, looking forward stuff that is coming at me from every angle today I thought I might just get on the bandwagon.

So here we are with a blog, an idea formed in the half hour between the Star Trek DVD ending and Sherlock starting, at the end of a day mostly spent lazing on the sofa with a log fire, cats and TV. Like many of my ideas, it might not come to much, I get distracted and busy and have new ideas for my mind to wander off to, but let's try it.

The name of the blog for now: Do More Happy. With it a simple ethos: Plan, make effort, take chances, change, step back and appreciate and just do more stuff that makes me happy.  Lets do this..