"The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin

I received The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin from Ann at Up North in a book giveaway and have enjoyed reading it. Basically, Gretchen decided to make an effort at becoming a happier person and focus on that mission for a year. She set some goals each month that she felt would increase her level of happiness if she met them and wrote a book about her project as well as starting a blog about it (www.happiness-project.com). She makes the point over and over that anyone could do their own happiness project and it would be unique to them.


I really found some of her research about happiness very interesting and she gives a lot of good suggestions. On the other hand, there was a good chunk of the book that really didn't interest me because some of her goals just didn't appeal to me. Those parts I just skimmed. Overall though, I think the basic concept is intriguing and found myself marking quite a few things in it that interested me. I loved how she lists her goals each month at the beginning of the chapters and in the back has summary pages of tips for attaining certain common goals such as "Tips to stick to a regular schedule of exercise," "Tips on getting your sweetheart to do chores without nagging," "Tips for coping with the fact that you don't remember a person's name," "Tips for getting an energy boost in the next ten minutes," to name a few.

There are actually Happiness Project Groups started across the country that you can join or you can get a kit and start one of your own. I found this out when I went on the Facebook page. The Happiness Project is a thought provoking book that is worth keeping.

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