My Final Assignment - Part 1
My Plan for Committing to Savoring
Have you ever wanted something so badly but you didn't quite know how to achieve it? Having a big picture goal with sub goals that support it helps gives us the framework and motivation to accomplish it. With the right determination anyone can adapt good habits to succeed. Think back to a time you achieved something...did you make it a priority? When striving to achieve a goal, effort and commitment are key. It takes making your goal a priority even when it seems like you don't have the time to do so (remember no one is EVER too busy). Every time we have failed it's because we de-prioritized our goal, life interfered, or you lacked the right support or variety. To overcome these obstacles it will take daily effort and educating yourself about what you're trying to achieve so that you can try many different approaches in order to get there. Striving to achieve something gives us a sense of purpose and meaning. While it's impossible to avoid negative feelings (they are completely natural after all), goals help us to envision what it's going to be like when we reach the summit and that thought will pull us out of those funks more often than not. Setting goals is how we access the power to change our lives in real and lasting ways and people that set goals are significantly happier than those that don't have strong aspirations.
My Plan to Commit to Savoring
As a part of our final assignment we have been given writing prompts each week to help us better structure and solidify our improved habits. Setting a time frame is an important first step when setting a goal. Since this was already laid out in the course I didn't have to think about how long I wanted to commit to this habit, but it is definitely something to consider when setting goals of your own. One of the prompts from this week was, "Did you utilize situation support or goal setting strategies?" After deciding upon savoring as my focus, I knew I wanted to implement the goal setting strategy that we learned (and that I mentioned in my previous post) called WOOP. To quickly review, WOOP is an acronym for a problem solving technique that stands for: Wish, Outcome, Obstacles, and Plan. So here's what my WOOP looked like for savoring:
Wish - I wish to savor things in my life more.
Outcome - I will be grateful and experience things to their fullest extent. I will be able to truly be present, stop my ruminating, increase my cognitive function, and be happier.
Obstacles - Mind-wandering and ruminating, social media and other distractions, a busy schedule/life, and not being authentic by doing things I don't actually enjoy (unable to set healthy boundaries or say no sometimes).
Plan "If-then plan" -
Mind-wandering and ruminating -
Social Media and Other Distractions -
In conclusion, savoring is about truly experiencing the journey and not focusing only on the end result, so I hope you enjoy my quest to savor things more in life. My hope is also that putting this out there for all to read makes me commit more to it myself. I look forward to seeing what this adventure will look like and I hope you come along for the ride.
"The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin
For the past 7 weeks I have been learning about ways to improve my overall well-being and the well-being of others (as you can see from this blog) due to the course 'The Science of Well-Being". As I have mentioned before, I started to take a closer look at my personal growth over 2 years ago. I used many different strategies along the way that helped me immensely, but I feel like everything is coming together now due to the structure of this course and my new found gift of time. What I can honestly say though is that I am happier than I was at the start of this course, and I am excited about the new found path that I am on. Since this is a 10 week course, I have now embarked upon my final course assignment which is to pick one of the happiness strategies we were taught and implement it for the next 4 weeks. Our choices were between:
- Signature strengths
- Gratitude
- Meditation
- Kindness
- Social Connections
- Savoring
- Exercise
- Sleep
Immediately I was torn between meditation and savoring because I have seen the greatest change and benefit from these two happiness strategies so far. But after careful consideration I decided to go with savoring as the habit I would choose to implement this month.
Why Savoring?
Have you ever taken something for granted that you initially spent months if not years pining over before it was yours? Or maybe you have people in your life that you talk to regularly, but you don't quite get the same satisfaction out of your conversations that you initially did. How about that beautiful street that you live on that you were so thrilled about when you saw your apartment for the first time, but now seems mundane and ordinary? Chances are if you've experienced any of those examples before then you are most likely not taking the time to savor things in your life. For most of us we are so privileged that we forget what it's like to not have something, and before we know it all of those wonderful things we have start to become seemingly meaningless. No longer does that $40 meal taste as good, and that nice bottle of wine that you never would have dreamed of spending the money on in college for, becomes an evening staple with your dinner without you even realizing it. We simply get so caught up in the chase that we become disconnected and out of touch with what we already have and why we wanted it in the first place. Due to this reason I have found that savoring requires implementing a lot of different happiness strategies simultaneously in order to be able to allow yourself to step outside of an experience and appreciate it, but once you give yourself that time to savor things you will realize that you will start feeling things more deeply and living life to the fullest.
Have you ever taken something for granted that you initially spent months if not years pining over before it was yours? Or maybe you have people in your life that you talk to regularly, but you don't quite get the same satisfaction out of your conversations that you initially did. How about that beautiful street that you live on that you were so thrilled about when you saw your apartment for the first time, but now seems mundane and ordinary? Chances are if you've experienced any of those examples before then you are most likely not taking the time to savor things in your life. For most of us we are so privileged that we forget what it's like to not have something, and before we know it all of those wonderful things we have start to become seemingly meaningless. No longer does that $40 meal taste as good, and that nice bottle of wine that you never would have dreamed of spending the money on in college for, becomes an evening staple with your dinner without you even realizing it. We simply get so caught up in the chase that we become disconnected and out of touch with what we already have and why we wanted it in the first place. Due to this reason I have found that savoring requires implementing a lot of different happiness strategies simultaneously in order to be able to allow yourself to step outside of an experience and appreciate it, but once you give yourself that time to savor things you will realize that you will start feeling things more deeply and living life to the fullest.
Like most of the people I surrounded myself with, my schedule pre-quarantine was packed to the brim with activities. While they were mostly healthy, they didn't allow me the time and space I needed to truly appreciate them or the other things that I had in my life. One of my biggest struggles has been my battle with anxiety, and one of the key components of that anxiety is my tendency to ruminate. I constantly think about whether or not I've upset someone or I am obsessing over a scenario from earlier in the day that I believed I had "messed up" in. Needless to say I'm not being very present to the activities or people I'm spending time with when my mind is wandering elsewhere. I've found savoring to be one of the best reminders and strategies to stop ruminating, to stay present, and make the positive effects of the things I enjoy last longer.
How to Savor
Due to my nature, I'm readily willing to give others what they want and need, but I rarely take the time to give that to myself because in my mind that would be selfish of me to do. Another deep-seated insecurity that often creeps in is that I will only be loved by others for what I give or do for them rather than being loved for my authentic self. This led me down a path of inauthenticity and resentment at times. In the first week of the course we identified our character strengths and my top strength is 'honesty' or 'integrity'. Which begged me to once again ask myself a question that I have asked myself many times before and that is, "How can I be the most authentic version of myself and honor that by choosing activities that reflect what I truly want to be doing and not the things that I think I should be doing?"
Early on in quarantine I remembered one of my favorite takeaways from Gretchen Rubin's book "The Happiness Project", and that is to try and do the activities that you enjoyed when you were a kid to make you happier. I'm an only child, which means I spent a lot of my time keeping myself occupied in my earlier days. So I started contemplating the things I used to spend countless hours on and tried them out (of course in updated adult versions). This led to more dancing, painting, journaling, watching my favorite shows, cooking the meals I enjoyed when I was little, getting outside more, and making videos (now they're a lot more professional than the weather broadcasts I used to film...but nonetheless they're still videos where I'm talking to an imaginary audience alone in my room).
Once I started implementing those activities in to my day time flew by, and I noticed I was immediately less anxious. The more an experience challenges you, has variation, and uses your strengths, the more likely the experience is to provide you with flow, which stops that awful ruminating I was talking about and allows you to be present. By creating more of these moments in my day I was actually stopping the cause of my anxiety in its tracks. So you may ask if one will see benefits to these types of activities in the long term or just in that short fleeting moment. One of the best ways to prolong those amazing feelings that we experience from flow activities is to savor them. Identifying first the things that you enjoy and that will provide you with a sense of meaning and purpose is the first step towards how to better savor things in life, because the only way savoring will be effective is if you are savoring and finding the good in your life.
How to Savor
Due to my nature, I'm readily willing to give others what they want and need, but I rarely take the time to give that to myself because in my mind that would be selfish of me to do. Another deep-seated insecurity that often creeps in is that I will only be loved by others for what I give or do for them rather than being loved for my authentic self. This led me down a path of inauthenticity and resentment at times. In the first week of the course we identified our character strengths and my top strength is 'honesty' or 'integrity'. Which begged me to once again ask myself a question that I have asked myself many times before and that is, "How can I be the most authentic version of myself and honor that by choosing activities that reflect what I truly want to be doing and not the things that I think I should be doing?"
Early on in quarantine I remembered one of my favorite takeaways from Gretchen Rubin's book "The Happiness Project", and that is to try and do the activities that you enjoyed when you were a kid to make you happier. I'm an only child, which means I spent a lot of my time keeping myself occupied in my earlier days. So I started contemplating the things I used to spend countless hours on and tried them out (of course in updated adult versions). This led to more dancing, painting, journaling, watching my favorite shows, cooking the meals I enjoyed when I was little, getting outside more, and making videos (now they're a lot more professional than the weather broadcasts I used to film...but nonetheless they're still videos where I'm talking to an imaginary audience alone in my room).
Once I started implementing those activities in to my day time flew by, and I noticed I was immediately less anxious. The more an experience challenges you, has variation, and uses your strengths, the more likely the experience is to provide you with flow, which stops that awful ruminating I was talking about and allows you to be present. By creating more of these moments in my day I was actually stopping the cause of my anxiety in its tracks. So you may ask if one will see benefits to these types of activities in the long term or just in that short fleeting moment. One of the best ways to prolong those amazing feelings that we experience from flow activities is to savor them. Identifying first the things that you enjoy and that will provide you with a sense of meaning and purpose is the first step towards how to better savor things in life, because the only way savoring will be effective is if you are savoring and finding the good in your life.
Why Set Goals?
Have you ever wanted something so badly but you didn't quite know how to achieve it? Having a big picture goal with sub goals that support it helps gives us the framework and motivation to accomplish it. With the right determination anyone can adapt good habits to succeed. Think back to a time you achieved something...did you make it a priority? When striving to achieve a goal, effort and commitment are key. It takes making your goal a priority even when it seems like you don't have the time to do so (remember no one is EVER too busy). Every time we have failed it's because we de-prioritized our goal, life interfered, or you lacked the right support or variety. To overcome these obstacles it will take daily effort and educating yourself about what you're trying to achieve so that you can try many different approaches in order to get there. Striving to achieve something gives us a sense of purpose and meaning. While it's impossible to avoid negative feelings (they are completely natural after all), goals help us to envision what it's going to be like when we reach the summit and that thought will pull us out of those funks more often than not. Setting goals is how we access the power to change our lives in real and lasting ways and people that set goals are significantly happier than those that don't have strong aspirations.
My Plan to Commit to Savoring
As a part of our final assignment we have been given writing prompts each week to help us better structure and solidify our improved habits. Setting a time frame is an important first step when setting a goal. Since this was already laid out in the course I didn't have to think about how long I wanted to commit to this habit, but it is definitely something to consider when setting goals of your own. One of the prompts from this week was, "Did you utilize situation support or goal setting strategies?" After deciding upon savoring as my focus, I knew I wanted to implement the goal setting strategy that we learned (and that I mentioned in my previous post) called WOOP. To quickly review, WOOP is an acronym for a problem solving technique that stands for: Wish, Outcome, Obstacles, and Plan. So here's what my WOOP looked like for savoring:
Wish - I wish to savor things in my life more.
Outcome - I will be grateful and experience things to their fullest extent. I will be able to truly be present, stop my ruminating, increase my cognitive function, and be happier.
Obstacles - Mind-wandering and ruminating, social media and other distractions, a busy schedule/life, and not being authentic by doing things I don't actually enjoy (unable to set healthy boundaries or say no sometimes).
Plan "If-then plan" -
Mind-wandering and ruminating -
- I will build more time in to my day to be fully present for the task at hand.
- I will carve out time in my day for the things I enjoy by making sure I plan my day accordingly the night before.
- When my mind starts to wander I will refocus my thoughts to the present and take the time to appreciate the moment by writing about it (more specifically keeping my gratitude/savoring journal on hand so I can jot things down throughout the day)
- I will meditate daily to improve my mind-control.
Social Media and Other Distractions -
- I will only use social media purposefully.
- I will put my phone away when doing activities that don't require it.
- I will put on screen time app limits on my phone to limit my usage.
- I will read the book "How to Break Up With Your Phone" to better educate myself on some other habits I can implement.
- When I start to mindlessly scroll through my social media feeds I will do one of the following activities instead:
- Dance
- Listen to music or my favorite podcast
- Read
- Watch a show (without distractions)
- Meditate
- Write or journal about the things I savored that day
- Exercise
- Cook
- Walk outside with Theo
- Paint
- Talk with friends and family
A Busy Schedule -
- I set healthy boundaries by setting specific working hours and saying no to things even if it means making less money.
- I will utilize 'time affluence' strategies in order to carve out more time in my day for the things I enjoy.
- I will calendar and plan out my day the night before.
- I will never multi task during things I enjoy.
Create More Flow Experiences -
- I fill find things that appropriately challenge and engage me.
- I will lean in to my character strengths at work and in my relationships.
- I will workout, write, dance, meditate, or learn a new skill.
- I will invest in experiences over material things.
Reminiscing Strategies to Increase Savoring - (Reminiscing is a key part to savoring. As a friend so eloquently reminded me tonight, it's important to break out of the monotony and cycles we experience through things like art, pain, and love. These moments make us feel something and quite literally wake us up...I had a moment like that tonight which I'll talk about in a little bit.)
- I will use photo albums to savor memories and reminisce with friends.
- I will write about how I'm grateful for these experiences and the people I interact with, because of them my life is full.
- I will have gratitude visits with the people closest to me and journal about it afterwards.
I will document my progress by writing in my journal every evening about all of the things I savored and how it made me feel. That way I'll also have things to look back and reminisce about.
Part of my entry from 5/17/20
As I sit here watching Taylor's (Taylor Swift in case you didn't know) City of Love Concert. I'm immediately transported to all of the other concerts where I sat in the audience with tears in my eyes. I removed every distraction (except during commercial breaks when I would text the besties about my emotional responses to the songs). This incredible artist can transport you to somewhere in the most beautiful ways with her innate story telling capabilities and performance quality. I remember the day that Jaime and I met her, and how we ran through the streets of Nashville after in utter disbelief that our dreams actually became a reality. As her personal photos from Paris are being displayed on the screen, I'm also taken back to my trip to Paris nearly 7 years ago. It was my first trip to Europe ever, and thanks to this moment I'm now pouring over all of the pictures from that trip and remembering all of the amazing sights, smells, and tastes of that beautiful city. I'm savoring this moment of being able to be in a completely different place and time because of this incredible performer. Art is truly powerful.
In conclusion, savoring is about truly experiencing the journey and not focusing only on the end result, so I hope you enjoy my quest to savor things more in life. My hope is also that putting this out there for all to read makes me commit more to it myself. I look forward to seeing what this adventure will look like and I hope you come along for the ride.
Resources:
"The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin
"The How of Happiness" by Sonja Lyubomirsky
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