Throughout the past 28 days we’ve been talking a lot about happiness and what we can do to increase how we feel. We’ve talked about a huge variety of different things from how sleep, exercise and nutrition can affect our mood, to simple strategies like decluttering and practicing gratefulness.

Tomorrow I’ll give you a quick little review and we’ll make some plans to go from here. Today though, as this 30 Day Happiness Challenge is coming to a close, I thought it would be a good idea to take stock and see if intentionally focusing on being happier is making a difference. I know it has for me, but how about you? I hope you’ve been following along and giving the various ideas a try. One thing we talked about in the past is keeping a journal. At the time, the idea was to practice gratitude and paying attention to the good things about us by writing them down. That same journal is also a great tool to judge how you’ve been doing throughout this challenge. Compare the earlier entries to the last few, or even how you’re feeling now. Hopefully you’re seeing some great improvements.

It’s important to remember that we go through seasons in our lives. There are times that we are overall happier, and times that are more challenging and sad. It’s ok to go through those sadder phases. I mentioned in one of the posts in this challenge that it would be sad if we only experienced happiness. We need to sad to make the happy stand out more. Without the tough times it’s hard to appreciate the good ones. If you’re stuck in a tough time, that’s ok. Do what you can to make yourself and your loved ones get through it and then work on bringing the joy and happiness back into your lives.

More than anything else I hope this short little challenge is making you more aware of the beauty and joy around you. It’s so easy to get sucked into our everyday lives and troubles to a point where we miss the people and things that will make us happy. This challenge was designed to make you more aware of them and create new, positive habits that you will continue to carry forward from here on out. We’ll talk a little more about where to go from here in tomorrow’s wrap up post. For now, I hope this has made a difference to you and I’d love to hear how you’ve enjoyed it and what you’ve found particularly helpful. Leave me a comment, connect on social media, or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you.