International Day of Happiness

Each year, march 20th is International Day of Happiness – a day which celebrates happiness amongst the 193 countries which are part of the United Nations. 

I think a day to put the spotlight on happiness can only be a good thinng. Especially given the horrific events throughout the world and the increasing pressure to be everything all at once. We need a day to pause, breathe and celebrate what (and who) makes us happy. 

For me, happiness comes from (in no particular order):

– Writing (also known as my creative outlet): Whether it be just scribbing a few notes in a notebook, or typing a blog post, getting ideas and thoughts out of my head and into sentences makes me happy! 🙂 



– Knowing people enjoy reading my blog makes me happy: I love the support from each person who’s ever read commented on, or shared a post. That makes me happy! Thank you. 🙂

– Being on track to work for myself in a freelance consulting environment: Since uni, it has been a dream to work for myself, but the last few months, this has started to become a reality. Being on track to fulfilling my career goal makes me happy. 🙂



– Other people’s gratitude: Being thanked for the things I do for people. When this gratitude is in the form of gifts, it’s even more awesome. 🙂



– Spending time treating myself to something which makes me feel relaxed and pretty: Self care makes me happy!





– Time out: Taking time out to do something fun, just like going to the football, makes me happy! 🙂





Last but certainly not least, my friends and family make me happy! 🙂 









Happy International Day of Happiness! What makes you happy?

When reality TV hits close to home

There are times when you’ve had a crazy busy weekend, that you need to spend your Sunday evening relaxing. This is me tonight. Actually, all of the last week has been mental. So I’ve sat myself on the bed with a few small chocolates and the TV. I decided on watching I’m a celebrity, get me out of here.

As the episode went on, Chrissie Swan had a challenge where she was in a tank of water filled with scary things (bullfrogs, sea snakes and crocodiles) and she had to use some keys to unlock padlocks which were connected to chains around her wrists and waist. The challenge was to find the right keys to unlock the locks. All the while, the scary things were swimming around her and sitting on her head and just plainly being scary. 

Watching this, I was thinking about how scary those scaly creatures looked and how I hoped to never get so up close and personal with anything that scary. 

But the thing that hit me was the conversation that went down once Chrissie got out of the tank of scary things. Chrissie spoke about how it was the most terrifying thing she’s ever done and how she was truly scared. After being disappointed at not doing as well as she expected of herself, Chrissie went on to say that usually she worries about not doing as well as she’d hope and sometimes it stopped her from trying things. Because she didn’t want to ‘fail’. 

This hit me deeply…

I am somewhat of a perfectionist. I like things done well. I like to do be proud of the things I do. And not reaching these standards upsets me. I hate not doing well for myself. There have been times I’ve not tried something because I wasn’t certain of my ability and I didn’t want to do poorly. 

But the thing I’ve realised recently is, the main thing is that you try. If you attempt something, that’s worth a lot of credit in itself. We shouldn’t ever be afraid to try something, because even if we don’t do as well as we want, it’s ok because we tried. Through all the scariness and all the unknown, we gave it our best shot. I think we need to remember that. 

Who knew life revelations could come from a night of TV? Here’s to Chrissie’s attempt tonight and here’s to no longer being too afraid of “failing” to give something a shot.