#100HappyDays: why doing it will improve your life

I saw a post about the 100 Happy Days challenge among all the ‘get fit in the new year’ posts and other motivational optimist articles on New Year’s Eve.

The difference was that while the fitness ones were only after my money and served to make me feel bad for binging so much over Christmas, the 100 Happy Days article made me feel a bit more chipper and optimistic for the New Year – who doesn’t love a New Year optimist!?

Starting up my car again at the start of the challenge

The idea is that you sign up on the website, then take pictures of things that make you happy every day for 100 days and post them to an agreed social media platform, and then you can get a little book of all your photos at the end of the challenge, but only if you complete it! The website, which you can access here: http://100happydays.com/, has taken social media by storm, and promotes “long term happiness” saying those who have done it claim to:

“- Start noticing what makes them happy every day;
– Be in a better mood every day;
– Start receiving more compliments from other people;
– Realize how lucky they are to have the life they have;
– Become more optimistic;
– Fall in love during the challenge”

Now, I’ve done it and I would probably agree with all of this on the whole, despite having the most hectic term with a million and one deadlines on top of each other, and we all know it’s damn near impossible to be happy when that is the case!

Two down and a million more to go!

I started on New Year’s Day, and the 100th day was, conveniently, the last day of lectures, which coincidentally was also coursework hand-in day for ENCAP: 11th April. To start with, the challenge is all new and an exciting prospect and you really look for the things that make you happy each day. Note: having a smartphone really helps so you can take photos at a moment’s notice and upload them straight away.

This was a good day on the French Soc Paris trip

Obviously, some days are better than others. There are days when you genuinely have something to shout about, and other days when you end up scrolling through your phone to find a photo that you could pass off as being vaguely relevant. For example: screenshots of a Jack Whitehall post that I ‘liked’; that was clearly a bad day. But it teaches you to look for the good in things.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Jack!

Inevitably there are animal or pet photos:

This face is guaranteed to cheer me up 🙂

Sibling and family photos will usually be included throughout your 100 days, but I’ll get in trouble if I publish those here! I’m a foodie so sometimes there was the odd food photo, although I tried to keep them to an absolute minimum.

Pancake Day cannot go undocumented

One of the rules is that you’re not allowed to pick things to show off. Admittedly though, that’s hard, I mean, that’s what social media is for, right? Well, no, but that’s what it’s used for. Things that make us happy are often things that we want to celebrate and shout about, and we share our success with our friends. Sometimes, you end up with Instacollage pictures, mashing three or four together because there’s more than one picture from the day that makes you happy. I see no problem with this, the more happiness the better! When you do a good deed you can post about that because it encourages others to do the same:

Giving Blood: sorry to those of you who are squeamish!

So forget the haters and people that say it’s just a way to boast, this is all about being happy, so don’t let them bring you down. Share your happiness and make others happy. If they fight it, it’s their loss, not yours. Remember, smiles are contagious! So go ahead, sign up. I dare you.