.jpg)
Happiness is not sustainable long-term. It comes and goes with negative encounters and life events. It gets chipped away at by loss, grief, pain, heartbreak, and sadness. Well-being, however, is sustainable. A strong well-being and sense of self is what gives people the grit, motivation, and mental health to overcome terrible life events and crippling emotions.
A couple years ago my heart felt heavy. I didn’t want to get up in the mornings, go to work, or do much of anything. I felt exhausted all of the time, run down, depressed, isolated, and unhealthy. I hadn’t “made it,” yet. I was so unhappy and I had no idea how to change it. I felt stuck. It was a work-place bully that finally pushed me to the point of “enough.” I realized that I had to make some pretty serious changes very soon if I ever wanted to create the kind of life that I wanted to live. I knew that it would take some hard work and a lot of planning. My life manifesto is “live lovely,” a motto I use to remind myself to live my best life. But at the time I wasn’t living it.
So I made plans and took action. It didn’t happen overnight. I planned for almost six months until I was able to put each change into effect almost all at once; I found a part-time job that would give me security but also the time and flexibility I needed to work on my own business, I quit the toxic job that I had, moved to a much smaller studio apartment with my husband, who was my fiancé at the time, adopted simple living strategies, developed healthier habits, traveled more, and simply decided to “live lovely” right now. During that time I also started to blog. I shared these changes online with a small group of readers that steadily grew.
I also had to adjust my mindset about what a happy and well-lived life looked like. It doesn’t mean reaching any finish lines, but rather, working to achieve goals and staying focused on that path. I didn’t have to “be there,” wherever “there” may be to be happy. I simply had to focus on what gave my life meaning and what I found to be fulfilling, rather than society or my family’s standards of achievement and success. I had to define success for myself.
I spent a whole year following my live lovely manifesto, a plan that I wrote up for myself like a road map to change my life and the way that I was feeling, as well as to change the way that I reacted to negative events for better well-being, contentment, and happiness. I called it my Year of Living Lovely Project. The biggest change I made was the decision to change itself. That road map included the obvious like career goals, but it also focused on changing my mindset regarding material things, money, travel, and daily well-being.
I was living in between sadness from the past, a lack of appreciation for the present, and an anxiety for the future. Sometimes I am mocked for my “rose colored glasses view on life,” but the truth is that everyone deserves a happy life. I realized that the more I focused on my own happiness and well-being, the more some people tried to hold me back. It is not asking too much to find happiness and you should never be made to feel badly for striving for it. We have one life to live, so make the most of it.
The truth is that life is messy and complicated and often sad. Life and people disappoint you. Loved ones die and bad things happen to good people. A smile may fool the world, but it doesn’t change the way you are feeling on the inside. I designed my Live Lovely Manifesto at a time where my life was feeling dark and worthless. On the outside, people assumed and even accused me of being unaffected by the bad events that were going on in my personal life and within my family unit. But on the inside I was fighting a battle to keep moving forward, to survive another day. I wanted the depression and the pain I was feeling to go away. I read countless self-help and positive psychology books to help me “think positively,” but it was not enough to change my life. I had to be the one to do that.
I started sharing these thoughts on my wedding photography blog, turning my blog platform into a lifestyle blog rather than a place where I only shared my photographs. I wanted to reach out to others who felt the same way that I did, and often still do. I wanted people to realize that well-being and happiness is a choice and that we can all strive to live a lovely life no matter what obstacles are thrown our way. And well-being doesn’t mean that we don’t care about others. There is nothing to feel ashamed of for taking care of ourselves. Like in an airplane, we must place our own oxygen masks on before we can help others put on their own.
On my blog I share my mini adventures and thoughts about living a lovely life. I share anything that makes me happy from travel, the New England lifestyle, books that I love, photo shoots that I work on, and my Year of Living Lovely Project. It is with great excitement (and a little nervousness) that I announce that I will be writing a book about my Live Lovely Manifesto. In this book I will be reaching deeper to help others to achieve not just their life goals, but a happier daily mindset to lead their best lives no matter the obstacles.
My life is not any worse or any better than anyone else’s. We all face our own obstacles and our own hurts, both physical and emotional. I do not lead a perfect life; nothing in life is perfect. But I do believe that life is beautiful and that happiness and well-being is a choice that we can make for ourselves. I will be going further in depth with the goals that I made to change my own life, achieve my dreams, and cope with negative life events. I don’t know how or when I will be sharing The Live Lovely Manifesto, but I hope that you join in the journey.
