Trauma 4.0

Preface: 
Every week, for the next fifty weeks (AKA one year), I am going to follow a different tip or piece of advice that is supposed to help you become a happy person with a fulfilling life. Then I am going to share my experiences with you. The things that I find fulfilling I will try to just integrate into my daily habits. 

Each week I will:
1. Pick a goal/habit/tip/etc. & post it to the blog at the beginning of the week. (If you think it sounds like fun please try it too!)
3. Spend the week carrying out the activity (read the book, attempt the feat, integrate the advice into my life, etc.)
4. Articulate my experiences repost at the end of the week.
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I am generally a happy, healthy person. I have a great job, a wonderful, supportive family, I share a beautiful home with the love of my life, I am healthy. So why am I embarking on this journey? Because I want to be happier! I'm pretty big on making lists, so a list it is...

I am doing this because:

1. I believe that we are what we tell ourselves we are and that our internal dialogue defines us. I am working on making my internal dialogue more positive.
2. I think that there are some primal, basic human instincts that dictate much of our reactions and emotions, and that you need recognize those gut reactions before you can stop them from controlling you. I would like to explore the literature about this. I think that my instincts in a lot of situations make me overly defensive, which is NOT HELPFUL.
3. I am interested in meditation and mindfulness and would like to learn more about it
4. I have the plague of knowing what the right choices are and still making the wrong ones, then guilting myself later for not doing "the right thing". I know what foods have zero nutritional content, I know I should drink more water and less diet coke, I know that multitasking is totally inefficient. Yet I find myself on the couch eating Hound Dogs (pizza), drinking a diet coke, watching "Girls" on HBO and trying to read a chapter of my Leadership textbook. Feeling guilty about it later doesn't really help my self-esteem or prevent me from doing it again. I'd like to... not do this anymore
5. I am totally a type-A planner. In the past few years, my love of planning sort of pulled me away from living in the moment and toward planning for the next moment. I would like to live in the moment, since that is all we really have.

If anyone wants to follow the advice of the week along with me, please do! Share your experiences in the comments.