Expat Happiness Tip #8: Build Your Happiness Toolbox

Posted on 27. May, 2009 by Emmanuelle Archer in Blog, Expat Life, Tools & Resources
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I think we all agree that life overseas can sometimes be challenging, overwhelming or downright hard. When things get tough, wouldn’t it be great to have a range of happiness-booster tools to choose from?

Throughout Expat Happiness Month at Winning Away, you have been gathering tips and techniques to build your own expat happiness toolbox of sorts. Now you can add another two resources to your box, and they come from two of my favourite bloggers/writers:

Minimum Requirement List

In her lovely book “The Life Organizer: A Woman’s Guide to a Mindful Year“, Jennifer Louden aka the Comfort Queen talks about Minimum Requirements.

Minimum Requirements are simple acts of self-care that you need to consistently have in your life to feel content, balanced and energised – in other words, happy.

You probably know intuitively what makes you happier, be it a good night’s sleep, going for a swim after work or spending quality time with your partner.

Why not put all these things on a check-list of sorts, and see how often you are meeting your daily happiness needs?

I like to review my list of Minimum Requirements every time I move, preferably early on in my stay. Because expatriation is, ahem, a pretty major lifestyle change, I always find things on my list that need to be tweaked.

How can you maintain your Minimum Requirements in your new environment? What self-care traditions does your new country offer that you would like to adopt, be it siesta time, cherry blossom viewing or going to the sauna?

The Happiness Toolbox

Gretchen Rubin of the Happiness Project has, quite literally, put together an online Happiness Toolbox. The site is still in beta, but I like it so much that I want to share it with you today.

The Happiness Toolbox has something for everyone:
- You can list your Happiness Hacks, a personal inventory of what is sure to make you smile or feel happier at any given time.
- You can list your Minimum Requirements as your Resolutions.
- Has life taught you something important about what you need to be happy? Put it under Secrets of Adulthood!
- If you enjoy expressing your creativity, I think you will have a lot of fun putting together your Inspiration Board.
Besides, you can make all sorts of other lists, and I happen to think that lists are wonderful. Actually, one of my Happiness Hacks is “Make a list”

I hope you will give the Happiness Toolbox a try, as I find it really, really fun and useful. Of course, that might have to do with my unabashed love of list-making.
If you want to see a few of my entries there, my username is Emmanuelle.

What do you think? Do tools like these help you put together the daily building blocks of your happiness? Are they good reminders, or are they something that you do once and then forget about?

Emmanuelle

Picture: “Indescifrabili? Unlocking her heart” by Alistair Craven – via Flickr Creative Commons