The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin has been in the news quite a bit. I recently read it, and wanted to give my opinion. Can reading this book really make you happy? What is so special about Gretchen and her life? Why would anyone want to read it?

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin decides one day that she is just coasting through life. She is successful and has a happy family life, but she just doesn’t feel grateful. She feels like she could be more present in her life. She wonders if she is really happy. As she thinks about it day after day, she decides that she could be a happier person. She wants to be a happier person. She wants to improve in certain areas of her life with personal goals. She wants to appreciate her family more. Gretchen decides to launch a personal ‘happiness project’ and she spends quite a bit of time preparing and researching about happiness and deciding what she needs and wants to glean from this project. She comes up with 12 Commandments that she will follow, along with some Secrets of Adulthood that she has learned over the years. Using those as guidelines, she drafted a year-long Happiness Project that she followed month by month. Each month has a different goal, and by the end of the year she would evaluate her progress. The book is about her experience during the year of her project.

I don’t think this is your typical self-help book. Usually self-help books have a ‘fix-it’ attitude and sometimes overwhelm me, at times making me feel the author has no idea what it’s like on the other side of the fence. Gretchen doesn’t write her book that way. She is writing from her perspective. She wants to make changes in her life, and she documents her failures and successes, with what she learned along the way. It is all about her (which I know some people haven’t liked about the book) but I liked it. It helped me reflect on my own life, month by month. It makes the whole idea less overwhelming and I didn’t come away feeling like I couldn’t do it.

Never once while reading The Happiness Project did I feel like I was being preached to nor being talked to over my head. What Gretchen wants, everyone wants. Everyone wants to be happy, content, more grateful, more able to live in the moment, and genuinely improving, little by little. By reading her life experiences and her thoughts, failures, and ideas for her life, it has inspired me to make a few changes in my own life. Changes that have already made a difference. Changes as small as how I respond to my daughter when she asks me a questions. Remembering to not nag. Taking a deep breath. It sounds cheesy, but it really has inspired me to be a better person. I have been able to reflect on my life in all aspects, while trying to better myself. It reminded me that I already have a great life, I can just appreciate it more, and be happy in the moment! Obviously none of this is new information. But the way she writes and set up her ‘project’ resonated with me. It really helped my perspective. Sometimes all we need is a fresh perspective or application and we can really move forward. The Happiness Project would make a great gift for the upcoming holiday season!

Have you read The Happiness Project? What did you think about it?