Taking care of relationships & keeping in touch

During Xmas holidays I watched a TED talk, that had a huge impact on me. Robert Waldinger shared a summary of a 75-year-long study on happiness.

So, what really makes us happy? It's pretty simple and far from becoming rich or famous. Good relationships make us happier and healthier, being socially connected to family, friends, community, also the quality of close relationships. Good life is built through good relationships.

It’s not like this was sth totally new for me. I just think that the weight of the data - 75 years - is what impacted me so much. I thought about it for few days. So, what were some concrete actions I took?
I didn’t make a plan how to get new friends, since I barely find time to keep in touch with my existing relationships. I was thinking about the quality of my relationships and how I can deepen them.  

1. I made xmas gifts for all my friends. The gift was printed Year compass, small booklet that makes you reflect on 2015 and plan 2016. I love it, since it shows my values and what I find important and it also encourages my friends to relfect & plan. Reactions to the gift were really positive and it's great, since I was able to give a small gift to all of my friends (baking cookies is getting a bit old, right?).

2. I organized a home party. Sometimes I didn’t feel like hosting one – you have to invest some money, tidy up, wake up in the morning to a mess, tidy up again. But ... the shitty part of a home party lasts around 2 hours (shopping + cleaning), but a good party usually lasts much longer. I will organize a lot of parties in 2016, I love it! :)

3. I messaged my foreign friends that I have on Facebook and haven’t talk to in a while with a summary of my 2015. I sent around 35 messages, all the same, starting with

“Hi _____, I’m sending this to everyone I wish to keep in touch with. /Summary of 2015 - personal, honest, including professional and personal aspects/. I ended with “How was your 2015? It would be great to hear back from you.”

The response I got was amazing - people I haven’t spoken to in 3 years responded in a few minutes. I will do this every year. I also learned sth even more amazing. When you are honest and personal and you share the good and the bad, people become honest and personal too. I'm sure I learned much more about my foreign friends life, then I would, if I'd contact them on Facebook with "Happy 2016, how are you?"

Sending quite personal summary of my 2015 was defenitely out of my comfort zone. But I totally recommend it to everyone, it's also a great way to keep in touch with people, that you meet on international events, where you become friends in few days and then loose touch. Dan, thank you for inspiring me with your yearly letter to your friends thingy. :)

4. I made a list of people that live in Slovenia, that I haven’t seen in a while, and that I wish to keep in touch with. I invited them for a coffee. Every one said yes. I can't wait to see them and catch up.

5. I started sharing more personal things with my family, telling them about good and bad things, that are happening in my life. I think I haven’t had that good of a relationship with my parents since I was a little kid. It’s far from perfect, but it has improved a lot. Moving out helped a lot too. :)

6. Doing cute small things for my boyfriend. For example, when we went travelling, I prepared an envelope with challenges we can take during the trip and that can bring us even closer together. One of the challenges was to write how we feel about our relationship. Another one was staring in each other’s eyes for half an hour. Both left me crying. :)

7. When someone suggested to meet up, I said yes. Always being too busy for people around you does not bring anything good.

Do you have any great ways to keep your relationships healthy and happy? I’d be thrilled to get some more ideas.  

Good moments box

End of the year (or any other time) is always a great time to reflect on everything you’ve been doing so far. What makes you happy? What makes you unhappy? What do you want to change in the next year?

I think this year is the first time ever, that I actually started sth on 1st January 2015 and kept the habit. In 2015, I was writing down good moments. Actually, I wrote 274 good moments. From small things, like drinking a great cup of coffee, to bigger things, like realizing a new idea. The number of written good moments actually reflects the way I felt at certain times of the year really well. I wrote from 12 to 52 good moments per month, with average of 23 good moments.

 My good moments box

I already tried writing down good moments in 2014, but I only did it for 4 months on a couple of occasions. What changed? I realized the environment is really important. My box is in the kitchen, on the microwave, that I use every day to make my coffee/tea. So I constantly see it and I'm reminded of it. The second important element: having post-its and a pen available at all times.

I love my good moments box, since

1. thinking about good moments at the end of each day makes you happier,
2. you can become more aware of what makes you happy and this way you can increase your happiness.

Box opening & reading good moments day

 

On a Christmasy sunday morning, I sat down in my living room with my boyfriend and my best friend. I opened the box. I was looking forward to this all year long.

 

Being as structured as I am, I couldn’t just randomly start reading them. So, I took them out and made my year path from month to month. I counted the number of good moments for each month and read them out loud. After the big picture overview, I wanted to go deeper. So, I asked myself two questions. Who makes me happy? What makes me happy?

I was already quite aware of the answers before making the analysis. Still, some small things surprised me and I’m glad that I invested a Sunday afternoon in this. To answer the question who makes me happy, each time a person was mentioned, I made a mark by their name. What makes me happy was tricky, since things overlap. One event can cover several categories: socializing, eating good food, playing board games, trying out new things, having interesting conversations … Well, I didn’t want to overcomplicate things and somehow I made the analysis.

I'm really glad that I went on with writing good moments for the whole year. I will keep the habit in the next year. I also plan on changing some things:

1. This year I mostly used post-its. Without ever planning to post them somewhere. I’m switching to small beautiful colorful papers (thank you Alenka).
2. I will have a reminder in my calendar, asking me about my good moments each day. I did it quite regularly this year, but for sure I missed some of them.
3. I will open the box after each month and evaluate how I spent my time. This year, I only had a sneak peek after 6 months, but it would actually make sense to re-check my happiness more often, so that I can make changes faster.

I will also keep some things:

1. I will keep on mentioning small things, because they matter. Like receiving a text from a friend you haven’t heard from in a while. Or waking up to a snowy morning. Or having a proper cup of coffee.
2. I will keep the same box, I will just change the title to 2016. I will keep it in the same place, on my microwave, since this way it’s hard to forget about it. Also, I will always have paper and pen available there.
3. I will keep on writing dates on the papers, to know when a certain good moment happened.

For sure there is a mobile app for that, since there is a mobile app for everything. I prefer paper and I plan to save all 2015 good moments in a big envelope, so I can come back to it in a few years and for sure I’ll remember much more about 2015 then I would otherwise. I hope I inspired some of you to give good moments of 2016 a try and if you have any ideas, how to make this even better, please share your ideas.