project happiness

Ever since I got divorced, I've struggled with being happy. So often I feel heavy, clouded and burdened. It's very frustrating to me because I feel that I'm a generally happy individual who loves life. However, that hasn't been the case so much over this past year or so.
Recently I watched this Ted Talk by Shawn Achor. He conducted a study at Harvard called the happiness advantage showing how in our society, happiness is so often connected with achieving a certain level of success but because we're always pushing ourselves to be better, we never achieve "success" and consequently never achieve happiness. He then tells that it is our daily habits and behaviors that impact our happiness and that if we change them, we will be happier in our day to day lives while striving for success instead of having happiness as our end goal. Shawn then gives an exercise to do everyday for 21 days that he claims will increase your happiness. The exercise is really simple, this is what you do:

-Write down 3 things that you are grateful for. They have to be unique for each day so be creative.
-Journaling. Include in your journaling a positive experience you've had in the last 24 hours.
-Exercise for a minimum of 10 minutes.
-Meditate for a minimum of 2 minutes focusing on clearing your mind.
-Do one random (but still intentional) act of kindness.

I really like this idea and I've decided I'm going to try it. I've made a few tweaks though, included in my journaling I want to write about how I've seen the hand of the Lord in my life and I also want to include prayer and scripture study to this daily routine.
And so with that, starting today, Project Happiness commences. I've going to post updates to see how well these "exercises" are working for me and you are all welcome to try it with me if you'd like :)

Here is a link to an article about this video if you don't want to the watch the Ted Talk.