Finding Happiness Together – AMAZING Marriages

Life in Love  //  8th July 2013

Since we’ve been married, finding happiness together has always been one of our biggest goals. We’ve always believed that the choices we make in life lead to our overall happiness. If there is just one thing we could have in life, it would be to always be happy. When we are happy, the day goes by so much quicker, we get things accomplished faster, we are excited to wake up in the morning, and we are more pleasant to be around. Liz and I have always tried to communicate with each other as much as possible about what makes us happy but just recently, we decided to take a more strategic approach to our happiness. Ok, I must admit, as a former engineer, this made me super excited!!! :) I am a bit of a nerd for creating plans, processes, and designs. :)

As we were in the car driving to photograph a recent wedding, we began chatting about our dreams for the future, living in Annapolis, owning a café, filming a documentary, and making family a larger priority in our lives.  As we chatted, we started feeling frustrated. A lot of these dreams have been on our minds for a while now and although we are making progress towards each of them, for some reason, on this car ride, it just felt like we were not going in the right direction.

It was at that moment that I said to Liz, “What makes you happy? What makes us happy?” There was a silent pause while we both thought about the answers to these questions. The answers were simple: Spending time with each other, sharing our home with family and friends, helping others have a more amazing life together, serving others, and capturing photos that couples will have for the rest of their lives.

As we talked more during our trip, we realized that the things that make us happy were currently not necessarily the top priority in our lives and that they didn’t all match up to our future life goals. As we approached the venue for our wedding, we knew we needed to think on this further and continue the conversation.

So back to the type A part of my personality, :), we decided to create a monthly Happiness Summit in order to help us obtain greater happiness together and to make sure our life goals match up with what actually does make us happy. So you might be asking, what does our Happiness Summit look like? As with our Dream Storm meetings, we decided to hold it at a place that makes us happy. For us, that can be any of a few places: On our rooftop deck, at our favorite coffee shop, or sitting in the sand at the beach. Once we are there, we ask ourselves the following questions.

• As an individual what makes us happy?
• As a couple what makes us happy?
• What do we think makes each other happy?

After spending 5 – 10 minutes on each question separately, we compare notes. As we chat we discuss ways to help each other be happier and then we come up with a happiness plan that answers the following questions:

• What can we do each day to help each other be happier?
• What tasks, activities, and frustrations can we eliminate in order to be happier as a couple?
• What do we each do well to make each other happy that we could do more of on a regular basis?

Finally, once we’ve decided on our plan for happiness, we take some time to dream about the future. As we think about our future, we think about how accomplishing these goals will make us feel on an everyday basis. If the effort to accomplish a goal on our list isn’t going to make us happy, then we stop and think about whether the goal is something we really want to achieve. In the end, knowing that life is short and that we should spend it being happy together is the most important goal we have.

So as you go about your week, we hope that you will take sometime together to host your own Happiness Summit. Liz and I will be hosting our own later this week and we will definitely share our results. But no matter what, whatever you do this week, be sure to do the things that make you happy!!!

Thanks to all of our AMAZING Friends and Family (in and not in the photo!) that helped us celebrate the 4th of July last week!!!

Have an AMAZING Week!!!