"I have a confession to make: I am unhappy."

With those words I started telling the world about my 100 Happy Days Challenge. I'd decided I needed to change my mindset. Now here I am, 100 days later. Those 100 days went by much faster than I expected them to. They weren't all happy, but looking back at my Instagram page I can't believe how much has happened over the past three months.

At first I shared simple little pictures like these. Some days I was very happy, but didn't know how to show that. I usually ended up sharing pictures of small things. Maybe that was also because I felt there were no "big" happy things happening to me. That changed over the course of my challenge. I started doing things that scared me, like driving someone else's car, making a vlog and posting selfies. I found happiness in those things - and at that point I was only 30 days in.


I was doing very well - until Valentine's Day came around. I didn't take it being alone all that well and ended up hating myself for a week or two. It would have been a good moment to throw in the towel, call it quits. I didn't. Even though I was in a dark place for a few days here and there, there was always something to light up the darkness. Cake, pretty balloons, the local supermarket selling mango lassi. The 100 Happy Days Challenge helped me see how much those tiny things mattered.


Once I'd picked up my pieces halfway through the challenge, I discovered something new that I absolutely love now: art journalling. I'd been flirting with it for a few months in 2014, but during the aftermath of my Valentine's Day breakdown I fell in love with it. Ever since then I've been making wanderlust themed art journal pages. These are my favorites. When I move out I want to make huge prints of these two pages and put them on my living room wall.


So yes, I haven't been happy all throughout my 100 Happy Days Challenge. In my defense, it's impossible for humans not to experience any negative feelings for such a long time. And without the lows, the highs wouldn't be so high either. After a little over three months of spamming my Instagram followers with mostly snapshots of random objects, I can say I'm much happier than at the start of the challenge. I've found parts of myself that I wouldn't have found if I'd given up in February. It hasn't been an easy journey, but it was worth it. Now it's time to move on to the next one and see where life takes me.

Stay Awesome!