Now, who would’ve thought we’d encounter some serious issues from the very first week?
Welcome back to Smashing Resolutions, my brand new blog series revolving around New Year’s resolutions and how I am planning to achieve mine in 2019. As promised, I’m going to provide you with an update post every Wednesday, covering the progress that I’ve made in the last week and some tips, tricks, advice and epiphanies I thought would help you achieve your resolutions (or goals!) this year.
Last week, I left you with an explanation of my resolutions, how I am planning to achieve each and what the plan of action was for the week starting the 2nd of January. And well, all was well until the 2nd of January came and I got a terrible cold.
As of today, the 8th of January, I am still struggling with said cold which took its toll on my health, physical and mental alike, and seriously messed around with my motivation and productivity. I’m usually not bad with colds, I can cope with symptoms no matter how bad they turn out to be; it is the inability to work that harms me the most (as I’ve already shared in a recent post, I don’t do well with long periods of time void of work). In a nutshell, I have not made the progress I was hoping I’d make. Not the best way to start 2019, eh?
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As my table of goals shows, I’ve only managed to tick off a few goals and make a start on a few others. Although at a glance, it doesn’t look as bad as I thought it was, the visual representation doesn’t properly showcase my performance as it stood: although I revised quite a bit for how poorly I felt, it still wasn’t as much as I needed, and I did go to the gym as much as my health permitted. I obviously did least progress on my small blog business, especially as far as online promotion goes; on the other hand, I took good care of my physical and mental health, so that’s something I should continue to do just as much moving forward. Given that it was the first week of this challenge and I was also sick for the entirety of it, I didn’t do too bad.
We can only go up from here, right?
I thought, in order to focus on success rather than the goals that I failed to complete, I thought I would choose a weekly highlight, or thing I did right and I am proud of.
And my weekly highlight for the first week of 2019 is definitely starting using my health journal! I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a copy from the first batch of the Me Time Journal, put together by YouTuber, author and inspirational life guru Melanie Murphy in collaboration with Stilnest. The Me Time Journal is a gorgeous planner designed to help you track your health, both physical and mental, and devise ways that you can improve it. Some of the things you can track in the Me Time Journal are mood, diet and digestion, water consumption and exercise, but that’s not it! The planner comes with insightful chapters on health, self-care and developing positive habits around the two, a gratitude log and a 30-day Me Time challenge to help you change your life for the better.
It might sound as though I was paid to promote this planner but no, that’s just how much I love the concept behind the Me Time Journal. I am so happy to finally have one and use it to track my health and keep my health goals in check this year. In 2018, I would track exercise, water consumption and diet in my bullet journal but the system didn’t really work for me: it turned out that I actually preferred to use my bullet journal solely for organising my uni work and everything I did around my career and blog. The Me Time Journal came just in time for that! I would love to share more about the journal and potentially review it after a month or so, once I build a fully fledged opinion on it.
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In last week’s introductory post, I also said that I would like to incorporate small, creative tasks every week, to provide myself with a little source of inspiration when I don’t really feel like making an effort towards my goals. My first such task was to create a vision board, and I was very pleased with the result!
I decided to keep it short and sweet, and use variations of pink and grey because they are colours that make me think of happiness, balance, peace and safety – which are feelings that I want to have more of in 2019. I included a short quote, ‘be good, do good’, as I would like to do just that in the new year: be good and perform well, academically and professionally speaking, but also be a good person more, and spread more positivity, as well as incorporate more positivity in my own life. I chose to use the following pictures: two laptops (to symbolise work, productivity and creative writing), a picture of Taylor Swift (because she’s everything I aspire to be, haha), porridge with seeds and fruit (because I want to leave a healthy lifestyle in the new year and also opt for more healthy meals), and a picture of the sea (because one of my resolutions this year is to organise the first holiday abroad with my boyfriend).
If you haven’t created your own vision boards for 2019, now is the time! Visualising your goals is the first way you can charge yourself up with positive energy that will attract the completion of your goals.
My creative goal for next week is to set aside a little bit of time every day to complete the daily Me Time Challenge which I spoke about a few paragraphs ago! In a similar fashion, I want to go back to my Burn After Writing journal, which I got as a gift for my birthday two years ago and I have yet to complete. That is a self-discovery, self-awareness journal and if possible, I do want to get to know myself better in the new year.
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My goals for the coming week are fewer than the ones I’ve set for the first week, as I would like to catch up on the goals that I haven’t really worked towards rather than start working on new ones. For the most part, I am working on the goals remaining from week one, in an attempt to move forward with several projects that are of interest to me right now, like exam revision, my dissertation project, and promoting my blog online. I also chose a few new goals in the personal department, and I changed the text colour to green for the departments of my life that I have made no progress on since the year started, and therefore should be prioritised.
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Because I struggled a lot with motivation this past week, I feel like I need a bit of a reset to get back on my feet. And truth be told, you might feel the same yourself. The winter holidays can be more tiring than relaxing, maybe you still feel lethargic after an intense 2018 and you haven’t fully recovered for the year that’s just started. And that’s okay. I can’t believe I’m saying this, as just two days ago I had an emotional breakdown around how useless I feel when I have a cold, and I am writing this post with just three hours of sleep had last night, but yes. It is okay to feel tired, or sick, or just ugh for a day, a week, a month or even a year.
But now we’re done with talking about what was and we’re going to focus on what’s happening right now. Tomorrow morning. In the next week of hustling and getting stuff done. If I can have a physical and mental reset, so can you. And I will now provide you with a small guide to how to do that, or in other words, how to have a reset morning.
Step one: have breakfast. Breakfast is seriously underrated – not only is it the tastiest meal of the day, but it is also essential for storing away enough energy for the day ahead. Make yourself a nice breakfast and a hot drink, and resist the urge to go on your phone first thing in the morning. Try reading a book or listening to a podcast instead! I, for one, am absolutely pumped to start reading Calm the F**k Down, the newest book from Sarah Knight, tomorrow morning.
Step two: declutter your space. You might be tempted to dedicate an entire day to cleaning around, throwing stuff out and putting the things you do need where they belong, but try a different approach. Set a timer for, say, fifteen minutes that you can spend tidying around. That’s actually a trick I learned recently, and it works wonders, especially if you get carried away with cleaning like me! For fifteen minutes, tidy your space up, make it look nice and neat and just appropriate for the challenges you’re taking up today.
Step three: dress to impress. Especially when I have a particularly busy day or I don’t feel very well, I like dressing up in the nicest outfit I can put together, doing my make-up and wearing my favourite jewellery. Although I might not feel that great, I’m looking great and that in itself makes me feel better! A cute outfit will also make me feel confident and enjoy my day more.
Step four: make a to-do list. Probably the most dreaded step of this mini-guide to resetting your life, but if not this, what are you resetting your life for? Try listing down three tasks you want to get done that day. Or make a list with everything that’s on your mind and you need to get done, but choose only three items you will focus on that day. Ideally, start with something easy or something you like. Break it down as much as possible, and push yourself to make the smallest of progress. Finally, remember that starting anything is the only hard part.
And there you have it! If you haven’t had the best of days recently, this little four-step procedure will help you feel good and ready to take on the world! You can be sure I will do all these things myself tomorrow morning, when I finally go back to living normally again.
I am already looking forward to next week’s update. This time around, I want to have good things to show for myself!
How are you doing as far as your resolutions are concerned? How has the beginning of the new year treated you? Please do let me know in the comments section below!
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