I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the things I’d like to do and accomplish in the 2nd half of the year. I try to stay clear of the word goals as some of the things I want to do don’t necessarily fall under that category and aren’t always measurable.
Get more sleep. A recurring theme for me each year – and if I’m being honest, each day – is to get more sleep. Hubby likes to joke that I’m allergic to sleep because no matter how many times I say I want to go to bed early, I truly end up going to bed later than planned. Even worse, I’ve been struggling to fall asleep, and stay asleep for a while now. I feel like this might be because my mind is still running at a 100 miles p/h when my head hits the pillow. Taking this into consideration, I’ve started incorporating a wind-down routine an hour or so before its time to go to bed. It involves me taking valerian with a glass of cold water, staying away from my devices, having a long hot shower and giving myself a face massage. In doing all this, I hope that my mind is taking a hint and slowing down. I’ll keep working on this and will let you guys know how I go. I’m also thinking of taking a break from valerian and swapping it for the Nutralife magnesium sleep capsules. If you’ve got any tips on sleep, do share.
Improve my fitness levels. Cultivating a healthy relationship with exercise – or as I like to call it, physical culture – was very high on my list at the beginning of the year. Although I slipped once or twice in the last 6 months, I’ve made an effort to remain as consistent as I can with the habit of doing something 4 times a week, every week. For the remainder of the year, I want to push myself a little outside my newfound comfort zone by incorporating some form of yoga into my routine once a week. I also want to build on my newly formed habit of moving 4 times every week. It took a mindset shift to get here and I want to keep the momentum going.
Read more, and embrace audiobooks. As a daily commuter, there are two things I can easily do during my commute: read or sleep. Most of the time, it’s the latter as I haven’t had the best sleep the night before. If I can get more sleep every night, this will be an easy win as I love reading and I have a couple of books that are waiting for me to read.
Be more gentle with me. Ahh. This is definitely the hardest one on the list. As I get younger, I’m making a conscious effort to forgive myself as quickly as I try to forgive others. I’m also trying not to be too hard on myself when I make mistakes or don’t perform as I expected. I want to focus on gaining clarity on whatever the issue was, being accountable to myself, and extend forgiveness to myself instead of beating myself up.
Improve my photography skills. Have you heard of the phrase point and shoot? That is exactly what I do. Literarily. I don’t think of composition, lighting, and any other thing that might make the picture tell a story. And these are all of the things I want to learn. But specifically, from my husband, because he has a very unique way of viewing basic things and telling a story with a picture. Do tell him I said so.
Learn how to draw. All I can say is I’ll be spending a good amount of time learning on Skillshare. It must happen this year. I’ll try to share my journey as I go along. If you’d like to get 2 months’ free access to Skillshare’s premium courses, click here.
