February. Here we are, two months down already.
How was January for you? Was it a month of action inspired by resolutions and goal setting or are your Januarys somewhat more blue; a post-Christmas slump?
Mine was a mixture of both, on the one hand I joined a business support group, which is helping me create and moreover, actually work on goals for my business this year. On the other, I spent the last week of January absolutely exhausted. By the time "biz club" (as it's affectionately known) had our closing zoom call for the month I had forgotten two of my goals and set about frantically trying to complete them by January 31st (which I did).
Setting myself goals to tick off each month is keeping me accountable. I'm a real "completer-finisher" (I hate leaving things unfinished) so setting goals at the start of the month is already proving to be highly motivational for me, even if these first few goals have been very small and highly achievable. But then I am the kind of person who, when writing a to do list, will include something she's already completed so that she can tick at least one thing off. Really what I'm doing with these small and manageable goals is setting myself up for success so that I have evidence of being able to stick to a plan and achieve my goals when it comes to the bigger and more challenging goals later in the year. I'm not a fool. Baby steps.
So, in my last post I told you that I had set my resolutions for this year and that I would explain how I came to these resolutions and share with you the tricks I am employing to keep to them. My resolutions aren't imperatives like "go to the gym three times a week" or "drink more water" but are instead, intentions. This year, I want to be feeling as though I am:
Living my best quality of life
Financially stable and secure
Nourished
Connected
These came about as a result of doing an end of year audit. A personal audit. At the end of 2020, my first year of being fully self-employed, I attended an online closing ceremony hosted by one of my favourite people to follow on instagram @lucysheridan. After such a big year, I wanted to take stock and treated myself to a ticket (it wasn't expensive at £22, but back then, I couldn't justify spending any money on myself so this was a big deal for me). To cut a long story short, this ceremony and guided meditation changed my life immeasurably, so when Lucy released a free end of year breakthrough guide in December 2021, I leapt on it immediately. In the guide she asks us, what are your prized personal pillars? In other words, what is most important in your life? My top three came quite easily to me as I'd been doing a lot of work on myself throughout the year and identifying my core values and living by them is something I'd already been trying to do.
Living my best quality of life looks to me like having a home that is beautiful, comfortable, clean and tidy and that I'm proud of. It means going out for lunch or dinner with friends, buying good food and having fuel in my van. It's having a new air freshener in the van so that it smells nice, it's going to the hairdressers regularly and being able to go on spa days with my sister and have my nails done for special occasions.
Feeling financially stable and secure has always been a sore spot for me. I "learned" at a young age when we had to sell our pony that if you don't have enough money, you can't have nice things. My money mindset is something that I'm working very hard on and feeling financially stable and secure looks to me like having sinking funds for unexpected (and some expected!) costs like van repairs, vet bills, birthday and Christmas presents. It especially means paying into some sort of investment or pension for my retirement and having something in place to fall back on in case I can't work for any reason or if I want to take an impromptu holiday.
Nourishment. I don't just mean food, although that is a key part. Christmas saw me eating more meat than I have done in over a year and it left me feeling rubbish. I have so much more energy when I'm not eating meat so part of this resolution is to return to my more plant based diet. It does also mean drinking more water, but not in a prescriptive way!
Nourishment doesn't end with food and drink (in my case, lack of drink. It's been a year since I stopped drinking alcohol and I haven't looked back). As well as watching what I eat, I'm also mindful of what I'm consuming mentally. When I was at university, I used to watch the news every morning until I realised that it was upsetting me; I stopped watching and I became much happier. I'm also careful about what I consume on social media. I apologise if you've been kind enough to comment on any of my Facebook posts and I haven't replied, but I am never on there (what you're actually seeing on Facebook is being automatically shared from my Instagram grid). You will find me on Instagram though, where my feed is full of beautiful homes and inspirational quotes.
Those three intentions came to me very easily but it was after I came home from visiting my mum at Christmas that I added the fourth; the want to feel connected. During my time off between Christmas and New Year, I began to feel lonely. Living alone for the first time in my life, I don't always know what to do with myself in the evenings and can sometimes feel like I'm at a loose end. I don't own a TV and don't enjoy watching Netflix on my own so I resolved to feel more connected with my friends this year. I'm making an effort to meet up with and speak to them more often and a want to surround myself with like-minded people was one of the reasons why I joined The Business Bread & Butter Club.
Now onto the How.
First up: Vision Boards. Bear with me if you think this is woo woo nonsense.
For me, vision boards work quite simply by reminding me of what my goals are. Now, you might be thinking, who needs to be reminded of their goals? but I put forward this argument: Life Gets Busy. The day to day running of your life can be as simple or as complex as you choose to make it however, it's the unexpected $#!% that complicates things or slows us down. This could easily be a post in itself, so more on this next time.
Anyhow, after a long week at work, everyone wants to put their feet up and switch off (or their version of that) and it's easy to forget that you can take small steps towards your dream life in your downtime. For example, on my vision board last year, I included a picture of a van with my logo on it. I very easily could have not made that happen but because every time I opened my laptop, my desktop background reminded me of it, when I had an evening or weekend free, I started looking into it. And you only have to start small, you'll be surprised at how quickly these things can snowball. That's how manifestation works. By constantly reminding yourself of your goals in a subtle way, you are priming yourself to recognise opportunities that align with them.
Next up: Do One Thing Today That Makes You Feel...
Before Christmas, I attended a free online workshop (I love a free workshop). This one was hosted by Persia Lawson, a love coach, and was all about manifesting healthy, lasting relationships. At the time I was happily dating in a casual way and not looking to get into a new relationship anytime soon but I've always been fascinated by relationships and it made sense to "learn the lessons" ahead of time so that when the time came and I was ready for a new relationship, I'd be clued up.
(In hindsight, I now see how attending a workshop on creating your ideal relationship whilst "only wanting something casual" may have been sending out mixed signals to the Universe and I probably shouldn't have been surprised when something casual turned into something more meaningful. #manifestedit)
Persia shared with us her top tip for manifestation which in this case was for a "healthy, lasting relationship with someone attractive, successful and emotionally available" but when I realised that this method is actually very successful, I applied it to my new years resolutions.
On a post-it note on my bathroom mirror are the words:
Do One Thing Today That Makes You Feel:
Like You Are Living Your Best Life
Financially Stable / Secure
Nourished
Connected
When Persia's one big trick for attracting someone attractive, successful and emotionally available into your life turned out to be becoming someone attractive, successful and emotionally available, I felt underwhelmed. It seemed like a cop out. But within a few days, I began to see the genius in it.
Her tip was to do something everyday that made you feel this way, almost like a fake it 'til you make it approach. Eventually the effort involved with consciously doing these things falls away and you have yourself a new habit. Be the change you want to see in the world, right? Be, do, have. In that order. By becoming or embodying the thing that you want, you become a vibrational match for it. Like attracts like. People with attractive qualities are attracted to other people with attractive qualities. Successful people are attracted to other successful people. Emotionally available people don't settle for emotionally unavailable people! Do you see where I'm going with this?
It was the emotional availability part that caused this lesson to sink in for me. I found it easy to do something everyday that made me feel attractive and successful but something that required me to be emotionally available? That one was far harder, but I could see clearly how holding back in this area would be causing a block in my relationships; romantic, friendly and familial. Lead by example. If you're keeping deep and meaningful conversations off the table, then don't be surprised when other people don't start them first. When I realised that if I wanted emotional availability in a relationship then I had to bring that to the table myself, I saw how this applied to other areas of my life.
Like I said before, manifestation doesn't work by saying that you want something and waiting for it to happen; you have to do the work. And by putting something up as a daily reminder of your goals, be that a vision board, a mantra or a Do One Thing Today post-it note, then you are reminded every day to bring that to the table yourself. Bring those things into your life. That is manifestation. That is how you create your dream life. That is how you do the work. And again, by keeping your goals at the forefront of your mind in this way, you are more likely to notice opportunities that align with them as they arise.
So now that I've identified that I want to feel as though I'm living my best quality of life, that I'm financially secure, I'm nourished and I'm connected, I'm making an effort to surround myself with things, people and experiences that make me feel that way. I'm doing those things and those actions mean that I am keeping those resolutions. It's up to me to make those things happen. This may sound incredibly simple to some of you but I have no shame in admitting to you that it has taken me 29 years to realise that every day I choose how my life looks. I choose what to consume, where to live, how to live, where I work. And I know that sometimes it feels as though we don't have a choice and in some areas we have to consider others and their needs too but at the end of the day, we do have a choice! If only we have the courage to change the things we can.
I think the important thing here is, take action. One of my closest friends said to me last week:
"The scariness comes from 'the gap' - the difference between where you are now and that big beautiful life you dream of. No amount of work in a day or even a year could close the gap. But five years? You'll struggle to believe how quickly it all happened."
There's never a perfect time or a right time to do something or start something new and if there's one piece of advice I've learned and would share with anyone thinking about making a big life change, it's this:
Start Before You Are Ready.
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