Who
remembers my blog about the Challenge? A sort of
self improvement thingy
that I supposedly started on the third of January.
It
was inspired
by my
friend Melanie and
2 Facebook posts currently doing the rounds.
See
them here if you are interested:
http://brightside.me/article/how-to-change-your-life-for-the-better-in-just-one-month-505/
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/12/52-fun-things-try-a-new-one-each-week-of-the-year/
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/12/52-fun-things-try-a-new-one-each-week-of-the-year/
I
promised an update so here it is, for what it is worth. The word
fail is in my head!
Week
1. Purifying the body and mind
Step
1 - Get up earlier.
My
goal was actually to
make sure that my light is off by midnight and
that
I was
up by
8.30. I
did manage to stick to this for the whole of week 1 but week 2 has
seen me slip back to reading, browsing etc. until the wee hours. So
little time during the day. I can't say that I noticed any real
difference in a few more hours of sleep because I didn't really
sleep anyway.
Step
2 – Better nutrition. My goal here was to try to eat
more light, healthy but nutritious meals and they needed to be easy
to make, quick to cook and relatively cheap. I wanted to try a new
recipe each week. I did actually do this on week one. I cooked
Mujaddara which is a kind of pilaf made from rice and lentils. It
isn't particularly light, but it is nutritious, healthy, cheap and
easy to do. It was OK but could do with being a bit spicer. I might
make this again. Find the recipe here
Step
3 – Sport I.E. Exercise. I am going to try and incorporate some
simple stretches into my day. BIG fail here, it simply didn't
happen. Lack of time I think. I did keep to my 10,000 steps
everyday though and actually lost 2lbs. (8stone 10lbs now).
Now
to the list of 52 new things to try. The idea is obviously one a week
for a year.
Week
1. Write a handwritten note and post it to someone you haven’t
been in touch with for a while.
Another
big fail. I did not write a letter. I have decided who I am going
to write too though so that is positive. Just need to stop
procrastinating and just do it.
So
all in all not the best of starts! I haven't even looked at the week
2 goals and it is nearly week 3. I'll take a quick peek now…………
Clean
up your personal space. This one is about de-cluttering and getting
rid of unnecessary “stuff”. I think I can put a tick against
this one. I am pretty good at doing this anyway and the last few
weeks I have had a bit of a purge on several things. I have gone
through all our DVDs CDs and books and have sold a lot of them on
Ziffit.com to raise money for 3CDR. I have also sorted out all of
our shoes and boots and winter coats and jackets and lots have gone
so I am happy that I have a result here.
Sort
out your personal business. This is about completing those promises
that you have made to yourself but not got around to doing anything
about. The author says that you either fulfil them or strike them
from your list forever. I have been promising myself that I will
find the time to really learn how my Cricut machine works and what I
can actually do with it. I think I can put a tick here too as I have
managed to have several sessions on it this week. I have also made a
note for next week to prioritise time for this.
Sort
out your social life. This one is about surrounding yourself with
positivity and so ditching those friends and acquaintances that make
you feel depressed and miserable with their negativity. Learning how
to say no. Not sure what I could have done here as my friends are
not like that anyway. Maybe the best thing to do here is to just be
kind and offer a smile to anyone I meet. I shall try to carry that
on to next week.
And
lastly from the 52 Week list: Make someone a birthday or
celebration cake. It was little Jackson's 3rd birthday
this week but my cake making skills are nowhere near Verity's as she
makes cakes for a living. So another fail! I might carry this over
to next week and make a cake for everyone at the kennels to celebrate
Beanies birthday.
To
be honest, I have realised that this is not a good challenge for me.
It is just another pressure and more things on the never ending to do
list. So I am ditching it. There will be no further updates. What
I am going to do is to keep an eye on that 52 week list and try and
do some of those. A new thing each week is a lot more doable. I
think it also needs to be something new. Trying out new things and
getting a little outside of your comfort zone has to be good.
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