My Twenty Eighteen Word of the Year

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Hello everyone! Sorry this post might be a little on the late side, but I really wanted to take time to think about what my focus for the 2018 year would be. I think we’re often pressured to make these crazy, outlandish, completely unachievable goals for the new year that just end up making us feel like failures when we don’t accomplish them! I’ve had enough unachieved new years resolutions to know that huge goals set at the beginning of the year almost never work for me! 

Instead, I like to set smaller, more frequent goals on a monthly basis that work towards achieving a greater goal overall. There’s really nothing special about January - and if we feel like we’ve already failed our new years resolutions just weeks into the new year, it can be really hard to get back on the wagon. So, it’s worth remembering that January is just another month, new years is just another day, and tomorrow is another opportunity at being better than you were yesterday 😃 

This past year, I’ve really struggled to find a healthy balance between the different parts of my life. Work, family, friends, self-care, fitness, blogging, volunteering, and even boring things like keeping my house clean started to overwhelm me, leaving my very little downtime to just sit back and relax. I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself to do everything. I want to have a clean house and also be able to spend lots of time with family. I want to go above and beyond at my job and also try to keep contributing to my blog - but as one person with a limited number of hours in a day, frankly, it’s impossible to do it all! 

So, this year, I’m choosing to focus on BALANCE as my word of the year. Yes, I still want to be better at everything, but instead of trying to do everything perfectly all at once, I’m hoping to be a little bit more patient with myself. As long as I’m getting a good balance between all of the different parts of my life that are important to me, I won’t give myself too hard of a time. 😃

What is your focus for the upcoming year?

I’d love to hear about your goals and resolutions for 2018!

The Little Things

A lot of times, I think we find ourselves writing down the big things when we think about what we're grateful for - but we often forget about the random little things and how wonderful they can be as well! Don’t get me wrong, the big things are incredibly important and I am as grateful for them as I am for the little things, it's just that the little things are often what gets left in the dust after a crazy Thanksgiving holiday. As I mentioned in my review from earlier this year, one of my favorite parts about my Day Designer is that it has a little gratitude box that reminds me to write down something I'm grateful for each day. As you can imagine, over the past year, I've created quite the collection of little things I'm grateful for, so in honor of this Thanksgiving, I thought I'd share some of the things I've put in that little gratitude box!

I'm Grateful...

• For music! It has such an incredible ability to lift my spirits. The song I'm currently playing on repeat is this amazing cover.

• For all three of my amazing space heaters, because, well, winter :P

• For sunglasses! For those Mondays when I’m on public transport nursing my coffee and it's too early in the morning to make awkward eye contact with strangers.

• For little pink cat noses!

• For nude matte lipsticks. They. Are. Amazing.

• For french fries. This one has made multiple appearances in the gratitude box because every time I eat a solid serving of fries, I thank my lucky stars that one amazing day, someone decided to throw potato sticks into a deep fryer - YUM.

• For the heavenly combination that is avocados + salmon. I've been eating it every morning for the last month and I cannot stop.

• For my hair! I think we all complain about our hair too much (i.e. too frizzy, too flat, wrong color) so I'm trying to do a 180 on that sort of thinking and be thankful for the fact that I have healthy hair!

• For advil, because cramps are no joke.

• For peppermint mocha flavored creamer because it makes every morning feel like a Christmas morning!

• For the ability to fall asleep quickly. I can't imagine what it's like to have to stare at the ceiling for 10, 30, 60 minutes before falling asleep so I'm incredibly thankful that I'm usually out within a couple of minutes!

• For days when my body is sore because this means I have muscles and I'm actually using them.

• For New Girl, the only television show that both my boyfriend and I can agree on watching because we both love it.

• For laughs because nothing in the world is happier than the sound of a laugh.

After typing this up, I've realized just how many of these are food related...oops! What can I say? The way to my heart is clearly food. Gratitude is definitely something that I'm still working on since it can be hard to think of good things when I've had a rough day or I'm not feeling 100%. Even on those days, however, I have to remind myself that awesome things like french fries and space heaters still exist – regardless of how my day is going – and to be grateful for them!

Wishing you all the happiest Thanksgiving ♥

Staying Active

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For most of my life, I’ve struggled with staying active. I’ve always been an introverted person and growing up as an introvert, it was incredibly difficult to derive any sort of enjoyment out of playing sports. In every PE class I was forced into, all I learned about were sports, sports, and more sports. Since I tend to shy away from competition, sports were not my cup of tea and my education didn’t really teach me any other way to be physically healthy! It seemed like the only way stay physically fit was to join a sport - something I avoided at all costs.

As a result of this distaste for PE class, I hardly got any exercise between the ages of 5 and 20. I got sick easily because my immune system was always hanging on by a thread and suffered horrible migraines throughout high school and college when school stress started to take a toll on my body. It wasn’t until my late college years that I started to investigate more options for staying active as a result of becoming more invested in my own health.

Now, I try to stay active for my own health and also try not to put too much pressure on myself! Yes, I would love for my fitness adventures to lead to abs and non-flabby arms, but given my YOLO philosophy when it comes to good food, those six pack abs aren’t really in the picture. Despite not being the best at sticking to a workout regimen or going to the gym regularly, I have noticed a huge difference in my health simply by trying to stay active. I used to get migraines at least once every couple of months and got sick at least once a month on top of that! It’s been a little over two years since I became more invested in my own health, and not only have I evaded migraines for nearly a year and a half, this past winter season, I did not catch a single illness despite being surrounded by snotty, sneezy co-workers! :) 

One of the biggest light bulb moments for me when it came to fitness was realizing that fitness is very much a personal journey. It’s hard not to look at other people and compare, especially when it comes to fitness - but everyone is so different - your body is not their body, your brain is not the same as theirs, and something that works for them is not necessarily something that is going to work for you. With that in mind, I try to give everything a go and try new activities or workouts even if I’ve never heard of them before (or even if I'm a little scared to try them!). It took me long enough but I finally figured out some strategies that work for me and help me stay active!

Invest in a Fitness Tracker

I know that fitness trackers are all the rage right now so it may seem a little gimmicky - but for me, fitness trackers really have helped me stay more active. I lead a pretty sedentary life - most of my commute is getting in and out of a car and I sit at my desk in an office for most of the day. I had no idea just how sedentary my life was until I started using my fitbit. It’s helped me become much more aware of how little I actually walk and it reminds me to put in that extra effort to take the stairs!  

Pact App

I was extremely wary about this app at first because it’s an app that allows you to earn money if you hit your fitness goals, but also causes you to lose money if you do not hit your fitness goals…eek! This is actually pretty fair if you think about it, but extremely scary when you’re pretty lax about your fitness regimen like I am! After using it for a couple months though, I’ve found that the fear of losing money is so powerful that I really have been following through with the pact that I made on the app - and earning (a minimal) amount of money in the process. That fear of losing money, though, has been incredibly powerful towards making me get up and move more often! 

Change Up my Workouts

When I first started working out, I wanted to be a yogi, or a runner, or an -insert fitness guru title here-. I wanted to become an uber fitness-er in one specific area but could never quite muster up the commitment to truly immerse myself in any one type of workout. Over time, I’ve realized that I just become bored when doing one workout over and over again! Now I try to change up my workout often and do whatever workout I feel like doing that day instead of cornering myself into a specific workout. 

Keep Your Mind Engaged

Like I already mentioned, my biggest obstacle when it comes to working out is that I get bored! Especially when I’m doing something physically exhausting, my mind will find any excuse to stop exercising! I’ve found that dance based workouts have been amazing when trying to combat my mental boredom. I tend to be very goal-oriented. I like having a challenge and an agenda to follow so imitating a fitness instructor and trying to get all the moves right is an awesome challenge for my brain as well as my body (no matter how silly I look dancing!).

Watch The Amazing Race! 

I know this one is a little weird and extremely specific, but I find that watching really active, competition based shows is an awesome motivator for me! If I’m running and need to watch a show to keep me occupied, I love to watch The Amazing Race because the competitors running around motivates me to keep running! 

Walking Counts as a Workout :) 

Okay this isn’t so much a strategy as much as it’s a philosophy.  In almost any situation, I try not to put too much pressure on myself and try to remember that I’m human! In the name of self-compassion, I consider long walks (….or walks accompanied by shopping trips!) forms of activity, too! It may not be a direct sweat sesh at the gym, but as long as I’m staying active and contributing to my health, I consider that a success!

What are your favorite ways to stay active? I’d love to hear your thoughts!