This is still me ❤️

Revisit my routine After 2 weeks away and being 5 hours behind, everything is a little up in the air. There are things I want to remove from my routine and things I would like to add. Exercise I started using the FIIT app before I went away so I want to get back to that. All that walking around made me realise I need to improve my fitness. Writing articles I write every day but just for my personal blog, I want to write some articles so that when I make pitches they’re ready to go. I plan to work very hard this week! What are your intentions? ❤️

Learn how daily habits can improve your life I’m a huge fan of building habits, so when I read this article in Psychologies magazine, I just had to share. I find that having daily habits and rituals is good for my anxiety. Be productive whilst you move My Fitness Pal shared this blog post. I’ve had some great ideas whilst out on a walk so I definitely want to try some of these suggestions. Achieve your goals I spoke a lot about goals this week and this article has some fantastic tips on how to achieve your goals Manage your tasks I am always looking for new ways to improve the way I manage my day and this blog post has lots of useful info on how to do just that A fab book If you are looking for a new read to keep you on the edge of your seat, then look no further. I just finished Hostage by Clare Macintosh and read it over a few days, although maybe not one for the plane 😉 Song Of The Day - If you missed it, here’s this week’s playlist .

This is my 700th post on Medium 🥳 I think I’ve come a long way since my first post Welcome To My Blog In yesterdays post, I shared 5 Steps To Setting Goals & Some Useful Tools & Tips Here are 5 articles I found on Medium that also provide some useful information around goal setting In the post What Do You Want? from Gustavo Gallina, we are reminded; “Dreams should be pursued. Set objectives and strive toward them.” In 3 Ways To Make Habits Stick Sobaan Saeed, also talks about failure “You’re gonna fail, you’re gonna screw up but if you show up with that positive attitude every day and just keep trying to do better that’s really all you can ask of yourself.” Daria Haller talks about self discipline in 8 Brilliant Ways To Master Your Self Discipline “don’t forget to reward yourself for your accomplishments.” Eve Arnold makes some great points in the article Why Trading Your Life Hack Mindset For Mindful Productivity Means You Wake Up Happier “Mindful prod

The reason I set goals is to motivate myself and give me something to work towards, it gives me a sense of purpose. Deciding on what your goals should be can be quite difficult. We need to think about what we truly want from life, not what we "should" want or what is expected of us. That's why I've listed 5 important steps to help you with your goal setting. 1. Ask yourself questions. To find out what it is you hope to achieve, you need to do a bit of self-discovery. What is it that you want from life? Remember, these are your goals and no one elses. 2. Write your goals down. Ideally somewhere you will see them often. 3. Think about why you want to achieve these goals and how achieving them would make you feel. This will hopefully weed out any goals that you aren't 100% sure about, you don't want to waste your time on doing something when your heart is not fully in it. 4. Decide on a time frame for when you would like to achieve each of these goals. 6

In yesterday's post July Reflections - What I Loved, What I Learned & How I Can Improve I shared some areas I wanted to improve on during August. I found these articles on Medium, which I will use to help me. Diana Meresc reminds me of the key habits we should all be implementing in 12 Simple Habits That Will Change Your Life “How often do you wish you had done something different in your life? Most of us get caught up in the daily hustle and bustle of our lives. That means we miss opportunities to improve ourselves every day.” Emma Carey gave me some clarity as to why I struggle to be body positive, in 7 Reasons Why Body Positivity Isn't Always A Good Thing “If you want to love who you are, you must process any trauma, difficult past events, and the emotions that come with it.” Briana Belcher gave me some great ideas on making my mornings easier in 6 Things I Do Every Night To Set Myself Up For Success In The Morning “After reading, I always check the reminders

Planning is the key Write Back Up Content I am planning on doing some writing whilst I’m away. We have a 9-hour plane journey and there will be days lazing by the pool where I know I will think of something, but I want to have some pre-written content so that I don't feel under pressure to be writing whilst on holiday. I love writing and I don't want to make it feel like a chore. Daily Meditation I've been letting this slide lately and I've noticed that my brain has started to feel full of too many thoughts again. I want to get myself back into the habit of meditating, I just need to figure out which time of day works best for me. Finish The Power Of Focus I've been reading this for 15 minutes each day and it's very motivating. If you are self-employed, looking to start your own business or just want a bit of motivation, I would definitely recommend this book. Once I've finished this, I can then start my next book "The Last Law of Attraction Book

Holiday Clothes I always have problems finding clothes I like, I used to be able to buy any old thing, safe in the knowledge. After too many years of enjoying myself, that privilege has been taken away and now I have to psyche myself up to try on clothes and there are almost always outfit tantrums . I made the mistake of having my first trying-on session in the evening after dinner when I was feeling ill. In the end, I was a sweaty mess, half from fever, half from the heatwave and I hated all of the outfits. I decided to try them again when I was feeling better, so on Thursday morning, I decided to do just that. I ended up keeping half of the things I had ordered, much to the husband's dismay. Yoga This has been on my list of weekly intentions on and off all year and I finally did it on Thursday! I did a beginner session, where I learned the importance of breathing and how to do this as well as some of the basic moves. I've tried beginner yoga a few times and this was b

I always believed that I was the type of person, that if something wasn't going how I wanted it, I gave up. If the weight didn't come off after eating well for a few days, I would get bored, eat cake and say screw the diet. If I slept in when I was supposed to get up and exercise, I would decide to stay in bed and then barely move all day, thinking what is the point. Even sometimes in the past with writing, I would miss it for a day and then think "Oh I've blown it now" Whilst consistency is extremely important, it doesn't mean that we have to live our lives by ridiculously strict rules, in order to achieve our goals. For example, going back to dieting. If I put myself on a strict 1200-calorie-a-day diet for a month, I would lose weight, but I would be miserable and this is where I have gone wrong in the past. It's the same with exercising, I put myself under so much pressure with it, that any enjoyment I do get out of it is ruined because it is now

Starting and ending my days the right way. Wake up at 7am each day I’ve become a bit hypocritical. I’m always telling the husband he should keep a regular sleep routine but I have found myself being just as erratic with mine now. I like being up early, ideally 6am but I am going to start with 7am this week to get me back into the swing of things and get the day started properly. Put my screens away at 8pm Taking some downtime last week confirmed to me how important it is to spend time on things other than writing, so at 8pm each night, my laptop is being closed, my iPad is going on charge and my phone on do not disturb. I spend most of my days on social media platforms posting and engaging with others, so when 8pm comes around it’s my time to chill. Set up my LinkedIn profile This was on last weeks list, but life had other plans for me. I want to come back to this again this week, as it’s key to making progress with my writing career. I need to finish the SEO course (also on las

Over the last few weeks, I've been spending about 90% of my waking moments working towards my goal of writing for a living. I wake up and am straight online posting on platforms that I am unable to schedule posts on (or haven't learned how to yet) I could wait until later in the day, but I find that a lot of people read posts first thing, myself included. I meditate, do my self-reflection and review my to-do list for the day, apart from writing, I read other people's articles and engage with other writers on the platforms as practically all the articles and books I've read say this is a huge factor in being a successful writer, it's something I've found surprisingly fun. On top of this, I'm trying (and failing) to keep a clean and tidy home, cook dinners, see friends and family, and generally have a life. I'm not complaining, I bloody love it. I finally feel like I have a purpose. However, me being me, I have given myself a rather large to-do list, t

Our Intention Creates Our Reality - Wayne Dyer The start of a new month brings new goals and with new goals, are new intentions. This week I’ve tried to focus on different aspects of my life, so I don’t neglect some areas as I feel I may have been. Read and comment on Medium articles This is something I’ve been trying to do each day but I want to be more concise. I’m going to read and comment on 10 articles on the Medium platform each day. Get up and move After seeing that I only closed my exercise ring on my Apple watch four times in June, I am now going to be more mindful of getting myself moving. My watch goes off every hour telling me to stand, so each time that notification goes off, I’m going to stop what I’m doing and move around. Review my morning routine I’ve been playing around with my to-do list a lot recently, trying to figure out what works well at what time of day, so it’s time to review that morning routine and get that back into play. I need those morning walks

Finally, a week where I can stop and breathe. It's been a positive week and I feel with each new day, brings new things to learn. I sometimes feel like I have only just begun living my life as I am meant to, which is odd at the age of 41. Last week I started adding a "song of the day" to my social media pages, the intention behind these is to get everyone's day off on a positive note. I thought I would share these on my Friday posts for everyone to enjoy, by adding the link to the day of the week. On Friday I went out with a couple of friends for some Friday night drinks. We sat in a beer garden, drinking rose and chit-chatting about our lives. I had a picture taken, which I usually hate but for once I didn't. When I wondered why I noticed that I looked relaxed and not like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders, it felt good to realise that. There was a man at the pub that I was convinced was the actor who played Martin Fowler in Eastenders. I was t

Mind, body & soul I’ve been so focused on my writing lately, that I have neglected some other areas of my life, so I’ve decided that I would try and do 1 thing each for my mind, body and soul. Put my phone away In last week's blog post I mentioned an advert I saw at the cinema about putting our phones away and enjoying what we are watching. I am incredibly guilty of this, even as I sit and type this now, I have a program on in the background that I have recorded. This week, I am going to put my phone on Do Not Disturb each day and put my phone, IPad & laptop in the kitchen whilst I watch a program. Sounds easy, but even in the cinema, I had to resist the urge to get my phone out of my bag. It's a very bad habit and I want to undo it. Get my steps up Although I am thoroughly enjoying the amount of time I have available to spend writing, the downside is that I am spending less time walking around. This week, I aim to try and increase my daily steps by 1000. I w

My productivity has skyrocketed since setting clear, concise goals. After spending some time last week reviewing my current goals and setting some new ones, I'm feeling quite excited about the future. For the first time that I can remember, I am very clear about what I want in life and it feels pretty damn good. Sometimes when I set my weekly intentions, I struggle to think of some, which is where I will usually chuck in something vague like "drink 2 litres of water each day" and then inevitably, don't follow through with it. Now I have some crystal clear goals, it's so much easier and I could list several intentions I have for this week (don't worry, I won't) I'll just give you the usual three. Finish my article One of last week's intentions was to write an article, I started writing one but as I mentioned in last week's post , it was bringing back some pretty painful thoughts and feelings. I will go back to that article, but only whe

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No one's perfect right? I posted this in my newsletter recently but I thought I would elaborate more, and provide the links to each book. If I had gone through a little bump in the road a year or so ago, I don't think I would be sat typing this article, I would most likely be in bed eating Chinese takeaway, followed by ice cream, buying untold shit online on my credit card, accumulating more debt. Whilst I give most of the credit to my amazing therapist, I have done some learning myself by reading (and listening to) various self-improvement books along the way. Here are some of my favourites: Not a diet book - James Smith Ahh, James Smith! I started following him on Instagram a fair few years ago and I have listed him at the top as he recommended quite a few of the books on this list. You may have seen him on TV with his no-nonsense approach to the diet industry. In this book, there is straight-talking advice on how to get fit physically and mentally. Having been on the die