DECEMBER UPDATE
My vague plan for December was to merely survive and make it to 2017 relatively unscathed, whilst fully embracing the festive spirit each and every day. Looking back, I have to say December was my most successful month, as not only has my recovery gone fantastically I've been so into Christmas I've enjoyed it more than ever. This year's celebrations were my absolute favourite to date, and I think that's mostly down to the fact that I made a conscious effort to do something festive daily, and to step back and actually savour it while it happened. Yes, I did the standard activities of watching Elf and decorating the tree, but this year I took time to write my Christmas cards with a fountain pen, top my presents with matching curled ribbon, and go out with my parents pretty much every day to do something Christmassy (even if they didn't realise it, to me even those days where I just spent time with them with Michael Bublé blasting counted). It's been so relaxed, so lovely and just what the doctor ordered.
As a result of the good mood my success with being festive generated, I've been able to continue with many of my challenges from previous months too. I've finally caught up with all of my monthly magazines that I've been collecting for around 3 months in an unread pile; I've watched films galore; I've attacked my cross-stitch a couple of times over the month; and I've carried on saving money (and smashed a savings target in the process). In addition I've set myself weekly goals for steps and started going for walks with my Dad every day since Christmas Eve in an effort to ease back into exercise.
Plus, I've started to use my brain again and have recently treated myself to a New York Times subscription, complete with the crossword. It takes me ages (and I've had to cheat a little occasionally in order to complete the full-size one...) but I've incorporated attempting both sizes into my routine everyday as a little brain-training.
(Christmas trees & Rudolphs - festive / gold stars - reading / silver stars - film / green dots - saving money / green stars - workouts / large silver stars - brain-training / gold dots - colouring & dot-to-dots / red dots - cross-stitch)
Oh, and I became obsessed with a dot-to-dot book over Christmas and managed to achieve the zen-like calm I expected to gain from adult colouring in September. By the time I'd finished the entire book less than a week after I started I felt a real sense of accomplishment and found I really loved how relaxed it made me feel. Success!
JANUARY PLANS
I'm not falling into the 'new year, new me' trap this January. In the past it's led to nothing but making me feel like a failure by March so I'm not going to be adopting strict resolutions of any kind. This is why I've started up workouts and brain-training a week ago, I've pulled my cross-stitch out of hibernation, and I am in a position to start on my bookshelf now my magazines are out of the way: everything I wanted to kickstart on January 1st is already up and running. Thus, the odds of me stopping anything as the pressure of doing too much too soon takes over is now extremely slim. As such, the only thing I'll be actually starting in January will be my new challenge. I refuse to be overwhelmed by activities!
I feel like I haven't used my brain properly in far too long. The last 6 weeks have been the exception as I've deliberately taken a break during recovery, but before that my mind had been sedentary for much longer than I think is acceptable. Therefore I would like to spend the month revitalising my love of learning. I'm finally going to have a go at coding, I've discovered a couple of online courses for other topics too, and I have such an extensive collection of history and film books I think it'd be a good idea to crack one or two open. I may have not enjoyed university at all, but I did love the art of learning, and getting back to that might be a lovely (and productive) way to start the new year.
So, 30 days of learning...go!
No comments:
Post a Comment