November Goals

It struck me the other day, when I first sat down to write this post, that we only have two months left of this decade, not just this year, this DECADE! But still that’s enough time to make some changes before we hit the roaring twenties! Here’s what I want to achieve before the end of the year.

1. Take better care of myself

This goal makes an appearance, in one form or another, at least a couple of times a year. And it’s because I'm just not very good at taking care of myself. It's a struggle. Recently, I’ve been poorly, really poorly. Poorly enough that I haven’t been able to do much more than miserably lie in bed and think about how great it was when I was healthy. Now my illness wasn't caused by me not looking after myself, BUT after having been forced to take better care of myself and having had other people take care of me, I've realised just how bad I am at it in my day-to-day. And healthy Lauren deserves to be looked after just as much as poorly Lauren does. Healthy Lauren deserves to eat properly, even if she fucking hates cooking, she deserves to get a decent night's sleep and do exercise she enjoys. She deserves those things. She is worth those things. 

Another reason is I’m worried about my health in the long term. Earlier this week I went into hospital for an x-ray and helped an old man who was struggling with the stairs, and while I was helping him he said to me: “Don’t get old, love. It’s no fun”, and that made me really sad, because I don’t want to be the kind of old person that can’t do anything for themselves, and looking after myself now might mean I won’t need as much looking after when I’m older. 

2. Get organised for Christmas

I am so not good at Christmas. I love it, obviously, and I love buying presents, but the idea of being organised enough to have started my Christmas shopping by now is preposterous. So preposterous, in fact, that it's never happened. But now's as good a time as any to change that and I really don't want to be running around the shops like a headless chicken on Christmas Eve frantically buying presents when I could be at home watching The Grinch with a mug of tea and a mince pie. In all honesty, I can’t really afford to do the bulk of my Christmas shopping right now because bills and shit but I would like to have at least four presents bought and wrapped by the time December rolls around. That seems reasonable.

3. Get back into a good routine

This time last year I was absolutely killing it in the organisation stakes. I was getting up super early and getting stuff done before work, I was sleeping better and I felt more settled because of it. And then Christmas happened and I’ve never quite managed to get myself back into that routine. No matter how hard I’ve tried, although to be honest I haven’t really tried that hard. Having a good routine makes me feel like I’m standing on steady ground. It makes me feel like I’m a proper adult who has all their shit together, and it’s a really nice feeling. At the moment it’s difficult because I’m not well, but as soon as I am again - and fingers crossed it is soon - I want to get myself into a good routine that makes me feel settled and happy. 

4. Prioritise the things I love

Guys, I can’t remember the last time I picked up my guitar. I can’t remember the last time I went swimming, although that again is because I’m ill. I just can’t remember the last time I did something that made me happy just because it makes me happy.

At the beginning of the year, after reading The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k by Sarah Knight, I didn’t want to waste any of  my precious time on shit I didn’t want to do. And then life got in the way and somehow I now spend even more of my time on shit I don’t want too. I think maybe I need to give that book another read, but for now making the things I love doing a priority is my priority. 

5. Don’t let the little things bother me

To be honest, this was kind of a last minute addition because of something that happened recently, something really small and not worth it that still managed to upset me quite a lot. I knew at the time I was overreacting, but I think it’s really easy to say: “Oh just brush it off, don't let the little things get to you”, but that doesn’t actually change how you feel when something shit happens, no matter how small it is. You can’t control how you feel about something. You can change how you react to it but not how you feel about it.

I'll be honest this goal should probably be: ‘Don't bottle up all my emotions to the point where everything bothers me’, because when it comes to my emotions I am very much a bottler upper. I’m also an over-sharer and you’d think it’s not possible to be both, but let me tell you it is. If I have feelings that I don't want to deal with I find it easier to stamp them down and squash them and then stick them in a bottle, rather than doing the adult thing, which is face up to them. And the thing is, doing that is completely useless, because what actually happens is I end up feeling those things for longer. They linger. I can’t get rid of them. I really need to be trying to address my feelings as and when I have them, rather than letting them fester and becoming something much bigger than they need to. Fuck. This is a hard one. 

What are your goals this month? Xx