February Goals

February is all about being selfish.

Not the kind where you eat the last Tim Tam and blame one of the kids, but the healthy, responsible kind of selfish.  The kind where I prioritise myself for a change.

Remember all those things that make you feel good?  Exercise, rest, discovering new hobbies, and maybe even reviving some old ones.  And let’s not forget about sleep.  I would genuinely like to know if waking up feeling refreshed is still a thing, or just a rumour spread by people who don’t have kids.

Either way, it’s time to make time.

Life has a sneaky way of quietly filling every available space in your day.  You wake up full of good intentions and suddenly it’s 5:30pm and you’re Googling “easy dinners with three ingredients.”

Somewhere between work, family, walking the dog, and wondering why the laundry basket never empties, I’m supposed to schedule in some me-time.

Exercise, for example, should be non-negotiable.  It’s great for your mental and physical health. It clears the mind, reduces stress and improves mood.  All very inspirational and inspiring.  But I do need to be careful that it doesn’t turn into just another opportunity to multi-task.  Knowing me, I’ll be halfway through a workout when my brain will suddenly fire up with:

“Did you pay that bill?”

“What’s for dinner tonight?”

“When was the last time you gave the dog a heart-worm tablet?”

I'll be doing squats whilst accidentally organising my entire week and addeding seventeen new tasks to my mental to-do list. 

Then there's hobbies.  The things we do purely for enjoyment.  For example, I’d like to start reading books again.  Remember those?  The only thing I read these days are school emails or the netball mums WhatsApp posts.

I want to get creative, maybe even start playing the piano again (another thing I haven’t done in years…)  Sadly, my main hobbies at this point in time are life-admin and errands. 

Maybe a good place to start is simply trying to sit quietly for ten minutes without someone asking me where something is. 

And then there’s rest.  Rest sounds simple, but the moment I sit down my brain immediately betrays me and whispers, “Shouldn’t you be doing something?”  This is deeply unfair coming from the same brain that now can’t remember anything unless it’s written down.

Which leads us to the million-dollar question, how exactly does one make more time for themselves?

Do we wake up earlier?  Stay up later?  Cancel responsibilities?  Fake our own death?

Because realistically, most of us aren’t sitting around with spare hours just waiting to be filled with yoga and journaling.  Life is busy.

So I'll start with small moments. A walk around the block. A quiet cup of coffee before the chaos starts.  Listening to an audio book in the car on the way to work.

Doing something for no reason other than it makes me happy, not because it’s productive or useful.  Now that, Dear Reader, would be selfish.

Lauren x