It's August!
It's been a good year so far, I think! I've been making lots of good changes in my life. I noticed some small habits I'd been building up for a while, and decided to start incrementally building up on those habits...
I've been reconnecting with irl friends and trying to have more hangouts more often (once or twice a month, which is a big uptick from the never it's been for a while, and I am still an introvert after all). It's been good for me- it's very grounding to interact with people in the flesh!
I've also taken up rollerblading! I've known how to ice skate since I was a kid, and while I fell a few times, some skills transferred over to rollerblading. And in stark contrast to my other attempts to have some regular physical activity, this one has seemed to stick for a good couple of months. I'll have to figure out what to replace it with once snow starts falling, but it's felt so good getting out of the house every day. I can really notice that the few days I miss, it takes me so much longer to fall asleep at the end of the day and I have more pent-up, anxious energy.
I've taken up watercolour painting in the past couple of months. I want to do it more often, but even the amount I have been fitting in has felt really nice. It's a great change of pace from painting on my tablet, and I think it's a good way for me to train myself to be less of a perfectionist when it comes to making art. Also just good for building patience.
I quit coffee a couple of weeks ago, and that's also helping a lot with my sleep and anxiety levels. I've tried to quit a few times in the past, but now that I'm properly medicated for my ADHD and doing a lot of other things to try to take better care of myself, it was pretty easy to quit this time.
I'm journalling even more often than before, and it really helps me unpack my feelings and think things through. I don't think I would have been doing anywhere near as well as I am now if not for that habit.
I've been reading more. I'm trying to transition more and more of my zombie-phone time at the end of the day into reading fiction, because I used to do it so much as a kid and it makes me feel so much better at the end of a session if I unwinded by reading instead of browsing.
A big change for me has been time-blocking my day. I only started a few weeks ago and I'm still tinkering with it, but I have specific chunks of time every day dedicated to working, and specific chunks of time dedicated to resting. The day prior I always make sure to write down (in a small, physical notebook) a short checklist of things to work on the next day. Before, I'd spend so much time and energy trying to choose when and what I should be working on that some days I wouldn't end up working on anything at all. Relying more on schedules made me realize just how much brain power you use making unecessary decisions.
And finally, there's the tech hygiene stuff I'm always trying to improve on. Turned off notifications on even more stuff on my phone, so basically only texts and calls pop up. I figured that I've never had an email that required immediate attention, so I no longer have notifications on for my email. I check it once or a couple of times on a weekday, and sometimes on the weekend I wont check it at all. Sometimes on Saturday or Sunday, I wont even turn on my computer. I love that that's an option for me now. I also deleted my twitter and facebook accounts this year- I really wanted to delete instagram too, but unfortunately I think I'll be using it for a little longer until I get a couple of in-person markets under my belt (a lot of markets ask for one of these accounts on their application forms).
Speaking of, I'll be tabling at my first market in 10 days! I'm so nervous, but I'm also so excited. I've been meaning to do it for years, but this year I really put in all the effort needed to be ready to sell. It's always been a dream of mine and I'm really proud of myself for pushing through the fear. I have another one lined up for October, too.
I guess I just wanted to share some positivity! I've had a lot of mindset shifts, especially in the last few months. I have a lot of hope for myself, and I'm trying to turn all the really demoralising internet censorship stuff happening at this moment into motivation to get back into maintaining this site and helping build out a space on the internet more like how it used to be. Something more than like, 4 all-encompassing websites that are all miserable to be on. I have some friends who have also made their own sites, and we've discussed making a little webring for the group. I think that'd be really fun!