Six months and this is all I have to show for it?
A little reflection, some book recommendations, a thrilling poll for you to answer.
In February of this year I felt like I had lost my spark. I had just wound down the business that I co-founded and worked so hard on, I wasn’t sure what was creatively inspiring to me anymore, I was pretty sad all the time and I just generally felt really unsure of what I was supposed to do next. Realizing it was 6 months until my birthday, I put together what would become a monthly plan that was focused around trying new things, with the hopes that I’d push myself into new head spaces and get back in touch with all the things that made me, well, me.
The general plan was the following: each month I would read one book, pick one thing that I wanted to learn about, pick one thing that I wanted to accomplish and pick one thing that I wanted to try. The original idea was that I would film myself working through each goal, each month, and create a series of videos that I’d share on tiktok or Instagram and see if anyone wanted to join me in trying new things, but I got insecure after I posted the first couple of videos, so I deleted them and that was really the end of this whole plan.
For fun, I spent some time this week reflecting on the past six months to see if I actually did, just by chance, accomplish any of those goals, and it turns out I actually did quite well:
I set out to read 6 books, I read 31. The best, for me, was The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, but An Ambush of Widows, I’ll Be You and Every Summer After were other great reads as well.
As far as accomplishing one thing each month, this one is harder for me to quantify because I’m my own harshest critic and I can only think of all the things that I didn’t accomplish, so I’ll just let myself have these two wins: I started this newsletter and I got back into a really consistent fitness / movement routine.
For the learn about one thing, I took a course in online nutrition and learned about building balanced meals, I got really into manifestation and read / listened to courses on the power of this practice. I worked on writing (a lot!), I learned about how to create and layer your skincare routines (this is so complicated to me!).
When it came to trying new things, I tried pilates (tbh I didn’t love it this time around. At-home pilates isn’t for me, I need a machine), I tried watercolor painting (I’m really enjoying this!), I tried a few great new hair products (should I write a newsletter on this?), cooked lots of new recipes, tried a new system of organization (Notion girlie for life!) and tons of other things that are all pretty remedial but do count towards the overall goal of trying new things.
So, here I am, 35 and 2 weeks, and who knows what scheme I’ll put together for myself next. I have always loved creating structure with clear and defined markers of success, but even without intentionally trying I did actually accomplish a lot. I’m sure you have too if you sat down and made yourself list it all out. I also have a tendency to say that I want to overhaul my entire life, and make some huge drastic changes, when realistically it’s all going quite well and I should feel great about my progress.
I do regret letting my insecurities keep me from filming the past six months, putting it online and seeing if there was a community of people who would join me in trying new things, but maybe that will happen next. Who knows! If I did put together a loose plan of sorts, would you be interested in doing something like this with me? I love the idea of doing things with other people, maybe you’re the same.
Anyways, that’s all I’ve got for you. I hope you’ll do something nice for yourself today. A little treat, a kind word spoken to yourself in the mirror, a lush afternoon nap. Whatever!
Have a great weekend and I’ll see you on Tuesday,
Libby
p.s. the subject line of this email was clickbait, I’m sorry! I just wanted you to open the email and it seemed like something I’d open if I got it so I went with it. Did it work???