Hello!

This has been week 4 of my 52 week-long attempt to document my progress, in order to be more conscientious with how I’m living my year.

The good:

• This week I started flossing. A small win and lifestyle change, but important nonetheless. Flossing is something I've done consistently before, but depression and laziness has made me drop it. Not only is flossing good for your gums and teeth, but it's a near-instant fix for bad breath. Even if you have never flossed, if you do it once, you will wake up the next morning and feel an immediate difference in your breath. Fair warning though, your gums may hurt like hell and you'll have to be careful not to do more harm than good. Give it time and it will heal.
• I ran almost every day. I only stopped because I felt like I was overworking myself somewhat in conjunction with my strength training. Since I only recently became active I have to be careful not to overdo it. I can't run for very long yet, I'd say maximum 20 minutes if I keep a moderate pace. But running in the morning has been a wonderful all-day energy booster so far.
• I kept up with my strength training. This week I switched up lifting weights with some bodyweight exercises, since I felt the increase in cardio was exhausting me. So far I'm not really tracking anything but rather just feeling how I respond to different exercises. Next week I should start tracking so I can see whether I improve or not.
• I kept up with my skin care routine for the most part. I ordered some more products that just arrived, so I'll now be patch testing them & attempt to incorporate them into a well-balanced routine. The key is to keep apart the active ingredients that really don't go well together.
• I meditated almost every day, and actually started to enjoy it a little bit... who would have thought!

The bad:

• My diet wasn't great this week. It was a lame excuse of being tired of eating the same things, but too lazy to think of something that wasn't unhealthy. I've been looking into meal prepping and even ordering some meal replacements; I hope it will help. Next week I'll enter the grocery store with recipes ready so I can make bunch of ready-to-go lunch boxes.
• The consistent exercise has increased my sleep quality, but I've been having nightmares almost every night. Very vivid dreams. I've been trying new supplements, and I realized that stuff like too much l-theanine and vitamin B6 and/or ZMA might do this to you. The last few nights I stopped with everything but vitamin D and omega-3, but I still have vivid dreams. So it might also be stress related. This would be a great time to start lucid dreaming, but I've never managed to realize that I'm dreaming no matter how strange it is 😅
• I could have studied more this week. I reached a point where I was almost shaking with stress and anxiety and I had to just take a few days off, so now I'm behind. I just started a very intense high-tempo program and haven't found a good balance yet. I need to make an actual study plan as well.
• I still haven't achieved any meaningful progress when it comes to my creative projects. I don't know when this will come, but it won't leave my mind. Next week I'm thinking that even just allowing myself a single hour to do anything related to it would be a win. I'll have to convince myself somehow that it's not a waste of time even though it's not "necessary."
• It's been four weeks and I've still not really managed to find a good routine to keep clean around my apartment. It's mostly my complete and utter apathy towards doing the dishes and cleaning off surfaces, and it's embarrassing how lazy it is. I'm seriously annoyed with myself, and so if I don't shape up next week, I'll look for some way to punish myself until doing it is easier than not lol.

Conclusion:

It's almost the end of January. Time has moved incredibly fast! And although it's scary that a twelfth of the year has already passed, I've made good progress. Of course perfectionist in me tells me I could have done a lot better. However, I know that's not really true. Because what I think I could have achieved is an ideal version of me in my head, an ideal I've not reached yet. But this month has been a clear step on the way.

Since it's the end of the month, I thought it was a good time for me to restate my goals and intentions. It's a funny thing how you can set a goal and then completely forget about it a week later. So for myself and anyone else following, my current goals are as follows:

• Find & maintain a good balance in taking care of myself (diet, sleep, exercise, skin care, mindfulness, etc.)
• Complete year 1 of my college degree, learn to keep focused for long study sessions every day
• Organize my life so that chores, finances and time management flow well
• Find some time & energy to get started with fiction writing & content creation
• Find ways to socialize & enjoy hobbies guilt-free as my schedule allows

Right now I honestly feel like my schedule allows for studying and not much else. I'm really hoping that the tempo will either calm down somewhat, or that I'm able to rise to the difficulty level without burning out. Of course there's also a risk of burnout if I do nothing but study...

Still, I want February to go even better. I know I could do even better. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain, and so even though I've been struggling with anxiety, I'm still as motivated as ever.

I hope you and I can continue to make strides as we head into the second month of the year. See you next week!