Healthy Habits and Goals 2024

Goodness me, what a year it has been. It started pretty bad and for a long time, it wasn’t great. I have really refrained from sharing a lot of personal things on my blog. Not because I want to shut you out but because I want to reflect the best of myself in the online space. This is my well-worn path and I want to look at it and see all the happiness. I want to share the good things and share those moments. The world is in some ways bleak enough already, I don’t have to pile on top of what. I also don’t think it makes me any more authentic and frankly, it makes me happy.

I have been growing a lot and I am ready to bloom. Today I wanted to share the things that changed my mindset to become a better and happier version of myself.

Mental health
Here is the thing, I studied psychology so I knew that I wasn’t doing well mentally for a while but asking for help can be really quite scary. It was the best thing for me to do though and it really helped me get out of my own head. I have learned about what makes me as a person. Some things will never go away but I can and should be kind to myself.

I was struggling a bit with some health things and that didn’t help my mental health in any way. I am nowhere near where I could be but I am so proud to have taken the step to seek help and to claw myself out of the feelings I was having. With the tools I learned I can pave my way towards my future. Acknowledgement is already a step and cannot be underestimated.

Workout
Something I have not shared a lot of lately has been working out. I loved working out but after we moved I could not find a place that I enjoyed going to and when I didn’t feel good the last thing I wanted was to work out. I randomly found a gym nearish my house (nothing is very close but it’s not too bad). I have been taking classes and I really enjoy it.

I have seen a lot of progress I even had newby gains in my arms and shoulders which is a bit awkward as I have worked out for a long time but I really don’t like doing upper body. I have since found some appreciation for it. I think it has helped a lot with the shaping of my body which has been interesting as I have been eating healthier and that changed a lot I think.

Losing weight
I would love to tell you how I changed my life, and how I became a completely different person. The truth is, I just started tracking and giving myself a lot of grace. I wanted to live a healthier life but not be so strict as that has bitten me in the past and would in no way be sustainable. I am nowhere near finished and I don’t need to be. Slow and steady wins the race as I keep telling myself. But I lost ten kilo’s already and it feels crazy to type it, even crazier to say it and I hardly ever do. It’s not something I can really explain, the button flipped deep inside of me and I just started. I gave myself two weeks to try, then extended it to six (my original goal) and kept going until I did twelve weeks. I am still going now, but I am becoming a bit less strict over time. I go back and forth between strictly tracking and loosening the reigns a bit but I think that is good and healthy.

Part of my thought process is that the number on the scale does not say anything about me. I can be angry or upset about it, but the next one I grace the thing with my presence the number is different so why should it ruin my day? It gives me information but not more than that. It does not say anything about me as a person but I do know that I would have never been able to think this a few years ago. This thought process works well for me at the moment but I don’t know if it works for others. It’s a deeply personal process but I do really believe that your weight should not determine how you feel about yourself but that is obviously easier said than done.

Writing
This feels very personal and very scary to share but I have been writing. Not only on this blog but I’ve been writing fanfiction again. A quick recap: I don’t think I have ever shared this on this platform before. When I was a teenager I was very active in fandom space and as a teenager in fandom spaces one stumbles upon fanfics, pairing that with my love for reading. Let’s just say I really enjoyed it, I also wrote some it was really bad. and I felt well I was in a space centred around real people and I felt some type of way about that, for me there was a separation but I felt a bit awkward because these people were real.

Due to some unforeseen things, I stopped reading altogether so the natural progress from Wattpad, to Fanfic.net to AO3 missed me completely. Eventually, through the online space,e I made an ao3 account and found my love for a fandom I liked but was never a part of as as child. I read a lot. When I wasn’t doing great I started writing. Simply for me and I never meant to share it but after it was done I enjoyed it enough to see what others thought. I felt that if no one would read it, it wouldn’t be awkward to delete it and never think about it again.

That is however not what happened, I am in no way a large creator or anything but the kudos and the comments are absolutely rewarding. I didn’t link to the fics in any way at all. I don’t promote it in places where I can, my username is not linked to anywhere else and I never talk to anyone about it. I wanted to be judged on purely my ability, not how many followers I do or don’t have or how I do or don’t look etc. It feels silly putting it like that but I wanted others to like what I write for the content, not for me.

It has helped me tremendously, I always loved writing and I have really been enjoying the progress. I think at the end of the day things like this are just simply very fun and when I was younger I felt awkward for liking to write and read but it’s at my core part of who I am and there is nothing wrong with being me.

Upwards and Onwards
Maybe I thought I should try goals for the new year or some manifesting of amazing things. I think I’ve made a lot of progress and I cannot wait to see where I am going.

I am nowhere near reaching the goals I want, I am not the happiest and healthiest version of myself just yet. But girl, I am getting there. And the journey itself is already something to be so incredibly proud of.