Month In The Life: February 2024
One Day, Costco hauls, and the Great Underwear Search of 2023/2024.
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On paper, February isn’t the best month. Where I live, it’s cold and gray and dreary for most of the month. Spring and warm weather are still weeks (if not months) away. Sure, there’s Valentine’s Day, but that’s a low-to-mid tier holiday in my book. There’s just not a lot to be excited about. And yet, February 2024 was good to me. I didn’t go anywhere and didn’t do anything but most of the same stuff I did in February (wrote, read, walked a couple miles here and there, got my butt back in therapy…). There was nothing particular flashy or exciting about it, and maybe that was exactly why it worked for me. Looking back on it, it was full of exactly what I needed: Slow and steady routine, day in and day out. I am entering March (my birthday month!) feeling so much like myself that it makes me giddy. I am bursting with new ideas and dreams. I feel excited and creative and just… happy.
I posted on my Instagram Story yesterday about how much of a good mood I was in (especially compared to last year, when I felt like I was in a bad mood all the time), and someone replied asking me if I would write about how, exactly, I turned things around. I wish I had some foolproof step-by-step plan I could report back on, but in a way the takeaway’s from last month’s recap and this month’s kind of sum it up. For the first time in a while, I just focused on taking care of myself. I gave myself grace and stopped being so mean to myself all the time. I prioritized the things that made me feel like me, and I pushed myself a little bit too (I am coming off of three consecutive days of social outings — who am I?). It didn’t add up to perfection, and I certainly (always) have more work to do, but it all did add up to a brighter, happier version of life than I have known in a long, long while. I’m so thankful and honestly very proud of myself, too. I went back to basics and started from scratch and it all helped. There’s a time when I would have added a sentence here about how it’s not anything big or important, not really something to be proud about, but I think it is. Life is hard. Being happy is hard. Being proud of yourself is hard. So, you know, I’ll just leave that there. I’ll be happy and proud. No disclaimer about why that’s not enough. Now let’s get into some specifics.
February 2024
What I love about these goal bubble sheets (and mini goals in general) is that they don’t have to change a lot from month to month to be meaningful. I added in some variety for February, which turned out to be great, but at its core, the month was the same as the one before: Movement. Writing. Reading. You know the drill. And it works. I’m not trying to become a new person every month. I’m just trying to focus (and re-focus if necessary) on the things that make me feel my best. Having said that, there were some new additions this month that really, really paid off (who knew I could be social three days in a row and not go into a coma?) Let’s break down what worked and what didn’t.