Things you need to do to improve your life

[Patrona]

Here's my list of things I'm going to throw money at and sort my life out and get my shit together !

1) start working out- Ive tried the gym. Doesn't work for me, too unmotivated at this moment in time and I genuinely don't know what I'm doing when I get there. So, I've arranged a fitness instructor for after the kids go back to school.

2) Lose a stone in weight- see above and also I need to start eating healthy. I havnt figured this one out yet because I have the best of intentions and then end up with a doughnut in my mouth somehow.

3) sort out my driving- don't get me wrong, I can drive from A to B. But im just abit crap. I need more confidence and I need to hone all my skills im rusty at and motorways. I need to find a good driving instructor.

4) Laser hair removal - bikini, underarms and go over legs again. I've made a patch test consultation on Monday.

5) Learn to swim- I don't know how to swim AT ALL. After almost drowning in the shallow end on holiday (whilst pregnant), I have vowed to myself to learn. Except it's been over 4 years and I'm afraid to admit I haven't done a single thing about it yet.

Now that I've written it all down like that, I see a common pattern of low confidence emerging. Funnily enough, I'm an extrovert and would describe myself as a confident person

Feel free to comment and share yours and let's get our shit together together

Great list! Maybe you could combine 1 and 5 by learning to swim for fitness? Swimming is great exercise, especially when your technique is crap

Also, my top tip for not accidentally eating doughnuts is to not have them in the house. Just stop buying junk food rather than relying on using willpower to not eat it.

My list:

1. Take my job a bit more seriously. Working from home has involved a lot of slacking off, and surely someone will notice at some point. Plus I like the distantly-remembered feeling of being good at what I do.

1. Run more, run slower. I have a tendency to run too fast, too soon and get injured. I've been running in the "medium" paced group at a local running club, which would be perfect except that I keep adding a couple of (too fast!) miles on the end of the run.

1. Get back into swimming. I stopped when the pools all closed and haven't restarted.

1. More sex. We used to have sex after the kids went to sleep, but they're now staying up later than us!

Good list! Also quite efficient - if you start learning to swim that's technically working out and will support your weight loss so I'd say go for that first!!

My list:

1. Also want to work on my driving as currently hate it and avoid it as much as possible.

2. Declutter. Too much stuff and me being naturally untidy, and kids following my lead, leads to the house looking like a disaster area most days.

3. Work on tidying - see above! Need to work on getting stuff done, not letting jobs pile up etc. Will use The Organised Mum to try and help me stay on track.

4. Making a proper meal plan and actually sticking to it/remembering to get things out of freezer etc

5. Less sugar - too many sweet treats have crept in for the whole family. Need to work on reducing it. Find it hard as it is my weakness and we have grandparents who show love with bags of junk food so need to deal with that as well.

6. Reduce screen time. Too much TV/gaming/YouTube for the kids. Too much phone scrolling for me. In fairness, we have put tighter restrictions on the children recently and they're doing really well. Eased them into it and now need to reduce it a bit more. Although I have improved with the phone, I'm still shocking and need to try harder!

That should keep me going 😃

Read Atomic Habits by James Clear (or listen to it on audible). It genuinely helped me change my life this time last year.

I now have a daily habit tracker app on my phone and these are the things that I tick off most days:

1. Get 7+ hours sleep
2. Take a multivitamin and vitamin D
3. Wear SPF
4. 30+ minutes of exercise
5. Have a ten minute tidy (loosely following the organised mum method)
6. Drink 2 litres of water
7. Evening skincare routine
8. Floss

Doesn't sound like much, but this time last year I was struggling to get the basics done.

Would recommend buying a Phillips Lumea instead of getting laser hair removal. Mine is 5 years old and still going strong, absolutely love it.

My new goals are:

1. Finish decluttering: I'm on day 16 on of 30 day declutter challenge to get rid of at least one thing a day.

2. Finally actually finish couch to 5k again, I keep restarting and on week 3 atm.

3. Start keeping a gratitude diary. I'm a really negative person by nature but when I kept a gratitude diary last year (not willingly at first, it was suggested by my friend) it made a real difference to my mindset. I'm going to make a private Instagram account to save my entries, just for me, so I'm accountable and can look back.

Now that I've written it all down like that, I see a common pattern of low confidence emerging. Funnily enough, I'm an extrovert and would describe myself as a confident person

It might be because you're focusing on the end goal, so it feels overwhelming? Though I could be protecting here as that's what I would feel. I'm not very good at explaining why, but the Atomic Habits book really helped with this for me. Get it on audible and go for a long walk!

Get tooth repaired
Get haircut
Loose weight and eat healthily
Overhaul wardrobe
Declutter and seriously clean house
Write a snag list for house and garden and work through it.
Clean cars inside.

Nice thread.

My list is huge but I'm going to just write 3 down and really try with them.
1: drink water - I'm rubbish at it but know I feel better when I do it. I've bought lemons to try to make it nicer.
2: try to improve my nails - have bought strengthener and oil and now need to actually use them
3: stop eating so much crap - this will be easier to control when back in work

Loving everyone's lists! The book sounds interesting , I'll have a listen.

Good point about not having the junk in the house - I need to get back to doing that.

Meal planning is a brilliant one; forgot I needed to add that to my list as I'm so crap at it! On the flip side, my house is always clean and organised (and I have 3 dc!). My top tip is to have a morning cleaning routine and an evening cleaning routine and to stick to them like glue. Also, have a place for every single thing ; that way you know where everything is going when your doing your routine and it's all pretty much effortless!

About Swimming: so terrified to even start but know that I really need to. 😩

1. lose 20 kg.

2. get some moles removed.

3. find out about a course I want to do.

4. listen to the language CDs I have.

5. couch to 5k.

6. lots of stuff needs to go to charity.

7. a few runs to the tip.

8. paint.

9. tidy, declutter etc.

I must book one of those clear-your-garden/house people.
Old furniture in garden, massive old heavy settee still in living room. It is like a gymkana, getting from one side of the room to the other.

That is a fabulous list op. xx

1. I've just emailed for a dentist appointment. It's been on the to-do list for ages- its my biggest fear.

1. I'm going to start intermittent fasting.

1. I'm going to try and offload some of my extra life commitments. I'm a bit overwhelmed and need to cut back.

Thanks op, I really needed a kick up the backside!

1. Be less stressed and running all over the place

1. Better support the DC (1 has SN and its impacting the whole family a lot atm)

1. Finish minimalising the flat

1. Lose 3kg

1. Do more exercise

1 and 2 will be the hardest and I am so struggling with it right now

A colleague of mine, who is 59 , recently told me that she can’t swim and is going for lessons.
So you’re not the only one.

1. Ask my DP to marry me
2. Change my accountant / tax adviser to someone I actually trust
3. Book regular trips away from where I live (once a quarter) even if it's just a weekend. I'm nature-rich and culture-starved and I need some balance
4. Find ways to meet new people and find some actual good friends who live nearby.

Marking my place as I was supposed to be working on a "sort my shit out" list over summer whilst not at work but it's all gone tits up thanks to not having a kitchen for a month, having 2 weeks of childcare out of 8 and my kids picking up every sodding tummy bug 🙄 I'll stick to the same list but reprint my chart and the dates (and correct the misprint)

1. Eat sensibly
2. Yoga
3. Meditate
4. Walk the dog
5. Practice crab and the splits because the kids I work with dared me to and I could do neither.
6. Floss
7. Exercise
8. Get the girls outside

I need to lose weight but I'm not good having a goal weight, doesn't work for me but actual habit changes are better.

I wasn't ever allowed to learn to swim as a child due to cultural reasons. So I always sat by the pool while everyone swam, doing extra comprehension.

I wasn't allowed to drive either but by then I was old enough to break some rules...figures why I'm crap at it though.

I wasn't allowed to go to university either and I did... but that's a whole other thread for another day. Staying positive here!)

Placemarking!

Retire

My list is small but I know that each step will help me sort my life out immensely.

1. Drink more water, I feel much better when I do, I get less headaches and less tired.
2. I need to hand my resignation in this week. I have a new job and I am excited about it but I am nervous about handing my notice in and formulating a made up reason because I hate confrontation and that is what would happen if I actually told the truth, then I would have to listen to 2 hours of my manager telling me I am wrong.

Not committing definitely to anything but:

1. regular exercise, even just a walk everyday that I am not at work (on work days I am at work and on my feet for 13hrs so miss all daylight hours and have no time for anything else)

2. start taking antidepressants. I finally got brave enough to go to the GP a few weeks ago, who prescribed me antidepressants. I collected the prescription and then massively overthought all the reasons not to take them

3)therapy. I have no idea how you find a counsellor/ therapist, but I need to. I absolutely hate talking to people and am aware from previous failed attempts that I will feel worse before I feel better (if I ever feel better, previously it didn't get to that point)

4)learn to drive

5. make a dentist appointment. Terrifying.

6. remember to take vitamins so I don't end up massively vitamin D deficient again when I don't see any daylight on working days

7. go back to reading instead of looking at screens at bedtime

Some of these were on my plans of things I was going to do with my life when my youngest DC started school 2 years ago. It is a good thing I didn't start any of them then, as I didn't miss them when covid came and I spent everyday, including weekends, either at work all day or attempting to homeschool DC and no time to do anything at all for myself.

@badlydrawnbear you've got this. Even putting it down on here in a list is the first step. Keep going, small baby steps at a time.

[quote Patrona]@badlydrawnbear you've got this. Even putting it down on here in a list is the first step. Keep going, small baby steps at a time. [/quote]
Thank you very much for these kind words.

1 drink more water
2 eat healthier
3 use my treadmill
4 study for my work exam
5 lose 25kg
6 clear debt
7 save money
8 meal plan

I'm not being facetious but I'm genuinely starting to think the main thing I need to do to improve my life is stop making lists of all the ways I need to be 'better'

Change eating habits and exercise with the aim of losing approx 7lb per month for the foreseeable future (the total that needs shifting is too horrific to contemplate)

Finish the first draft of my novel by the end of the year

Improve my time management to facilitate both of the above

There's other stuff, but those are the big ones