Setting goals and intentions – Page 2

bullet journal, Bullet journaling, lifestyle, Planning and journaling, productivity, Setting goals and intentions

Monday Matters: How to create and use a vision board so it actually works

Posted on Jan 9, 2023Jan 7, 2023 by Laura

I’ve created quite a few vision boards over the last few years and some of them have worked better than others. Often, I find I have manifested some of the things I’ve visualised for myself, whilst other dreams have been forgotten or have not totally come into fruition. Before I create a new board in my bullet journal, I always reflect on the previous one, thinking about which of my desires and goals have been met, which I’ve made progress towards and which either didn’t come true or are no longer in line with what I want for my life. Today, I thought I’d share some of my best tips for creating a vision board and ways in which you can use yours as an effective tool for manifestation.

What is a vision board?

In brief, a vision board is a visual representation of goals you want to work towards to create your ideal life. This can include inspiring images, text which states what you desire for yourself and also messages to yourself such as affirmations and motivational phrases and words. Vision boards can be created in a range of different formats and some of these are discussed a little later.

What do we mean by manifestation?

Put simply, manifestation is the act of materialising or bringing into fruition you deepest wishes, desires and dreams, so they become your true reality. So, for example, you might wish to be a more organised person and this could be shown in your home and work systems, the way you manage your time, the plans you put in place, your goals and priorities, your decision making skills, your self awareness and ability to evaluate your situation etc. There are a number of ways of manifesting the above and creating a vision board can be a really geat tool if you use it properly and effectively.

Where to begin

Before you even start creating your vision board, you need to get clear on what you want to prioritise for yourself right now and in the future. A good way to do this is to schedule some time to quietly think about and evaluate your current life with a view to considering plans to work towards a few goals and small changes that will help you on your way towards your dream life. The following journalling prompts and questions which I’ve collected from a range of sources and created myself will encourage this. You don’t need to answer them all, but they should help you orientate your thinking and ease you into contemplation, evaluation and reflection mode. I recommended writing down some or all of your responses (preferably on paper rather than using a tech device) as part of the process because this enables you to slow down and carefully consider things.

What did I do last year that made me happy? Why did these things make me feel this way?
In which ways was I successful in 2022? Which goals did I meet? How did I effectively deal with problems which came my way?
What was my greatest accomplishment of the year? How has thinking about this helped with my self worth and feelings of purposefulness?
What challenges did I face last year? What did I learn as a result?
What kind of self care activities did I regularly engage in? (if any) Which of these would I like to continue with or do more of? Which new self care activities might I like to try in 2023?
What did I spend too much time and energy on in 2022? As a result, what would I like to do differently in 2023? How might I go about this? Do I need to learn something new or create some sort of plan of action?
What is a new skill I learnt last year? Which skill / skills would I like to learn or develop in 2023?
Name 5 of your core values e.g. positivity, helping others, social connection, looking after the environment, growth, adventure etc. Am I living in alignment with these? What changes would I like to make in relation to my values and beliefs?
Do I feel in control of my life right now or do I feel like others are controlling it for me? Are there any changes I wish to make as a result of my answer?
When do I feel most fulfilled? Why?
What do I want to leave behind in 2022? This could be anything – an attitude, a toxic relationship, poor self image, negative thinking, lack of self compassion, saying ‘yes’ when you really want to say no, being overworked and underpaid etc
What do I want to take forward into 2023? (What do I want to continue doing? How do I want to continue being? Which goals do I want to continue to work towards? etc)
What new practices / attitudes / ways of being / skills etc do I want for myself for 2023? How might I implement these? (e.g. do some self development reading, work with a therapist, change up my routines, attend a class or do some distance learning, place more emphasis / importance on something etc)
What limiting beliefs am I holding on to? Why? How can I work on changing my beliefs about myself / others / the world? (This might be something that you need help and support with, in which case, seeking out therapist or life coach can be really helpful)
What does success look and feel like to you? Why?
If you change one thing about your working life to make it better, what would it be? What impact do you feel this would have?
How do you respond to criticism? Do you feel this is helpful / unhelpful or could be improved in some way?
What qualities do you admire in other people?
Is there a skill you have always wanted to master? What could you do to make a start with this?
What bad habits would you like to break?
What new habits would you most like to instill?
What would you like to be doing in 5 years time? Why?
Who could support you in working towards the different goals you are considering?

Another activity which you might like to try is filling in a ‘wheel of life’ or ‘life balance wheel’ to assess how balanced the different aspects of your life are. There are lots of resources online for this, including blanks which you can print off. Commonly used categories are:

Career / business
Health/fitness
Spirituality
Fun & recreation
Finances
Giving / contribution
Personal growth and development
Significant other / marriage / romance
Physical environment (home/office)
Family & friends

The category names can be tweaked to make them personal to you, so, for example, I would have marriage as a category, would choose business rather than career and have physical environment labelled with home / workspace. The idea is that you evaluate the aspects and give yourself a score out of 10 for each. This is mine from 2018 and it’s amazing to see how things have changed for me since then.

My wheel from the end of 2018 which I found in an old Bullet Journal

When you’ve finished your wheel of life, you should see some categories that might benefit from a little bit (or a lot!) of work in order to level them up. For example, in mine, upgrading of the physical environment part of my life is my priority and I’m going to start with the part of my home that I spend most time in.

Personally, I prefer to work on tweaking things for the better rather than having grand ideas which are miles away from my current life. So, for example, if one of my current desires for myself was to have a healthy body and mind, I would think about things I could put in place to work towards this with small and achievable being the key words such as exercising for 30 minutes each day, making sure I eat at least 5 fruit and vegetables, having a balanced plate for my meals and doing at least half an hour of mindful activity each afternoon or evening or scheduling in other regular self care activities. This makes more sense than choosing what for me would be unreasonable goals such as losing loads of weight (unmeasurable), being a size 8 (not going to happen anywhere in the near future if ever,), eating a diet with no foodie treats (unmanageable) and spending two hours in the gym every day of the week (too high expectations).

One little word

Another idea you could try is to use a word to orientate you for the year / month / quarter. This was a tradition coined by Ali Edwards and is described on her website as ‘a word to focus on, to live with, to investigate, to write about, to craft with, and to reflect upon as I go about my daily life’. There are literally hundreds of words you could choose and if you want some inspiration, you’re welcome to check out my Pinterest board.

Vision board format

There are lots of different ways of making a vision board and some may be more appealing to you than others, so start asking yourself a few questions about what would work best for you and would be highly visible each day. Ideas include:

A vision board Pinterest board on your computer
A large A3 / A2 wall display which can easily be seen in a room of your choice
A collection of pictures and words added to a blank page in Canva and then used as your desktop on your personal/work laptop
Pictures and words surrounding the mirror where you do your hair/make up each day
An A4 sheet stuck onto your fridge with a magnet
A double page spread in your notebook or bullet journal

Whatever style you choose, it definitely needs to be one that you’re going to look at on a daily basis. It’s no good creating a vision board in a beautiful notebook and then placing it on a shelf to collect dust – that’s not going to help you manifest anything!

Collect your words and pictures

When you’ve become clear about what you want for yourself right now and have decided on an appropriate format, you can start to collect images and words which reflect this. There are a few different ways you can do this – you could get together some wellbeing related magazines, flick through them and cut out words and images which resonate or you could use Google or Pinterest and search for words and images related to your core values and ways of living you want to move towards. So, for example, if you want to increase the time you spend outdoors in nature, you might search for ‘woodland’, ‘outdoors’, ‘countryside’ or ‘walks in nature’ and then collect images that are the most visually appealing to you. I find it’s best to choose one image and a few words to represent each of your visions. You could even add an affirmation for each such as ‘I am a tidy and well-organised person’, I always take time to look after myself’, ‘I can do anything I put my mind to’, I dream. I believe, I receive. Personally, I like to type out words and phrases on my laptop, but an alternative method is to use letters and phrases from magazines in a kind of ransom note style!

Whilst collecting your words and pictures, try to avoid picking too many things to work on as this is the fastest route to overwhelm and lack of clarity. For my last vision board, I chose just five things to work on and a few mindsets which will help me progress. I selected two motivational images for ‘tidy and organised’ as this is my number one priority and what I want to spend the most time on. As you can see from my vision board at the start of today’s post, I print my photos on glossy photo paper (using my Canon Selphy) and try to choose images which really pop and little bits of décor here and there to try to make my board attractive to look at. If you love the way your vision board turned out, you’re much more likely to want to look at it every day and it’s more likely to inspire you to take action to reach your goals.

A few hints and tips to ensure your vision board works

For a vision board to be classed as working, it needs to be helping to motivated you to work towards your goals and to provide inspiration to keep you heading in the right direction. As I said earlier, I’ve had mixed success with mine through the years and have definitely learnt what helps and what hinders me in making progress. Here’s some tips and tricks which will hopefully help you manifest effectively:

Focus on one thing at a time. Take a look at your vision board and decide which item you are most drawn to right now. This could be something you feel would be easy to implement as a great way to get you started or it could be something which you believe would have most impact. For example, if I had a tidy and well organised craft room, it would certainly make it easier to do my current creative craft project and find and make a start on one of my sewing kits. You can still do things which contribute towards achieving your other goals but try to make one element your priority for the next few weeks or month.

Devote time (at least 5 minutes every day) to look at and think about your vision board. You could also try closing your eyes to visualise what you want for yourself and how you would feel / act / think if a particular vision became your reality. Research shows that visualisation is a powerful tool for manifestation.

Ensure that any goals you set as a result of your vision for the next month / quarter / year are SMART. Make them:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Timely

Use the acronym to help you flesh out each of your goals and identify some steps to success. This might take a while – another reason why it’s best to work on one aspect of your vision board at a time.

To help you to instill new habits and or break old ones, try reading up on habit formation. I’m currently reading James Clear’s Atomic Habits and making notes on what I’ve learnt but there are plenty of online resources available too.

Schedule in time to reflect on what’s working, what’s not and your progress each week. If things aren’t working, consider why not and then think of new things you could try. How could you increase your progress? Might you need to create smaller steps and celebrate the tiny achievements to spur you on? Will scheduling in blocks of time each day to work towards your current focus help?

Try creating a ‘highlight‘ each day which will lead you towards your goal. This is a method discussed in the book Make Time by Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky and involves choosing a single activity to prioritise and protect in your daily calendar. When you are engaging in activity for your daily highlight, try to rid your space of distractions so you can really focus on the task at hand.

Don’t be afraid to make updates as you go. You can add things, remove things, tweak things or even start again from scratch if necessary. It’s your vision board and if you decide that one of your images just isn’t inspiring you or that a motivational quote someone shared on Instagram is perfect for your needs – make the necessary changes and hopefully reap the rewards!

When motivation does dwindle, go back and look at your journalling that you did at the beginning of the progress and re-read the answers you wrote to particularly pertinent questions. This should provide you with your ‘reasons why’ and help you to get back on track.

Final words…

I hope that today’s blog post has encouraged you to have a go at creating a vision board for yourself which will help you work towards your goals and desires and ultimately work on designing a life which matches your core values and helps you manifest the aspirations you have for yourself. Wishing you lots of success with meeting your goals for 2023.

goal setting, lifestyle, Planning and journaling, Setting goals and intentions

Monday Matters: An introduction to the lunar cycle and using its magic to transform yourself and your life

Posted on Oct 17, 2022Oct 15, 2022 by Laura

Last month, I mentioned that I’d started to learn about the moon cycle, the impact it can have on mind and body and how we can work with the energy of the moon to make positive changes to ourselves and our lives. I’ve now finished reading my book, the bestselling Lunar Living by Kirsty Gallagher and feel ready to share a basic introduction to this spiritual practice which makes use of some of my favourite transformative strategies such as making vision boards, setting goals and intentions, creating affirmations, shadow work, reflecting on what you are grateful for and journalling your thoughts, feelings and ideas for self-improvement.

The basic premise

Rather than setting new year’s resolutions at the beginning of the year and forgetting about them by the end of January, working with the power of the moon and her phases involves practices such as regularly reflecting on what you want, setting intentions and working on creating an action plan that helps you to manifest your desires each month. It also includes regularly assessing your progress, thinking about things that are standing in your way and what you can do about these barriers. By doing this, you become clearer about what you see as important to you and what you want to prioritise in your life (based on your values, wants and needs), whilst having a framework of guidance which teaches you what, specifically, to focus on during each phase of the moon to fully utilise her lunar magic. And, of course, by spending time thinking about and visualising your goals along with using supportive and encouraging affirmations, research has shown that these desired results are more likely to come into fruition.

Although I’ve only recently begun to use the moon and her phases as a guide, I’ve always recognised the importance of setting aside time to slow down and reflect on my life including the aspects I want to work on and changes and improvements I would like to make. I’ve regularly made vision boards for my personal life and also one for my business which I have on display in my craft room / office. I’ve also done plenty of journaling about my progress towards goals and any difficulties I’ve faced, plus written my own affirmations to repeat each day. What I found particularly interesting was how, according to ‘moon magic’, our energy levels change throughout the cycle, meaning that there are optimum times for self-care, resting and recharging, periods of great wisdom and clarity which enable us to set our intentions and make plans for working on them, higher energy times when we can celebrate our achievements and show gratitude for what we have in our lives whilst also evaluating our position with a view to recognising what is holding us back and then finally, opportunities for releasing and letting go ready to start the new cycle.

The quote below, which I’ve taken from Kirsty’s book, also emphasizes the control we have over our lives if we tune in to the cyclic and flowing nature of life.

Lunar Living brings us home to ourselves, our dreams and visions and goals, month after month. Working with the magic of the moon is a tool of immense self-awareness, self-care, nourishment, empowerment, manifestation and purpose.
Kirsty Gallagher, Lunar Living

Waxing and waning moon – the science bit

The moon is always whole in the sky but the part that we can see changes throughout each month according to the position of The Sun. When the moon is waxing, the illuminated part is getting bigger in the sky. The moon appears to grow until it becomes full – when the whole of its shape can be seen clearly. Following a full moon, the moon begins to wane, which means the visible surface area gets smaller and smaller until it can no longer been seen in the sky. When the moon is completely invisible it is referred to as a new moon.

The eight phases of the lunar cycle

The new moon marks the beginning of the lunar cycle and is often referred to as the first phase. Throughout the month, our view of the moon changes and we describe this using eight phases or shapes as follows:

new moon
waxing crescent
first quarter
waxing gibbous
full moon
waning gibbous
last quarter (also known as third quarter)
waning crescent

The New Moon

As I said earlier, this is generally considered to be the first moon phase and is a time for new beginnings and starting afresh. Energy levels will be low right now so it’s important to take time to rest and do self-care activities (I like to write a list of these in my bullet journal that I can choose from). Tune in to your inner world with some quiet meditation and reflective journalling. Set goals and intentions for the weeks ahead, visualising and imagining your inner desires, hopes and dreams. You might also like to spend a few hours creating a vision board of images and words which represent the direction you wish to take as inspiration and motivation. Another good activity is to create a small number of affirmations (3 is ideal) which are based on your intentions and use them daily during the waxing moon. Some examples could be:

I release what no longer serves me to make space for new beginnings
I am successful and fill my potential
I am grateful for everything I have in my life right now

The waxing crescent moon

Spend time looking at your vision board, visualising and contemplating what life will feel like when your hopes and dreams become a reality. Depending on how much work is involved in reaching your goals, you might just choose one or two of your intentions to focus on, writing them down clearly and succinctly. Start to make plans and points of action to work towards your intention(s) – try identifying and writing down small and achievable steps to help you on your way. Gather the necessary resources and gain the knowledge you need to enable you to make a start. Water your seeds of intention and repeat your affirmations daily.

The first quarter

Pause and take stock – are you moving in the right direction towards the intention(s) that you are currently focusing on? Do you need to tweak your plans? Recommit to your visions and dreams and continue with the strength and determination that this moon phase brings. Be open to whatever comes your way. Face adversity with a resolute mind – you can do this! Think about any challenges you are facing – what are they teaching you? Remember, the moon doesn’t do the work for you, it merely guides you on your way and gives you the energy you need to get to where you want to be.

Waxing gibbous moon

The moon is now almost full and becoming more so each night. This is a time of high energy which helps you give that final push towards your goal(s), making the last steps needed to get there. Meditate and reflect on the process so far – what is working? what isn’t? what last minute changes might you need to make? Continue documenting the process in your journal. Practice patience and trust in your ability to succeed.

Full Moon

Photo credit: Mike Petrucci for Unsplash

The moon is completely full in the sky once again – if it’s a clear night go outside and bathe in her light. This is the time of the month where your energy levels are at their peak. If you’ve been working hard towards your goal(s) you should feel a huge sense of achievement. Remember to celebrate every single one of your successes no matter how small. If some things have stood in your way and held you back, make a list of them and think about what you want to let go of or release as the moon wanes. Remember, some new moon intentions take time and lots of work, but as long as you’re heading in the right direction and are trying to increase your awareness of what needs to change then this is a huge positive. Use the full moon creative energy and vibes combined with your intuition to reflect, evaluate progress and maybe come up with new ideas and ways of working.

There are some interesting full-moon rituals in Kirty’s book which sound like they could be really helpful and I’m definitely going to try them at this point in the next cycle.

Waning gibbous moon

This is the start of the second half of the cycle, when the moon loses a little of her fullness each night. Continue to develop your understanding of what holds you back and begin the process of releasing them. Consider your experiences so far and think about what you can learn from them. Are there any difficult conversations that you need to have with particular individuals to discuss what you have learnt, how you feel about something or any changes you intend to make and why.

Last quarter

The last quarter moon falls exactly one week after the full moon. This is the time to work on things you want to release to make way for new beginnings. Think about what or who is holding you back such as illness, negative people or situations, bad habits, self-doubts, fears, procrastination, people pleasing or unclear boundaries etc. Currently, your energy levels will be getting lower so your attention should be directed inwardly so you can rest and quietly reflect on everything that has happened in the process so far.

Waning crescent

The waning crescent is considered to be the last phase of the moon. This is when a small slither of moon is visible in the sky and it is nearly time for a new moon. During this phase, you should consider if there is anything else that does not serve you which you need to release in preparation to start anew. This is a time to slow down, rest and refresh. You might also begin to contemplate what you would like to focus on next.

And then it’s back round to the new moon to continue the cycle.

This is just a small part of what I learnt from reading Kirsty’s book. I also developed my knowledge of the 12 signs of the zodiac and their impact on the moon. According to Kirsty,

Each zodiac sign brings different influences, lessons, opportunities, challenges, positive and testing aspects, traits and a different focus and life area into the moonlight. This helps us to keep flowing with the rhythm of life as we use the different energies, characteristics and symbols of each sign to help us explore, heal and delve deeper into the relevant areas in our own lives.
Kirsty Gallagher, Lunar Living, 2020.

Final words…

I must admit that life has kind of got in the way of some aspects of using the magic of the moon this month as my husband and I went away for a short holiday and I’ve had lots going on in my life. However, I have been working towards my goals and I have made progress, I just haven’t documented it or reflected on how I’m doing. I think it might be time to create a new vision board which includes the spiritual practices I hope to develop so that following the lunar cycle becomes part of my focus every day. I think I might also benefit from setting aside a small amount of time each evening to check in with myself and consider how things are going – creating a dedicated space in my bullet journal would aid this and adding the activity to my running task list for each day of the week will help to cement the habit. Kirsty includes some questions to reflect on during each phase and these would be really useful to answer as part of my journalling. I definitely think if you’re interested in learning more than the very basics of moon magic, then her book is well worth a read and a good one to regularly refer to as you develop your practice.

Previously I’ve been rather skeptical about the information contain in horoscopes and the idea of The Zodiac but I’m trying to be more open-minded with this too. I would love to hear from anyone who is involved in using the lunar cycle to good effect and also anyone who has doubts or reservations about the ideas contained in today’s post.

Bullet journaling, goal setting, Health and Nutrition, Planning and journaling, Setting goals and intentions

Monday Matters: A mini guide to keeping a food journal to help with diet and weight loss

Posted on May 9, 2022May 8, 2022 by Laura

Earlier this month, I talked about how I might start a food journal to help me track my eating and drinking. Before starting, I researched the benefits of this practice and spent time learning about what I should include. A number of studies have shown that people who keep a food journal or diary are more likely to be successful in losing weight and keeping it off. According to my reading, the simple act of recording everything that you eat and drink each day can help you consume less calories and make healthier choices which aids weight loss.

What are the benefits of keeping a food journal?

Writing down what you eat and drink and how you feel at regular points during the day can help in a number of ways including:

Increased awareness of what you eat
Shows you how much you eat and drink in a typical day
Highlights reasons why you eat and drink e.g. boredom, stress, mid-afternoon slump, feeling sad etc
Begin to see if you’re eating too little or too much
Able to roughly track your calorie consumption and make comparisons between this and calories burnt each day
Able to check hydration levels – some people mistake thirst for hunger
Increased mindfulness i.e. awareness of eating, drinking and any patterns
Able to see where you could tweak your diet to make it more healthy and balanced

What do I need to start a food journal?

As many of you will know, I prefer pen and paper methods so I decided to use my bullet journal to record everything. I kept it simple with a title and a bit of washi tape and I used double page spreads to give me plenty of writing room. Any notebook and pen will do but it’s helpful if it’s something you can take out with you in your bag so you can record on the go – recording everything at the end of a long and busy day is quite an onerous task!

If you prefer to keep digital records you could create journalling pages in Notion or MS Word on your phone or tablet. You could also set up a simple spreadsheet to include date, time, foodstuff and how you’re feeling. Another option is to use an app like My Fitness Pal which can help you measure calorie consumption – beware though that it will keep trying to persuade you to sign up for a free trial or pay a monthly fee! I tried logging things on My Fitness Pal to see if I liked it and I found it really quick and easy. You can scan the barcode on your food packets and it shows the calorie content. You can also see and record other nutritional information but some details are only accessible on the paid for premium version.

Tips for getting the most out of your food journal

Log absolutely everything you eat and drink even if it’s something small or very low in calories e.g. one biscuit, a square of chocolate or a single boiled sweet. In doing this, you’ll have a full picture of your current diet.
When you log a food or drink, consider why you are eating and how you’re feeling e.g. a glass of wine to wind down after a long and busy day, feeling shattered etc.
Make sure you record how specific foods are cooked e.g. boiled, fried, roasted, steamed etc.
Include information about dressings, sauces and toppings and the amount e.g. 2 tsps of French dressing on salad.
Think about adding information about where you’re eating / drinking and who you are eating with e.g. at the dining table with family, at my desk, in XX restaurant, in a café with my partner etc.
Jot down what you are doing at the time e.g. watching TV, at the computer, having a catch up with a friend etc.
Be really specific about the type of drinks e.g. half a pint of beer, caramel macchiato, small mug, 200ml of orange juice etc.
Don’t forget to include alcoholic beverages and the amount e.g. one shot glass of vodka with 100ml of coke etc.
Think about logging the calories of meals at a restaurant if this information is on the menu, or check out the packaging of foodstuffs and drinks consumed at home.
Write down if you get any cravings and if you gave in to them or distracted yourself with an activity.
Note down how hungry you are when you eat.
Record your food and drink as soon as possible after eating/drinking so you don’t forget things. If you use a notebook or paper and don’t want to take it out with you, try making a quick note on your phone to transfer to your journal when you get home.

Analysing your food and drink log

Once you’ve recorded your food and drink for 5 days or so, consider what it tells you. So, for example:

Am I getting my five portions of fruit and veg each day?
How healthy is my diet overall?
Does my diet include wholegrains?
Does my mood affect my eating and drinking habits?
How balanced is my diet – am I eating too much or too little of something?
Do I have snacks and how healthy are they?
Am I paying full attention when I eat or am I often busy doing something else? (how mindful am I?)
Which areas of my diet could be improved upon? e.g. I could eat more vegetables, I could cut down on takeaways and try to do more cooking from scratch, I could eat a piece of fruit as a snack instead of a chocolate bar in the afternoon etc.

Setting some healthy eating goals

When you’ve identified areas for improvement, you could have a go at setting a couple of healthy eating goals for yourself. I recommend using the SMART framework for this so you can measure your progress easily. So, for example, when I was depressed, I struggled to eat breakfast and got into the habit of having a bowl of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes each morning as they’re easy to eat. When I started to feel better, I continued to eat this cereal as it had become a habit and one which I enjoyed. My husband suggested I try eating a healthier cereal every other day so I’m now having a portion of Shreddies four days a week. Here’s how it looks using the SMART goal system:

S = specific. Eat a wholegrain cereal every other day – a portion of Shreddies (or possibly Weetabix as an even better alternative according to someone in the know about healthy eating)

M = measurable. Does my food journal show that I’m doing this consistently?

A = achievable. Start small, do it every other day for the time being. Eating wholegrain cereal every day will make it a lot harder and I might start craving the Crunchy Nut Cornflakes and give up!

R = relevant. Does it fit with what I want in my life? Yes, I want to break the habit of eating a sugary cereal each day. I also want to tweak my diet to make it more healthy.

T = timely. Do the above consistently for two weeks to meet the initial goal and then increase to wholegrain cereal 5 days + a week.

Other goals include breaking the habit of having a packet of sweets every Friday / Saturday and finding alternative and less calorific desserts for during the week. I intend to work towards a couple of goals at a time so that I don’t feel that I’m denying myself too much.

Final words…

Although keeping a food and drink journal can be really helpful for improving your diet and eating more healthily, I wouldn’t recommend keeping records in the long term as it can be a time consuming habit to continue and you don’t want to feel like it’s a huge chore with no benefit. After 3 or 4 days, you should start to see patterns and be able to identify a few tweaks you could make to your diet to aid weight loss and ensure better balance between the different food groups and recommended consumption of foods in the different groups such as fruit and vegetables, protein and carbohydrates. For further information about your daily eating and drinking habits, you might want to consider logging things for a couple of weeks and setting yourself some mini goals to work towards.

I had a meeting this week with one of the weight management team ladies and she suggested some ideas for tweaking my diet to increase my success. She also mentioned that she didn’t advocate calorie counting or weighing food in the long term, instead she suggested educating myself about different foods and drinks using the traffic light system on packets and developing better understanding about portion size.

Nutritional information on the Shreddies packet

Let me know in the comments if keeping a food and drink log is something you’ve done in the past, considered doing or something you definitely want to try. If you’ve given it a go, I would love to hear about your experiences whether positive or negative.

In the end, I decided that I actually prefer using the My Fitness Pal app for recording as it’s much quicker than writing it all down. I’m still learning how to use all the features but so far I’ve managed to sync my Fitbit with the app and I’ve found that you can search for recipes you found online and retrieve the nutritional information (although you can’t include any changes you made to the ingredients.

Screenshot of my diary on My Fitness Pal

Thank you for reading,

bullet journal, Bullet journaling, creativity, fitness, goal setting, Planning and journaling, Setting goals and intentions

Setting up my Bullet Journal for April: Honey Bee Theme

Posted on Mar 31, 2022Mar 31, 2022 by Laura

Hi all, I hope you’re doing really well and enjoying the Springtime with its (slightly) warmer weather, bright and cheerful daffodil displays on verges and in gardens, morning bird song and emerging butterflies and bees appreciating the sight of the first flowers. In today’s post, I’ll be sharing my bullet journal pages for April in which I had great fun creating bright and colourful bee themed spreads. I’ve seen quite a few insects over the last few weeks including ladybirds, butterflies and bees and I love to watch them exploring our garden so this is where my inspiration came from for the upcoming month. I’m really pleased with how the pages turned out and I hope you enjoy looking at them too. I’ve provided minimal explanation but if you have any questions, I would be more than happy to answer them.

Cover page

Now I’m feeling better, I’ve gone back to creating cover pages for each month and decorating all of the spreads. This one uses two different yellow colours of Tombow dual tip pens (055 and 985) and a Crayola Supertip. The hexagons were drawn using a Helix stencil so it didn’t take me too long to do lots and colour them in. As I’m not too great at drawing, I went for a cute cartoon style bee!

Monthly Calendar

This is my usual layout with 6×6 boxes which leaves plenty of space for decor around the edges. I also added some flowers to go with the bees and honeycomb, filling in a few bits of white space nicely.

Workout log

As one of my current goals is to work on toning by body, I decided to keep a record of all of my different workouts. At the moment, I’m doing cardio at the gym on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, plus one session a week using the strength and muscle toning weight machines. I’m also continuing to do yoga five days a week and have put myself on the waiting list for Iyengar yoga and Pilates at the wellness centre (it’s proving to be really hard to get onto the classes as they’re so popular).

I’ve created a small calendar spread which is big enough to record multiple workouts per day. I’m going to add a coloured dot each time I do a particular workout. In May, I might also track the time I spent doing each activity but for now I’m just going to log each kind of exercise I do.

Body Tracker

Earlier this week, I mentioned I was using the SMART goal framework, to help me come up with detailed plans of my current goals. As well as measuring my weight to see how many pounds I’ve lost each month, I’m also going to take my body measurements regularly so I can see progress in this area too.

Missing spreads

I’ve chosen not to include a gratitude log and yoga session tracker for April as they’re time consuming to set up and I want to focus on my gym workouts and improving my fitness levels. When I’m well (not too high and not feeling low), I tend to spend time reflecting on what I’m grateful for anyway so I figured it’s okay to take a little break from writing things down. Also, I can see which online yoga workouts I’ve done recently by checking my YouTube history. It won’t be as easy to see the variety of sessions, to make sure they’re well balanced, but it will still give me some idea of what I’ve done. I can always put them back in place in May if I miss filling them in.

Final words…

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing my BuJo spreads for April. They’re certainly bright and colourful and better to look at than today’s grey skies and snow showers! Let me know in the comments what theme you’ve chosen for the upcoming month and if you’ve shared your pages on your blog, I’ll be sure to check them out.

bullet journal, Bullet journaling, lifestyle, Planning and journaling, Setting goals and intentions

Monday Matters: A beginner’s guide to Vision boards and how to create one in your Bullet Journal

Posted on Mar 21, 2022Mar 20, 2022 by Laura

When I start to feel better after a period of depression and anxiety, I tend to have lots of ideas for how I want my life to be now and what I want for my future. To avoid becoming overwhelmed, stressed and potentially causing a hypomanic episode (due to having bipolar disorder), I like to spend time taking a step back, really thinking about what I want for myself and asking myself some big questions. After reflecting, I like to create a visual reminder in the form of a vision board. In today’s Monday Matters I thought I’d present a beginner’s guide to vision boards and show you how I design and create mine in my bullet journal so that you can make one too.

What is a vision board?

A vision board is a collage of images and words which represent your current wishes and goals. It is used as a reminder of what you hope to achieve and aims to provide motivation and inspiration. Vision boards can be paper based or digital. They can contain as many words and images as you want but I find they work best if they’re relatively simple as then you are only working towards a small number of goals. Whereas a digital vision board works best if it fits onto your computer screen, a paper based vision board can be any size of your choosing. I created a large A1 sized board for my business and have the images and words pasted onto a black piece of card which is inside a clip frame. The vision board is on the wall in my craft room and I love looking at it regularly. My personal vision boards are usually created in my bullet journal on a double page spread and contain words and images from magazines as well as printouts from online resources like Pinterest. Click here to see an example of one I created during lockdown.

Your vision board can have a particular theme e.g. health and wellbeing, your word of the year etc, or it can be more general and include personal and/or professional related goals. Whichever style you choose, you need to spend some time reflecting on what you want your life to be like now and what you hope your life to look like in the future.

Some key questions to ask yourself:

What is most important to me in my life right now? (e.g. happiness, good health, work-life balance etc)
What are my core values? (e.g. family, creativity, self confidence, education, happiness, growth, self awareness etc)
What did I used to do in the past that I would like to start doing again now? (e.g. have lots of fun, meet friends for coffee, go to the gym, spend quality time with family etc)
What experiences would I like to have in the future? (travel the world, start a family, learn to swim, attend an art course etc)
What are my current interests or hobbies? (e.g. sewing, bullet journalling, watercolour painting, hiking, getting fit, baking etc)
Do I currently spend plenty of time engaging in things I enjoy? (e.g. I don’t feel I dedicate enough time to having fun, I always make time for my hobbies and interests etc)
What bad habits do I want to break? (drinking too much alcohol, going to bed late, eating unhealthy snacks, too many takeaways, spending too much time on social media etc)
What good habits do I want to instill? (e.g. exercise for 30 minutes 5 times a week, drink more water, eat more fruit and vegetables, starting a gratitude practice, meditating each morning, read one self help book each month etc)
What little things do I want to put in place right now? (e.g. daily gratitude, healthy breakfast, in bed by 10.30pm etc)
What are my big dreams for the future? (e.g. to write a book, to be a minimalist, to own a 3 bedroom home, to move to Australia, to travel the world, to have a family etc)
What can I do now to help me work towards my dreams / goals?
How will I feel when I achieve my goals / dreams? (proud, happy, confident, calm, successful etc)

How do vision boards work?

Vision boards only work if you do! By this, I mean that choosing representational images and words to describe your desires, goals and dreams is not enough to achieve them. You also need to identify steps to take to work towards what you want and create habits which will help you (or break habits which are not helpful). A vision board provides a useful visual reminder and, when looked at on a daily basis, can be used as a prompt to spend time evaluating and reflecting on your progress towards your specific goals and wishes, looking at any obstacles that have come up and how you will remedy problems. It can also help to motivate you into action – especially if the images and words you have chosen are exactly what you desire and spark great attraction.

What I find useful is to accompany my vision board with a page of notes. I write down what each image represents and also record what I need to do or not do to work towards achieving my vision. I can then move on to identify the baby steps I need to take to have the best chance of achieving my goals. Reflecting on your progress regularly and setting new small goals is also really important if you vision board is to have the best chance of working.

Designing your vision board

The design of your vision board should suit you and your lifestyle. If you prefer to work digitally, you could create a vision board to display on the desktop of your computer or even create a vision board on Pinterest using attractive images and motivational sayings and quotes. If you like to get creative, you might do a cut and paste from your favourite magazines – try flicking through them and see what resonates with you. You can even cut out individual letters or words to put together to make motivational phrases (a bit like a ransom note but full of positivity instead!). Use pictures which sum up exactly what you want, for example an image of someone who is smiling can represent wanting to feel happier in life, a big house in the countryside can show that you would love to live in a more rural location, a passport and pictures of key locations in a Paris e.g. The Eiffel tower and a cruise boat on the River Seine, would be good to remind you that you really want to visit the capital of France.

I like to create a double page spread in my bullet journal as this is something I look at multiple times a day and use morning and night. You can read about the process of setting up my vision board below.

Creating a vision board in your bullet journal

Image selection I find the best way to create my vision board in my bullet journal is to use photographs which are available online. If you use images from magazines, they may be vastly different in size. If you search chosen key words online you can spend time looking through the different pictures and find one which is suitable for what you want and then resize it to fit (I make the width of my images around 4cm – 6cm). I placed the photos into a document on MS Publisher which was 4x6in and then printed the pages out on photo paper of the same size using my Canon printer.

After that, I cut them out using my small Fiskars guillotine and backed them on mid pink coloured paper to make them stand out. The backing of the photos was rather time consuming, especially as you really need to use double sided tape for photograph paper. The process could be speeded up using a roller tape but if you’re limited for time, you could just stick the images straight in to you BuJo. I left a tiny border of pink as I wanted the photos to take centre stage.

Motivational words Again, I create the words myself in a MS Publisher document rather than looking through magazines so I can play around with the sizing, font and specific word classes e.g. verb, adjective, noun etc. I also chose to print them on coloured paper so that they stood out from the white paper just like my photos. It’s up to you how you produce your words – you could create stickers, stamp them onto paper, cut them out and stick them in or hand letter them for example.

Playing around with placement Once you’ve got your images and words ready, it’s time to try out different placements until you’re happy with how they’re arranged. It’s a good idea to experiment with different layouts and then take a quick photo of your double page spread each time so you can always revert back to a previous arrangement. Once your happy you can paste everything in. You might choose to add some decorative elements to any spaces, for example, if you’re creating your vision board for the Springtime, you might add flowers, hearts in Spring colours, butterflies, motivational words etc. This could be in the form of stickers and ephemera like mine or, if you’re good at drawing, you could create something using spring coloured felt tip pens or coloured pencils.

My finished vision board in my bullet journal

Final words…

I hope today’s blog post has inspired you to create your own vision board as a motivational tool for working towards your goals and dreams. Remember that vision boards are a great way for clearly identifying what you want for yourself now and in the future but as well as creating this attractive and motivational tool, you also need to identify progressive steps going forward and also dedicate time to work on making your hopes a reality.

Do you currently use a vision board or is it something you would like to have a go at creating? What would be the most prominent image or idea on your board? Let me know in the comments below.

With love and best wishes,