Hello October!

As I’m writing this, it’s a few days into October (in typical Sushmi style) and the old me thought ‘Welp guess I’ll wait to do a Hello December post’ (cause let’s be real, I’ll say I’ll do November, then I’ll blink and it’s suddenly jingle jingle time). But since I claimed to be on this journey of active self betterment in my previous post, I guess the active self-bettering thing to do is hold myself accountable for taking this long, accept that some things just don’t go as planned, and be better planned for next time.

Actually, that proves to be a seamless transition into what I’m actually meant to write about, my goals and ✨intentions✨ for the month of October. (I couldn’t help but use those sparkly emojis to depict how ✨hokey✨ “intentions” sounds). Nevertheless my intentions for this post are but hokey. That said, here’s my aims for October.

Walk 10K steps everyday. Back in March, when lockdown first was in effect, I went walking (and eventually running) as if it was my religion. Somewhere between Julygust (I refuse to acknowledge that July and August were two different months because June was yesterday but September was tomorrow?) and sporadic heat waves, I fell off the wagon. However, this brief but impactful time introduced me to the joys of long walks and the benefits of running 5 miles. I would love to habitualize long walks and frequent runs and what better way than making it a monthly goal.

Wake up at 6am. I’m most productive in the wee hours of the morning and somewhere along the summer, I found myself sleeping in until 7am. (Appalling! I know.) This goal is not so much about waking up early, rather not spending an hour first thing every morning in bed scrolling on my phone. Imagine all the yoga and berry eating I could do instead.

Read a “Every Day” by David Levithan. In August, I set myself a goal of completing “The Fault In Our Stars” by the end of the month. It wasn’t a particularly arduous task however, I often start books and get too distracted by other things (read: technology and social media) so I figured by setting myself a non strenuous and achievable goal, I would be more inclined to finish the book as I had something I was working towards. I figured correct. Thus began by SVSHMI book club (which you can read all about here if you fancy joining or even just knowing about it). And the October book club book of choice is “Every Day” by David Levithan and I plan on completing it this month.

Learn to spend more time with myself. This isn’t quite as easily measurable as the previous ones, nevertheless it’s still equally important to me. I would consider this a long term goal with mini progress marking steps along the way. For example, go on a walk by myself rather than reaching out to a friend to join me. Or take some time to journal or read rather than talk on the phone with a friend every night. In the beginning, it’s uncomfortable – naturally – however when I catch myself choosing the latter alternative without hesitation, I’ll know I’ve made significant progress.

So this wraps up a few of my goals for the month of October. I would love to know if you are doing this, or felt inspired to, and if you are what are some of your goals and ✨intentions✨ (sorry, I had to) for the month, let me know.

Sincerely, Sushmi x