At the start of the year I wrote that my word for 2021 was habit. In January, I challenged myself to do something creative every day, a habit that I’ve continued (although not quite as diligently).
In February, I challenged myself to do two things every day: read a book and exercise. I continued challenging myself to exercise in March, but replaced books with email.
In April the habits I committed to were skincare, and human contact.
May was a consolidation month – I focused on all the habits so far this year, trying to do two+ of them on any given day.
Skincare
I loved this habit. I used to spend evenings doing face / hair masks, I had an entire post-plane or pre-talk ritual, but I’d stopped carving out those blocks of time for it. This habit redefined it around little and often, fitting a 15 minute exfoliating mask into my morning routine, or taking a minute to add the “shower experience” body oil before getting into the shower.
Human Contact
This habit was harder, and made me more aware of how small my world has shrunk during the endless March of 2020. I made more effort, checked in with people, had some calls, mailed some packages, sent more text messages. Some days it was great, others it felt really hard. I’m glad I made that effort though. I’m still aways off being as social as I used to be, but I feel like less of a hermit which is good.
Consolidation
I’m so glad I gave myself some time to consolidate, rather than adding habit after habit after habit. It was really helpful to spend some time actively trying to find balance between things.
I did quite a bit of making (I’m working on this huge piece, and I lasered some fun things # # #), did quite a few spin classes, started doing yoga, read a couple of novels, many face/hair masks, and kept working at being more social. I did very minimal dealing with email, though.
I think June will be another month of consolidation, especially as the gym will reopen. In July… who knows? I feel like I’m trying to work up to the habit of writing. We’ll see.