Kicking off the new year with the Bloganuary challenge ❤️

Happy new year everyone! Welcome to 2023 and to day one of bloganuary !

I hope you are breathing calmly and not putting too much pressure on yourself for your first day of 2023! I am excited to challenge myself with 31 days of blogging in January to remind myself that what I have to say is important 🙂 Each day I’ll be sharing my post for this challenge, but after today I won’t title them with the #bloganuary title, so they will blend in with the rest of my posts. My goal is to encourage myself to just write from the heart and to rediscover the joy and pride I have from writing !

That being said, I hope this can also start me on a path this year to share a lot of my knowledge and research in my interest fields and to post more about my Occupational therapy journey! If you are part of bloganuary this month, please share the link to your blog in my comment sections I would love to join your journey too!

Day 1 prompt: what is something you want to achieve this year?

I’m not normally one to set New Year’s resolutions; I think they’re ways for me to set myself up for self doubt and disappointment. However, this year I’ve resolved that I am going to be setting self care habits for the year. This reframe of the goal setting, I’m hoping, will focus on self care and taking away the pressure of being perfect on this path of change.

So focusing on something I want to achieve this year, I have a couple self care goals that I want to work towards:

• Read 60 books this year – I’m logging my book count on Goodreads for the second year! Last year I read 48/50 books, and I found two things that helped. First strategy was taking away all expectations of books – any book counted including the kids books I read to prep for my occupational therapy clients. This allowed me to remember how much I loved reading and to remember that reading for work also counts as reading. Second strategy was my sound cancelling headphones. I discovered if I play kawaii low fi beats (there are so many playlists on Spotify and YouTube!) I can make any space comfy enough to read !
• Moving my body intentionally once a day – I know that my physical and mental health are both better when I make time to move my body, so this year I’ll be doing it intentionally. If anyone wants to connect to keep each other accountable let me know 🙂 moving my body will look like going for walks, lifting weights, doing yoga and small youtube video workouts at home. I’ll also be working towards a 10 k run in may, but I live in Canada so running will take place depending on weather for me
• Carving out time for rest… intentionally! – the end of the new year was incredible with learning how to intentionally unplug, read, rest and recharge. I also started working on setting (and committing to) boundaries for myself. Yesterday I left the New Year’s party at 1030 so I could enjoy some down time at home before bed and it was wonderful! This year we’re taking it to the next step. Next stop… relaxation station!
• Blogging more! I love writing my blog and I love using it as a way to encourage personal and professional development! This year I’m hoping to post at least 2 posts a month if possible (outside of bloganuary of course)

What are you hoping to achieve this year?