Author: joypetite

Day 165: Gratitude 5

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Gratitude of the Day: This Blog

This blog may never be what I hope it will become, but it’s helping me keep myself accountable for what I want to accomplish. I love the quote from Bill Gates:

Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.

With this blog I can see my failings and successes over time across days and months and maybe even years. I can see where I need to put in more effort and where I can sit back and relax. It’s really good for me.

Until tomorrow.

200 days to go! Oh my!

Day 164: Gratitude 4

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Gratitude of the Day: My Morning Routine

Every morning I wake up, make my coffee with milk and sugar and read the news. I’m also starting to write more and meditate in the morning (at least for a few minutes!). It’s kind of a strange thing, because I don’t really enjoy waking up, but I really enjoy my morning routine. I even get kind of grumpy if I have to go in to work early or if something interrupts my routine.

I’m grateful for my morning routine because it gives me something to look forward to before work. It gives me something to look forward after waking up. And it gives me a sense of productivity and contentment at the start of the day.

Until Tomorrow.

201 Days to go!

Day 163: Gratitude 3

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Gratitude of the Day: Godless

On Netflix! Why have I never watched a Western before? I love it! It has everything I could ever want. Good guys! Bad Guys! Horses! Landscapes! Romance! It’s gotten me in to a whole new genre that I was always skeptical about. (On another note – why am I snobby about certain genres? I always end up loving them.) I’m always grateful for something that changes my expectations and gets me in to something new.

It’s not what it was sold as, but I still like it. I think it could have been better if it actually was a show about a town of women surviving in the West, but it’s good for what it is. And now I’m planning on watching a whole slew of westerns in the next few months. 🙂

Until tomorrow.

202 Days to go.

Day 162: Gratitude 2

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Gratitude of the Day: My Job

I like my job well enough. It’s a lot of work and the people can be a little overbearing, but it’s generally a good environment and a good job. Sometimes I let myself get overwhelmed with all the bad things about it that I often forget the good. There’s some politics, but not a whole lot. I have friends at work that I get along with and I don’t usually get the Sunday Scaries. Most people work hard and we all do our best.

On my way back to work today after the holidays, I need to remember that I’m thankful I have a job that pays me pretty well and that I generally like. There’s not really much more you can ask for in a job, so I’d say I’m in a pretty good situation.

Until tomorrow.

203 days to go.

Day 161: Happy New Year!

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Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year’s Eve and is excited for 2018. May it be better than 2017. My goals and resolutions are still the same, but I thought I would begin the year off with 31 days of gratitude in January. I get so caught up in what I want that sometimes I forget what I’m grateful for.

Gratitude of the Day: The New Year!

I’m grateful for it being January 1st. While I’m always striving to be a better version of myself, I’ve taken the last few days to rest and reflect on 2017 and to realign myself and my life with my goals both big and small.

Until tomorrow.

204 days to go!

 

Day 146: 18 in 2018

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I was listening to Happier with Gretchen Rubin and a listener suggested that instead of (or in addition to) a New Year’s resolution, you have a list of both fun things you want to do and things you want to improve upon. So 18 in 2018 was born! 2018 is just around the corner, so here’s my list below!

18 in 2018

Fly fishing
Go to Portland
Go to a new Museum
Go to Germany & Denmark
Sequoia National Park
Advance to next ballet level
Pay off credit card debt
Get agent for book
Work on Capsule wardrobe
Floss every day
Wear more lipstick
Take Piano lessons
Sign up for a club (look on meetup)
Begin Meditating
Eat Breakfast every day
Go to the doctor
Read more poetry
Fall in Love

So there it is! It has everything. Trips overseas (Germany) and trips in the US (Portland), trying new things (piano lessons), and trying to do things I’ve been trying to do forever(ballet!). Things that seem hard, but are easy to do (going to the doctor) and things that are easy in theory, but hard in practice (falling in love). Let’s see how many I can get done. Updates will follow!

Day 145: New Year’s Resolutions Pt. 1

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We’re halfway through December already (eek!) and almost to the end of the year. I can’t believe how quickly the year has flown by. I feel like I haven’t accomplished as much as I want to, but if I break it down piece by piece, I’ve still accomplished a lot. But since the end of the year is so near, it’s time to start thinking about New Year’s resolutions! What do I want my life to look like next year? I have this blog which has helped me immensely, but I think I should also add fun things to my list. So there will be two lists for next year, my resolutions to improve myself and my 18 in 2018 (from Happier with Gretchen Rubin)  which will be a combination of the two.

Until tomorrow!

220 days to go

Day 140: Reframing

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Hellooooooooo!

I’ve been MIA again for awhile. This time I haven’t been working so many hours, but I have been doing a great many things. December is a busy month with the holidays! Everyone is trying to cram in last minute get togethers and there’s holiday parties and shopping galore. So basically I’ve been busy, which isn’t always an excuse but sometimes it can be.

But I wanted to share something I discovered recently which I’m pretty excited about. Podcasts!

Just kidding. I know all about podcasts, but I haven’t had a chance to listen to them since I switched jobs. There’s just too much to do and I can’t really concentrate on the podcasts unless I’m cleaning or sorting laundry or doing some other mindless task.

Enter driving to ballet. The class I like is pretty far away, especially after work when it’s rush hour. It’s been a definite issue in the past with me not wanting to drive half an hour after work to go exercise. My willpower is low in the evening and the commute doesn’t help.

Then while I was listening to Happier with Gretchen Rubin they were talking about reframing. Basically you take a negative task or idea and frame it in a different light so it becomes a positive. And then it hit me! The perfect time to listen to my podcasts is during my dreaded commute to ballet class. It’s a good chunk of time, so I can listen to the longer podcasts and it’s something I look forward to, so I’ve finally found a way to overcome the commute obstacle. A perfect solution to a thorny problem. 🙂

Until tomorrow! (Podcast & ballet day!)

225 days to go.

Day 132: Book Round Up

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Something different today! I’m slowly working towards my goals, but there hasn’t been much to report. Just the grind of getting things done and trying to balance what I want to do with my life with my actual job. It’s tough. But things have slowed down the past couple of weeks so I’ve been able to get some reading done!

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For some unknown reason the first book I decided to read after my grueling month of work was Sixty: A Diary of my Sixty-First Year  by Ian Brown. As someone in their twenties, it’s interesting to see the perspective of someone at the other end of their life (Sorry, Ian, but it’s true.) He worries about a lot of the same things I worry about: money, relationships, accomplishing great things in life. He does talk a lot about health and death, which I found both boring and panic inducing. Mostly this book just helped to increase my feeling of existential dread, which I don’t usually have. Imagining myself and sixty and whether or not I’ve lived the life I’m aiming for now caused a sense of fear I don’t usually feel. I guess at the very least it will help me work harder. Thanks Ian.

Recommendation: Read it!

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My ever increasing need to be productive led me to my next book Do the Work by Steven Pressfield. This is one of those books that everyone who works in a creative field seems to tell you to read. I personally found it to be one long motivational quote. That works for some people, but I’m prefer books which give me concrete tools to improve my life (lists!, pomodoro method!, reward systems!). It just really depends on what kind of self-help books, you find most helpful.

Recommendation: Pass for me, but maybe not for you!

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Frothy fun! That’s what I need and that’s what this book is. It’s been on my To Read list for ages and I’m glad I finally read it. It doesn’t have a traditional narrative structure (peppered with emails, police reports and memos) and I think it’s all the better for it. All the characters are witty and delightful (even the terrible ones) and everyone is smarter, prettier, better dressed than I am. This is a book that believes it’s readers are smart and can put together the pieces. We are and we can! Escapist fiction! Exactly what you need once in awhile.

Recommendation: Read read read!

So that’s something different for now. Don’t worry, I’ll be droning on and on about goals and New Year’s Resolutions soon.

Until tomorrow.

233 days to go.

Day 125: Sunday Scaries

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I know I’ve been going on and on about my new job, but it’s a big life change. I’m happy I got the title and salary bump, but it’s definitely been an adjustment. And still is! It’s been a lot of work and I’m genuinely wondering how long I can do this for. Hopefully it’ll get better, but if it doesn’t, I know want a life outside of work and time to work on my own projects. After all I’m putting in 50 to 60 hours a week, which I enjoy for the most part, but it’s ultimately not what I want to do and it’s a lot of time.

For the moment, when Sunday rolls around I just don’t really want to go to work. I don’t dread going and I don’t mind being there when I’m working, but I just don’t want to go. This is normal. Work is work.

My first job out of college was terrible. I don’t know if the job was actually terrible (although people often left) or if I was just adjusting to life after college. Probably a bit of both, although they did have some weird policies. Whether or not the job was terrible, it made me feel terrible.  Every Sunday before work I would just lay in bed for hours with a crushing feeling in my chest. I would walk to work and imagine getting hit by a bus. (Definitely not healthy.) I would cry in the bathroom at work and made elaborate lists counting down the hours, and the minutes for each workday. This is not normal.

Eventually, I chose a day I was going to quit (and made a list counting down the days). I booked an airplane ticket for a few days after my planned exit date, so I couldn’t back out. And then I quit. And I felt fantastic – a weight lifted off my chest which had been crushing me for the past year. (I also played, “One Day More” from Les Miserables on repeat the day before my last day. It was great.) It was a terrible job and sometimes I wondered if I should have stayed, since the following few years weren’t a walk in the park, but in the end I think it was a good decision and I don’t regret it. I’m even thankful it was so terrible, because it brought me to my current place in life and now I know if I ever have those feelings again to get out. It was a good learning experience.

I didn’t know the term Sunday Scaries until I moved to LA. I like it though. It gives a cutesy name to something terrible. Hopefully I don’t have it with this job, but if I do, I already know what it feels like and I know I have the choice and the power to make it go away.

Until tomorrow.

240 days to go.