Recently I found myself falling out any routine, my once good habits became abandoned - I think the combination of being unwell, lockdown and moving into a new environment got to me, and I found it easy to push aside those little habits and daily routines, unaware of the impact it would have. After a few weeks of feeling all over the place and noticing the toll of that on my mental health, I realised I needed some positive routine back. So once again I've been developing new routines to follow, of the little things which keep my wellness up.

5 Habits for Happiness:

- Journalling:

- Reading:

- Moving your body:

- Going outside:

Recently I've been spending a lot of my time at home job searching, but the current situation has pressed the pause button the job search. I have also found myself stopping a lot of the things I could keep up, seeing lockdown as an excuse to stay in my PJs all day and play sims - now as fun as that is, I'm writing this two days into lockdown because I'm feeling a lack of achievement and very unfulfilled. So I've decided to change my perspective. To see this time at home as a gift. To challenge myself to see what I can do with this time, so naturally, I've set myself some goals.

Finish writing my book: 

A few years ago, I began writing a book - it sat at just the first chapter for about a year, finally, I got around to finishing the first rough draft, and then the fear crept in. Once again it went untouched for months. During this time I'm going to edit those chapters, finish a draft which I'm happy to send to publishers. My book won't finish writing itself, and I can achieve my dream of being a published author without that part.

Exercise every day:

I go through phases with exercise. I either pretend it's not a thing or become obsessed with it. I did yoga every day in January (blog post on that here). Since I've done the odd bit of yoga and running but it's not been such a priority. In this time I want to improve my fitness, I want to take advantage of the option to exercise outside and run in the fresh air (which I've done most days so far), on the days I'm not running, I'll be doing yoga because I find the meditativeness of yoga is good for my mind,  and I could do with improving my flexibility and balance. Alongside this I'm completing weekly online sessions with my old personal trainer, @laurenalicefitness on Instagram who is being kind enough to do free sessions on Instagram live during this time - I would recommend following if you want some more challenging strength workouts.

Actually, try to grow my Instagram and Youtube platforms: 

I'm bad at Youtube and Instagram. Maybe bad is the wrong word - I'm not very good at trying to grow them. If I tried a little harder, I could have a larger following, instead I just kind of let them exist as they are, with a very slow organic growth. Sometimes I forget to posts on Instagram, and I'm rubbish at engaging with others. However when I'm putting my time and effort into creating the content, I should want it to be seen, and it should be seen - so I'm going to spend more time engaging online, posting more regularly to Instagram and being consistent with Youtube. To encourage me to actually put the effort in, I've set specific goals which I can track, so by the end of this lockdown, I'd like 200 subscribers on Youtube and 1000 followers on Instagram (if you can help a gal out, that would be fab).

Find new ways to connect with friends:

We are so used to be able to meet up with friends, putting effort keeping friendships alive in this time is more important than ever. I want to check in with friends more often. I've been rediscovering my love for a phone call, I'm trying to take advantage of facetime and at some point, I plan on giving a Netflix party a go.

Get ahead with my blog posts:

Most of the time, despite having blogged weekly for years and despite usually priding myself for my organisation skill, I still find myself writing my blog posts a few days before they go live. I'm bad at remembering to proofread them because I'm so relieved to finish them in time to fit my schedule, typos and all. But with all this extra time at home, I'm going to try to spend some time each day working on blog posts in an attempt to organise myself to get a month or two ahead. I'm going to have to get pretty good at shooting photos around my house, but I'm excited to see all of my posts scheduled and ready to go ahead of time for once.

Improve my blog DA:

If you're a blogger, you'll know that when it comes to working with brands, your domain authority can either be a help or a hindrance. Sadly, mine is the latter. My blog DA is much lower than I believe it should be because I spent years blogging with little to no understanding of SEO. As I'd like to work with more brands and for more people to see my blog, I'm going to spend this time editing old posts trying to get that DA number up. Fixing broken links is my first step.

Read more:

Reading is something I always want to do more of, now I actually have the time. I will also be recording what I'm reading more, writing book reviews on here and Instagram. If you want to read along with me, you can join #chloeharrietsbookclub, head over to this blog post to find out what my book picks for the next few months are. Next week I have a book review blog post catching you up with my thoughts on all of my book club books from the year so far. I'm trying to get as much reading done as possible so between the book club books I'll picking overs from my shelf to make my way through, I'm currently reading (and loving) My Life in 37 Therapies by Kay Hutchison which was kindly gifted to me (and I will also be reviewing it soon)


Have you set any goals for this time?

Instagram | Youtube | Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest

Follow

I've recently entered a familiar realm of sadness, and while I think it's important to ride it out, allow myself to feel. I also think it's just as important to control it before it spiralling. So here are some little things I'm doing to ensure my sadness is shortlived.

1) Reaching out to friends: I've recognised I've been feeling a sense of loneliness and isolation, so rather than dwell on that, and feeding my paranoia, by mentally listing all the reason I could believe that my friends don't actually like me and are attempting to ghost me, I'm simply texting to ask if they want to hang out.

2) Unfollowing: I'm terrible when it comes to following. I see a picture I like, or one tweet I relate to and immediately hit that follow button. I guess because there's no limit on who you can follow. However recently, I was on a friends twitter and noticed she only follow 80 odd people, and I thought to myself with envy "her twitter must be a nice place to be", and then I realised I follow thousands of people which make my social media feeds just as loud as my brain. So not to be that dick who unfollows but I'm going to be doing some unfollowing, for my own sake.

3) Facemask - My once completely clear skin which would cause me to brag how I never get spots, is cluttered with angry blemishes. I think stress has caused my skin to have a bad time. Rather than dwell on the fact my skin isn't looking great, I'm taking it as an excuse to do some facemask, give it that extra bit of love it's looking for.

4) Eating Healthy - The temptation to binge when I'm feeling down is high, but I'm trying my best to shake my head no to the overload of snack that I want and eat well because it just makes me feel a little nicer

5) Exercise - I mean, I'm yet to put this one into practice if I'm completely honest, but I'm trying my best to incorporate exercise into my life again because I know what good things it does for the mind. I want to try out Yoga, considering I've never met someone less flexible than me, it could be interesting.

6) Meditate - As well as moving your body, I think it's just important to be still, and alone with your thoughts. I'm going to get back into meditating, if you've been reading my blog a while, you'll know used to be obsessed with the Headspace apps, it's time to start using it again.

7) Delete the social media app which I mindlessly scroll on - I recently deleted my Facebook app from my phone, I don't miss it, and I don't waste time scrolling, or meeting with the devil of comparison. Snapchat will be going next.

8) Clean - It's not only therapeutic, but it creates a more inviting environment. I was having a terrible day yesterday, I walked into my bedroom, and was reminded I changed my bedding earlier that day and just one thing was slightly nice, and sometimes the smallest things, really count. I know clean bedding's not going to change the world, but it makes it the tiniest bit brighter.

9) Tweet less, blog more - I find it far too easy to tweet out a few words which poorly describe how I'm feeling which might not always come across how I intend and can make space feel quite negative. I'm going to try to take to blogging more when I've got something to say, so that I can talk about how I'm feeling in a longer form, that way I can hopefully understand it, and explain it better.

10) Write in my Diary - I'm trying to get back into the habit of writing down my thoughts each day, taking the time to explore my thoughts and pour my heart out into words on a page, just for me. I find this helps understand how I'm feeling, and gain a sense of control over it, plus it encourages me to practise my writing for no one other than myself.

Photography: Madeleine Grace

Outfit Details
Dress: ASOS 
Jacket:  H&M (old, similar linked)
Shoes: DMs (similar)
Bag: Zara (old, similar linked)
Lipstick: Chanel Rouge Allure Velvet in 37 L'Exubérante



I hope you found this post useful, I'd love to hear your thoughts!


Follow