July's Goals & Intentions
If you’re new here, each month I share reflections on the previous month, as well as my goals for the month coming. They allow me to share more personal and intimate details of my life. These posts are like a monthly journal or diary for me, and their aim is to keep me accountable on my journey to being debt free, but also to reflect on how I’m doing/ feeling, and what we’ve been up to as a family.
June was a funny old month. I spent a lot of it feeling quite burnt out personally. Not from work and writing, but from supporting a family member through a tough time. I found this time quite difficult. Being there for someone full time is so exhausting.
I don’t mean for that to sound so awful, but emotionally it was a lot for me. Have you ever experienced this? I can’t really explain it well enough at the moment. I suppose it’s still exhausting me to think about it, and I’ve blanked a lot of it from my mind.
Things have since improved for my family member, and I’m starting to feel better. I’ve spent a few weeks resting, and not doing much other than getting better mentally. I’m ready to start planning the next 4 weeks so that I can be best prepared for the summer holidays with the children, as well as still providing value to you, my dear readers.
So, on to my goals and intentions for July…
Personal Life & Health:
After a tough few weeks where stress hit peaks levels, I’m almost back to my usual self now. I’ve spent a lot of time on my own trying to recuperate and have space again in my head for things other than meeting my basic needs.
If you’re going through a tough patch right now, I’d highly recommend, if you can, to meet your basic needs. This is not self care. This is what we NEED to do in order to survive. Eat 3 meals a day (bonus points if they’re healthy, but eating a meal is what’s important). Sleep, as much as you can ideally. Take care of your personal hygiene. Shower and brush your teeth. Everything else is a bonus.
For me, I needed to spend a lot of time alone. I’d been needed by my relative so much, that I had forgotten to take care of myself too. Spending time alone is just what I needed to recover mentally.
I feel like I’m almost back to my usual self right now, but I’m worrying about how quickly the summer holidays are creeping up. I need to organise myself now, over the next 4 weeks, so that I don’t find myself back in a mental rut.
The heatwave has not helped my health either. You know how people suffer with seasonal affective disorder (also known as SAD) and they struggle with their mental health during the winter months? Well, I swear I get that through summer.
Is this a thing though? I just genuinely feel a range of symptoms of depression through the summer months. I hate being in the sun, just a simple task like picking my children up from school in the heat is enough to strike me down with a migraine for 48 hours. It sounds ridiculous to even type this, but summer makes me physically unwell.
I’ve never known anyone who suffers like this during the summer, so I don’t know if it’s a real thing or not. I’d love to know if any of you suffer with something similar. Let me know in the comments. I suppose it’s a good thing that I live in the North of England and the sun very rarely shines for long.
Also, so sorry to all those who love summer! I know it’s a treat in the UK and I’m so pleased that you are able to fully soak it up, but I’m so looking froward to September and the autumn months.
Since I last spoke to you in May, I mentioned that I really wanted to eat better and try Hello Fresh, the subscription box service. We did that, thanks to a few of you sending discount codes and referral links. I can honestly say it’s been amazing!
Having everything you need delivered to your door, already measured out, with a recipe card detailing exactly what you need to do and when, has been exactly what I needed over these last few weeks. I’ve never, ever eaten so well in my life. Everything just tastes so delicious, and, dare I say it, I’m actually enjoying cooking!
If you’re in the UK and you’d like to give Hello Fresh a try, here’s my referral link which will give you 60% off your first box, and 25% off your following 10 boxes.
I also have 3 FREE boxes to give away (you just have to pay the £4.99 delivery fee), so if you’d like one of those just let me know, or email me simpleandcalm@substack.com
One area I haven’t gotten back to yet is exercising. It’s just been far too hot for that, and I’ve been too unwell to fully give it a try again. I’ll pick it back up when it cools down again.
Therefore, my goal here is to spend some time organising my diary and my to-do list for the next few weeks. I want to aim to be in front with my work so that I can enjoy the summer holidays in August. I’m also going to check in with myself often so that I can avoid getting burnt out again.
Work Life:
Well things haven’t been going so great with work. For those of you who missed it, the job I usually do before I went on maternity leave has now been advertised for someone else. I’m currently jobless and this hasn’t helped my mental health at all. I went into panic mode and I just can’t seem to get back on track. My mind is whizzing around all over without a focus because I’m so worried about how we’ll cope in October when I finish my maternity leave. I wrote a post all about what happened, you can read it here
My goal here is to get back on track with my writing following my mental burn out, and also look into new potential VA jobs for October. If you’re reading this and need/ know anyone who needs a virtual assistant in October, give me a shout!
Finances:
Current debt: £11,206.41 (£290.40 paid off in June)
Plan of action: Pay off £320.40 towards debt in July.
A few unexpected expenses cropped up for us in May which saw us use the credit card again. This is the problem with not having an emergency fund to fall back on.
I’m seriously thinking about paying off as much debt as possible before October so that we don’t have to send money to the credit card when we don’t have my income anymore. How much we can realistically afford to pay off our debts from now until October is something we need to look into.
Luckily, my husband and I are very minimalistic and far from materialistic so we won’t be getting anything for our birthday’s this year (both in July), instead the best present we can get each other is financial freedom ready for October. We’ll still have the car payment, but we can at least try to pay off the credit card as much as we can.
The goal is to review our finances, knuckle down with our budget, and try to save as much money as we can to pay off the credit card.
Home Life & Possessions:
The never ending task of keeping the house clean and tidy has been quite overwhelming these last few weeks. I’m in a better place now and feel ready to tackle it. If I took a photo right now, you’d say that it looks tidy. It is, the house just needs a deep clean.
This is just another job that I haven’t been able to tick off my to-do list while I’ve been unwell. I suppose it’s like a vicious cycle that I haven’t been able to get out of. A clean house always makes me feel better, but I’ve not been well enough to actually clean.
We were also gifted lots of baby toys for William which is incredibly kind, but now I need to find a place to store them! I have a cupboard in mind, it just needs a good sort out which I plan to do soon.
The goal here is to give the house a good deep clean, and find some more things to sell on Vinted, thus earning money which helps towards our goal of being able to pay off the credit card.
Technology & Social Media:
You may know that over the last 4 months I’ve been having a sort of detox from social media. I say sort of because I haven’t fully deleted my accounts on social media, I’ve just removed the apps from my phone (I only have Instagram and Facebook).
At first, I was absolutely thriving being away from Instagram. I didn’t miss or check Facebook once so that sealed the deal that I’m happy to remove that completely (side note: I really wish Facebook Marketplace was a separate entity because it’s come in so useful when sourcing free or very cheap second hand baby things).
But, ever since I’ve not been well mentally, I found myself downloading Instagram to my phone again and spending hours at a time scrolling. What I’ve come to realise is, when I’m not 100% myself, and I have very little capacity for focusing, mindlessly scrolling is what I turn to. It’s mind-numbing and a great distraction from everything else.
It’s also incredibly self destructive. I felt worse after viewing the content, and I’d come away with a giant headache every time. I’ve deleted the app from my phone again this morning. I need some time away from it to help my mind recover, and to help me get back to my usual self.
The aim is to not use Instagram at all throughout July. If this works, I’m going to take the entire summer off from Instagram.
Family & Relationships:
The older two children are doing so well right now. They both make me so proud every day. William is growing so much, and I can’t quite believe he’s 4 months old already.
It’s mine and my husband’s birthday in July so we’re hoping to head to the beach for the day. Ice creams, fish & chips, sandcastles and paddling, I think that’s a perfect way to spend turning 30. We haven’t been to the beach in years so it’s going to be such a treat for us all, and I can’t wait.
July’s goals will be spent celebrating our birthdays, and, as always, spending as much time together as we can making memories.
And so those are my goals and intentions for July. I’m so sorry this post hasn’t been as jolly as I usually am. However, I do feel that it’s important to share the tough times as well as the good. I do live a very lovely simple and calm life, but it’s not ALWAYS like that. I’m still in the trenches, and I have to work hard to keep a simple life.
We often confuse simplicity with easy, but it’s actually the exact opposite. Living a simple life takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of work to be intentional. What’s easy is going with the flow. - Ryan Nicodemus
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Until next month,
Sophie
Hi, Sophie: SAD during the summer is a real thing! I say that as a trained therapist and as someone who suffers from it. I say “suffer” because it really is quite unpleasant and weighty, isn’t it?
It took the psychology community awhile to acknowledge summer SAD but they finally came around 10-15 years ago.
I find my symptoms start to ease around August and I just keep looking forward to that day.
Can't imagine how difficult it is not knowing what's next work wise, sending love to you and keeping everything crossed that the right thing comes up. I really relate to what you said around when you're not 100% yourself turning to mindlessly scrolling. I find that when my nervous system is activated or I'm feeling a little low that will be what I turn to, and wow does it make me feel worse x