There’s a quote that I see pop up every now and again across social media:
Only look back to see how far you’ve come.
I partially agree with it, but not completely. Yes, we should all keep our eyes ahead and moving towards the future, but looking back also allows us to see what we want to improve upon to make the future even better and stronger.
This quote got me thinking because we’re about to enter a new month (my favorite month BTW). Aside from my birthday month, entering into May also marks the halfway point of our time living abroad. In total we’ll be here for 8 months and as expected, the time is flying by.
Hitting the halfway mark has me taking a look back to see what’s been great and also what I want to improve upon for the next few months.
Overall Wellness in April
Let’s just say I’ve never had this much quality sleep in my life. WIN. When I’m traveling my sleep schedule gets all messed up. But for the most part I hit at least 7 hours a night. This is something that was very rare for me in the US while teaching AM classes. I’ve also explored some new wellness practices, like oil pulling, actually sticking with BBG (currently on week 11), drinking lots of water, intermittent fasting and counting macros. Not bad.
->Wellness Moving Forward
I want to continue to evolve the way I look at wellness and self care. I’ve been playing around with eating styles to find what I feel best doing and I’m going to continue to explore this. I also want to try meditating (any apps your love?) as well as am going to switch up my workout routine as soon as BBG ends (so freaking soon!). I’m planning to share this all with you along the way.
Travel in April
This past month included some incredible travel! Italy, Amsterdam and exploring around Spain. One of my big goals was to travel as much as possible while living in Europe, and so far I think I’m doing a pretty good job. I’m also improving the way I travel and my travel mindset.
->Travel Moving Forward
I’m already looking at some new places I want to visit. My goal is to plan further in advance because even though I’m in Europe and prices are pretty good, things still can get expensive the longer you wait. I’ve been doing a good job of exploring the local wellness scenes while traveling (here are my 5 favorite classes across Europe so far) and I intend to keep doing that too. Initially I made the goal to visit 8 countries while we live abroad, but I’ve already hit 7. Time to up that goal!
Purpose in April
Ok, this one is more abstract and the toughest one for me to write and talk about. Purpose. A lot of days here I do not wake up with purpose. It’s really hard for me; I’m used to waking up with a full day of activities (like teaching, work, new workouts, seeing friends, etc). Here, not so much. It’s not like I’ve lost all purpose in my life, but without a job, it really gets you thinking about why you wake up in the morning and what you’re going to do for the day. You question what makes a successful day and what you’re accomplishing. In April we’ve had tons of visitors (almost for the entire month), so I’ve been able to avoid this feeling for a bit. I think Instagram makes it extra hard because while I feel like I’m just floating around, people I follow are starting businesses, writing books and so on. It feels like everyone else has so much purpose and direction, and sometimes I feel a little lost.
->Purpose Moving Forward
I really want to change this and dig more into what I can do to feel a sense of purpose in my day and get more direction. Direction with my blog, with some potential business ideas, with my writing. This will take a lot more thought, but I’ll be sure to share the journey.
As we enter into a new month, I invite you to also take a quick look back to (1) see how far you’ve come and (2) think about how you want to evolve moving forward.
With that, happy new week and happy almost May my friends xo
