Intention To Change

At the beginning of a new year everyone always has the best laid plans to change many things about their life for the better, be it weight loss, finding a boyfriend/girlfriend, getting better grades in school/university, finding a job etc etc, yet, as we all know the best laid plans can sometimes falter and fizzle out quite quickly. I have always begun each year with a bucket list of things I want to achieve for as long as I can remember, but in 2013 I thought it was about time to start getting serious and become the person that I want to be. As the saying goes, you should strive for progress, not perfection, and while I am a perfectionist in some areas of my life, I know that with my own personal goals progress is better than stalling. 

I bought this diary from Amazon in an effort to document my proposed changes that I want to make personally. Not many people on the blogosphere will know, but I have been gaining weight over the past 3 years as a result of a combination of matters involving heath related things, falling in love (why do so many dates revolve around food!), work things and indeed my time at university has also propelled me to the place I am at right now. Put simply I wanted to initially stop gaining weight, and then once I had levelled myself out I wanted to begin losing it, saying goodbye to 3 years worth of emotions and events. I bought this diary because it doesn't have a time frame, you're not restricted by dates of weeks/months/years, instead you fill in your own date and pledge 'Starting today I will...'. I began my first day with 'Starting today I will...shrink' the second day with 'Starting today I will...drink more water' and so on. For now I am proud to say I have finally stopping gaining and have levelled off to the extent that I lost 7lbs over my Christmas break from university. Half a stone is significant, it should be the push I need, but still I find myself needing help to get motivated, and this little book is helping me do that. Oh, and I'm now never without a water bottle at my side :-)

On some pages there are little quotations reminding you to stay positive, and on others there are small boxes of prompts to help you think and re-evaluate. I particularly like the getting up 1 hour early for a week (see picture above), what can be done with a whole spare 60 minutes...(blogging!)

In this technological age I still like to write things down. I'm the kind of girl who owns a MacBook, iPad, and iPhone but still uses her fabulous Filofax. In fact sometimes I wish I could handwrite my uni essays instead of typing them up and submitting them online. This little diary has been a God send to me while I work on my intention to change. It's only around £8, and will last for ages too. Onwards and upwards! 

Do you have a journal or similar?