Portmantle

12 August 2024. Day 1/75

Yeah, I know, I know. Starting over again. But I’m trying to keep the same mindset. It’s okay to start over. As long as I keep trying, that’s all the matters. It could take 75 days, it could take 3 years. But one day, I will figure out a way to establish those habits and keep the consistency. Soon. Soon. It wouldn’t be a challenge if it was something that I have an easy time with. New end date is October 26.

So here’s take 4’s modification. I think I’m trying to take on too much at once. Yes, it’s five simple things, but they add up when I’m not used to doing any of them regularly at all. So here’s the new approach. I’m going to choose 9 goals, and my goal is now to do 5/9 every day. So if I can meet more than half of my goals every day, I would consider that a win. Seeing as the alternative is meeting none of my goals. I hypothesize that by the end of the challenge, I will be able to regularly do more than just 5 a day. We shall see!

I think that with this new variety, I have options for the things that I want to do with my day. I don’t do too well when every day looks and feels the same. Maybe the secret to consistency is actually novelty.

So here are the 9 goals I want to focus on:

1. Get out of bed within 10 minutes of waking up OR don’t go on my phone within 10 minutes of waking up (except for stopping alarm clocks and checking the time) OR get up before 7:30am (can stay in bed longer if you wake up earlier) **BONUS POINTS: turn on vitamin d sun lamp for those 10 minutes
   • got up before 7:30am; didn’t turn on vitamin d lamp
2. Eat at least 5 fruits/vegetables/plants
   • cucumber
   • tomato
   • garbanzo beans
   • parsley
   • lime
3. Walk at least 1 mile
   • treadmill + stairmaster this morning
4. Read 5 pages of any book. 5 minutes of an audiobook counts.
5. Spend at least 10 minutes on a creative hobby
6. Clean one space
   • cleaned the area around my sink in my bathroom
7. List of 10 gratitudes, manifestations, or goals
   • 1. I’m grateful for the incredible friendships that I’ve dedicated so much time toward for the past 7+ years. I feel safe in knowing that I’ll never be completely lonely or misunderstood or forgotten. I am grateful for the way my friends put in so much effort into our friendship, the way they always make me feel understood and supported, the way they accept and celebrate my flaws, the way they introduce me to things that they like, the way they make me laugh
   • 2. I’m grateful for my mother. She has been an absolute rock in these past few months when I’ve felt so adrift and aimless. She was the one who suggested we start looking into real estate, and now we are both licensed and starting a business together. She keeps me on track, and I know how hard it is to keep myself on track. She has been so understanding and supportive and helpful about everything. She works so hard and I appreciate it more than she’ll ever know.
   • 3. I’m grateful for last night’s meteor shower. I stood in my driveway for maybe 15-20 minutes at 11pm last night and just stared at the sky begging for a chance to make a wish. I made my wish 🙂 I’m grateful for the opportunity.
   • 4. I’m grateful for my planner. In the past, I was notoriously bad at keeping up with planners. This year, I’ve made it a real goal to actually stick with it. There are months where I’m better at using it, and months when I’m worse, but for the most part, I’ve been able to easily get back into it. I keep it color coded and everything. It’s the waav one from Target if any of y’all are wondering. Again, I have ADHD and so it’s so so so hard for me to stay organized and keep track of time, and this planner has honestly saved my actual life.
   • 5. I’m grateful that I got to learn cursive in the 3rd grade. Haha I know that this seems silly, but I’m a bit of a traditional person sometimes, and I love things handwritten. I love looking through my notes written in cursive and it still makes me feel so grown up. I also appreciate that it makes me just a tiny bit faster at writing because I usually am pretty slow.
   • 6. I’m grateful for myself this year. I’ve felt for a while that I haven’t been working toward anything because each day, I feel like I’m just rotting in bed. But now, in hindsight, I’ve accomplished a lot since January. I took 4 classes at my community college and got As in 3 of them and a B+ in the last one, I got my real estate license, I volunteered weekly for a cause I’m passionate about, I helped my best friend with her marketing efforts for her music, I started this blog that I’ve been saying I’d start for YEARS now, I went to a bunch of networking events, I got a fellowship in a field that I’m excited to start working in. It didn’t feel like it in the moment, but that’s a lot!!
   • 7. I’m grateful that I got this fellowship. It’s a very solid platform in the aimlessness I’ve felt for the past few months. It gives me a clear pathway to pursue and an event to schedule my day around. I haven’t started it yet, but I’m excited to.
   • 8. I’m grateful for Los Angeles. I swear I say it every other day. I’m in love with the beach, I’m in love with the mountains, I’m in love with the convenience of having things open late and having places to go and venues to explore and the energy and opportunity. I love California and the way I can just take weekend trips to San Diego or San Francisco or Las Vegas or Big Sur. It feels like the kind of life people only ever dream about.
   • 9. I’m grateful for mosquito zappers. I don’t think there’s much else I need to say about this one. Haha.
   • 10. I’m grateful for my therapist. I’ve gone through a lot of therapists in my life, and she is the only one that has actually helped anything. I think the best thing about her is that she asks actual thought-provoking questions and actually gets me to think about things, instead of slapping on a bandage of “self-care.” I know that’s probably what all therapists are supposed to do, but she just does it so DAMN WELL. I hope she’s having a good day today.
8. Do one thing the moment you think about it without procrastinating
9. Apply to 3 jobs OR send out 3 emails for any purpose

And the big overarching goals I want to work toward:

1. Lose 15 pounds
2. I’m starting a fellowship this week, and I want to have a full-time office job in the field by the time the fellowship ends in December
3. I want to set habits that make me feel organized, put together, and set me up for a better future
4. Get Google Ads Display Certificate
5. Get Google Ads Search Certificate
6. Start studying for the GRE
7. Go to one Toastmasters meeting
8. Sell a house
9. Learn how to bartend to keep myself afloat before I get a more official office job

Journal prompt: What would the best, most successful version of yourself be doing? What would change from what I’m doing now?

I would work in Santa Monica or Downtown LA or Century City or somewhere else with tall buildings and nice views. My job pays a six figure salary, it’s in-person but I can go remote if I want to travel. It would be in advertising or data analytics and in an industry that I genuinely believe in or enjoy, like lifestyle, environmentalism, music, entertainment, etc. I feel like I’m making a difference in the world. My ADHD never interferes with my ability to work. I have reasonable goals and expectations to get promoted within the company. My team is incredibly kind and understanding and our clients are interesting and cooperative. I wear business professional attire every day. My team respects me, and I have a leadership position where I am able to train new staff. My boss respects me and gives me constructive guidance. I feel confident in my ability to do my job. I have 2 weeks of PTO, a 401k, I max out my Roth IRA every year, I am financially literate enough to open high yield savings accounts and CDs for myself. My investments are doing well. I have 3 credit cards, all of which get paid off every month.

I would have my own one bedroom apartment in Malibu or Santa Monica or somewhere that’s close to the beach, but also a good commute from my job. Some force of magic exists so that no spider (or other unwanted creature) ever dare enter my home. I have friends over every single weekend, and I’d cook/bake for them and we’d watch movies together and we’d go out on Friday nights. I see my friends constantly. We go to museums and concerts and movies and long road trips and beach drives. We can still hang out aimlessly; our hangouts aren’t reserved for big events. I’m so proud of how far all of us have come. We look back and laugh about unemployment stress in our early twenties and how we thought we’d never make it out of that. We have dinner parties and we dance all the time. We love each other like we’re still in high school. We take the long drives just to see each other, we watch movies and meteor showers together. The group chat is never dry. I’ve made some new friends through work and social groups and I feel socially satisfied. My mom and my sister also hang out with me all the time. My mom and I sell houses on the side, and our real estate business has started to really take off. I’m proud to have multiple streams of income. My sister is working as a dentist, and she lets me help her with the marketing and advertising. My mom, my sister, and I go on trips around the world together. We step foot in every continent, try every local cuisine, collect keychains and fridge magnets and polaroid pictures of every new adventure we go on. Our mom teases us about our fear of heights. We tease her about the amount of photos she takes. She keeps taking more photos anyway. We smile for them, and we’re not even faking the happiness. We’re all healthy and happy and never feel lonely.

My nails are always done perfectly. My hair always looks perfect. My skin is clear. I’m never bloated. My closet has high quality timeless staple pieces. I have a huge walk in closet that magically stays organized even though I never organize it myself. I have muscle definition on my abs, arms, and glutes. I eat dense bean salads and tons of protein and fiber and nutrients every day. I can run a mile in under 10 minutes. I go to the gym at 5 am before work. I go for walks on my lunch breaks and evenings along the coast. I take surfing lessons in the summer, skiing lessons in the winter. My sense of balance is really good. I can rock climb. I am writing and illustrating a children’s book. I know how to bartend and look back fondly on my bartending days. I have creative hobbies and physical hobbies, and I feel well rounded. I spend my free time watercoloring. I’ve learned how to embroider, how to sew, how to do pottery, how to make mosaics. A portion of my living room is dedicated to my crafts. I’m constantly busy in all the best ways. I don’t have much time to spend on my phone.

I have a boyfriend who loves me and gets along well with all of my friends. He and my best friend plan ways to annoy me together. He makes roughly the same amount of money that I do, he’s super humble about his intelligence, and he’s effortlessly funny in a quickwitted way without being mean. He is extremely positive about life and so adventurous, and his energy spreads to me. We are about to adopt a cat together. He is tall and attractive and has the biggest, most genuine smile ever. He takes the time to get to know my interests, he asks me questions about myself and listens to the answers, he remembers little details about my friends and families. He gets me cheap little presents on a day-to-day basis just to remind me that he was thinking of my during the day. We go out on dates constantly and never get bored or boring or used to each other. He exposes me to new interests. We make each other better people. We argue about who loves the other one more. He listens to all the same music that I like. Things are easy. We have open communication. We just have fun together. He’s kinda weird in the same way that I’m weird. He’s kinda cool too though. He takes spiders outside for me. He folds my clothes for me.