Making the most of the closed door! 

The summer months can be a social time where we’re out and about, socialising with friends and neighbours and spending time in our gardens after a busy day. But November is often the opposite. We scurry home out of the cold, come in, have dinner and then potentially think ‘now what?’ Those dark evenings can feel like they go on forever, and many of us will end up getting bored and sloping off to bed way too early just because it’s something to do! 

But there is another way. I recently have started watching YouTube Videos whilst I cook dinner and stumbled across a fantastic video about how to have the best year yet, by breaking up the year into 4 x 13 week sections. And then picking one thing to focus on for those 13 weeks.

The Video that I gained inspiration from is here

As some of you who have seen me recently will know, I joined the local leisure centre in August and gave myself just 13 weeks to see what happened. Which meant I wasn’t committing myself to be a raving gym bunny for the rest of my life, I could simply experiement with being a bit fitter and active, and see what happens! I’ve had a whale of a time trying new classes and had great fun, so these short projects  can really work!

If you’ve  ever fancied doing something – side quest, a project, writing a book, learning a language, taking up yoga or pilates, or have a pile of books on your to be read pile, November could well be the time to gently allow yourself permission to start on your project.

This gives you something to do with these long November evenings that doesn’t involve doom scrolling on your phone, or finding something engaging to watch on the TV. (That has its place too, of course but if you don’t want to spend every night doing that, having some kind of on-going ‘thing’ on the go can be useful as it gives your evening a purpose, you don’t have to think what can I do today as you can think oh I’ll have another go at my project tonight, whoop! 

Or you could simply rest a while. Resting and reflecting can be a useful thing to do when you’re home for the evening. Without the social whirlwind of summer, you may well have time to do some gentle contemplation.