How I'm Living Intentionally

So I haven't posted on here for a while now as it's taking a lot of mental effort for me to integrate it back into my routine, I felt drained of energy, creativity and drive after our wedding and honeymoon, but I missed my blog, so I waited until I got into the swing of married life before beginning again, things aren't always the same after marriage but I'll talk more about that some other time. After a big life box like getting married gets ticked off my mental 'todo in life list', it's made me reflect a lot on what I have done so far and where I'd like to be in my future.

I read a lot of non-fiction motivational/entrepreneurial books and I've heard a lot of people talking about living intentionally, and while it's all good in theory, it's all about how to put it into practice. One quote that has really struck me this year is 'how you do anything, is how you do everything' It made me realise that every area of my life is affected by my values and beliefs; having unclear intentions allows your circumstances, caring what other people think of you, and negative, lazy thoughts to control your actions which can then ripple into every area of your life, making you become sloppy and undisciplined, doing things to please others and not working on what you want, or just generally not knowing which direction to aim at in life and drifting aimlessly through it.
I'm not saying that to live intentionally you need to put in 100% energy and concentration all the time, but you do need to focus on what you are aiming for. Are you aiming to be a lazy person who has all these cool plans and ideas but never does anything about them? Or are you going to get your bum in gear and be the person you want to be? You need to figure out what your values and beliefs are, and your goals need to align with those otherwise they will never happen. For me, one of my values is putting in as much effort as I can, so no on a Friday evening after a week of work, I wont be as energetic during my workout as I would on a Saturday after a lye in, but I WILL try to put in the same amount of effort.
I believe that for me to be the best version of myself, includes working out regularly and eating healthily, so when I reach for a cupcake or a glass of wine, I know not to go overboard and eat 6 cupcakes or a whole bottle of wine as it goes against my values, ...and when I do over indulge it's usually some sort of self sabotage which is a whole other thing that I need to work on.

This quote really pushed on my pain points, the thoughts I have when I know I'm doing things that go against my goals, like putting things off, being lazy, messy and not trying my best, or being too run down to perform at my best.
I would often meticulously plan out my calendar, trying to fit in all of my goals and everything on my to-do list, once I could see everything fitting neatly into their allot time slots it felt like it was practically all done! The only thing was, I then had to actually do it, and this is where my perfect plan would always fall apart ...or I would pretend I was wonder woman for a week and run myself into the ground trying to get everything done. I have always been impatient with myself and restless so piling goals onto myself just felt right.
Now I have decided to take the slower route, incorporating a good habit one at a time, one that works towards one or a part of one of my goals. I have started this process with a workout routine as it is one of my major goals to get fitter and continue working out for the rest of my life, so I problem solved why I always failed at this goal before and did everything I could to prevent more failures. It's not a perfect habit and one I know will never be perfect, but that is how I am now approaching any new habits, and so far it is going well!
I will continue with this goal and begin to add others to it as I go along, a bit like spinning circus plates! ...Anyway, my next goal is to become consistent with my blog! Wish me luck!
(All the photos are from our honeymoon in America)