Let’s break in the new blog by talking about SEASONAL THEMES!
Ever since I watched this CGP Grey video about themes I’ve been hooked on them. Something about the method works extremely well for my brain, and I feel like I’ve been able to improve my life and myself bit by bit over time. That’s saying something considering most of the time I’ve been doing these has been over the course of the pandemic.
For Summer, my theme was “replenish.” I spent a lot of resources leading up to my top surgery in May, and wanted to fill up the buckets that were running low. As always with these themes, sometimes they manifested in interesting ways that I didn’t expect, but that’s what’s fun about them!
Here’s how “replenish” showed up this summer:
- Most of the year in Seattle is shadowed in the Long Dark, so I wanted to replenish the sunshine that had drained out of my body. The summer was full of the outdoors: kayaking, biking, birdwatching, picnics, camping, cookouts, swimming in the lake…I didn’t hold back on any of it.
- My social buckets have been running low and needed to be topped off. This happened in a few different ways:
- Organizing lots of outings and hangouts and dragging friends along
- Reconnecting with old friends that I hadn’t talked to in awhile
- Realizing that I was lacking in some social areas that my current group of friends weren’t able to fulfill, so I sucked it up, went on OKCupid and made a few new ones.
- One goal ahead of time was to replenish my coffers (top surgery is expensive!). This didn’t go entirely as planned due to my cat’s big emergency in the middle of the summer, but I was able to replenish somewhat in the fact that I moved some savings I’d stocked up to replenish my emergency fund.
- As an asexual person in a pandemic, I’ve been deeply touch starved for a long time. With my new attunement to my own body (more on that in a future post), I found that touch starvation to become even more acute. This has been a deep and empty bucket in my life, so I did something about it: I used one of those platonic cuddling hookup sites and met a cuddle buddy. Now I have a new friend who comes over to hang out and watch documentaries and cuddle with me. Life-changing!
- There were also some minor ways that “replenish” came into play just popping up at certain moments
- I oiled all of my bamboo utensils and cutting boards
- I repotted all my indoor plants
- I replenished my potting soil reserves with worm compost
- I updated expired items in my first aid kits
- I’m planning on getting new socks
Summer theme: Success!
For my Fall theme I’m going to do “focus.” Now that all my buckets are filled to overflowing, I feel it’s a good time to get cozy in the Fall weather and be attentive to some outstanding (and new!) side projects.
I’ve already dusted off and cleaned up my workflowy and organized it to best focus on things to do. I also am realizing that I should pick only a few big things to tackle over the Fall, so I’m making a priority list and doing an actual count of workable weeks in the season to have a better idea of what I can do.
I plan to make posts like this for every seasonal theme! If traditional goal setting methods fall flat for you, give this method a shot!