Tag: Mentality

Posted in The Path to Self-Improvement

The End but also a New Beginning?

Posted on by Scoraluna

I know the title might sound a bit dramatic but let me tell you, why it is fitting nonetheless:

After 14 days our challenge has come to an end. You already know that of course, if you have read the previous post, but in a way the challenge isn’t really over or at least the topic of it isn’t.

Joan and I have both decided that living this way is much, much better than our old habits were and while we sometimes struggled with the early get up times, we not only got used to it but also started to appreciate all the benefits that come with such a lifestyle change.

I decided to post one last post as part of this series and I asked Joan to give me a final statement, sort of her final thoughts on this challenge. Here is what she said:

“I really enjoyed this challenge and I think I’m gonna keep doing most of the aspects of it. Although it has really been hard in the beginning to make myself get up at those “ungodly” hours, I’ve really grown to like it 🙂 

There are definitely some things I want to keep doing besides getting up early, such as making my bed first thing in the morning, yoga, skincare and meditation (kinda wanna try some different ones)

Something I definitely want to stop doing is using my phone a lot in the morning (especially after I’m done with my morning stuff – I think my brain sees this as a sort of treat) 

There are also some things that I want to add to my routine: evening yoga and a more closing evening routine in general (I’m thinking about a nice cuppa tea and maybe getting myself to read for like 30 minutes before bed or something like that, but we’ll see), Maybe a daily walk since I don’t go outside a lot (rrrrRRoooooooOnNaa …. and anxiety mixed with a healthy dose of introversion 👍)

To be honest, I kinda had my doubts about how good I would do in this challenge and if I had enough motivation to keep pushing through. And I have to say, I really surprised myself and I am proud of pushing through it. Even though some days were hard and my energy levels were low, I still kept at it. The day feels much more useful and I actually feel more responsible and mature now than I did before. Last but not least, one of my favorite things in this challenge has got to be the morning atmosphere (the sun just rising, birds chirping and sitting down with a nice cup of coffee while you are listening to the radio and just  ✨EXIST✨- it’s just 👌)”

My thoughts about this challenge are very similar. I love to sleep in and getting up at 8 am and then later at 7 am felt daunting at first, to say the least. So you can imagine my surprise, when it ended up being not as difficult as I thought it would be. Despite struggling with it at first, my body seemed to notice that I was doing something healthy to it and it responded super positively to it. (Newsflash: Doing something that is considered to be healthy actually has a positive impact on your body and your health – who would have thought 🙄)

No, but in all seriousness, I am glad I wasn’t alone in doing this challenge. Having someone else to talk to about it and holding each other accountable for keeping up with it, really helped me with pushing through and not immediately going back to old habits, when things got a bit rough. So I want to thank Joan once more for doing this with me and keeping me motivated throughout this challenge. 💪

I will also keep most of the habits that I have picked up, in order to make sure they stay part of my morning routine and not just stuff I do every once in a while. Those are meditation first thing in the morning, reading for 30 minutes a day (not sure if I will keep doing it in the mornings but so far it actually has worked out quite well) and skincare and of course getting up early (duh). However, since I work from home and my days tend to be very samey, I think I won’t be so strict about in on the weekends because I want to have this distinction between the week and the weekends. Admittedly, this is also because I don’t think I will be able to sustain it otherwise.

There is one habit that I definitely have picked up during this challenge that I want to get rid off again asap, and that is, staying in bed on my phone after I have done my meditation and my reading. I’m thinking of maybe changing my routine a little bit so that I do my skincare and everything else before I do meditation and reading, cause then I will already be up and hopefully won’t feel the need of wanting to laze in bed.

I also want to add two habits. Both of which are things I don’t really enjoy but I know are healthy for me so I should definitely add them regularly: those two things are cooking and exercising. I think those two things are self-explanatory healthy habits that I don’t need to go into about why they are important.

All in all, it was a fun challenge and I can definitely recommend doing something like this, if you feel like you don’t get enough out of a day. And here is why the title fits this scenario well: It is the end of a challenge but for both Joan and I it is also a new beginning of at least a healthier sleeping schedule, if not anything else.

I hope you enjoyed reading along and are maybe inspired to do something similar. If these posts did inspire you to try this out yourself, let me know in the comments how it goes. I love reading all of your comments😊 I also want to thank everybody that has read, liked, commented or followed these posts! I am glad you enjoyed them. Btw I have figured out a regular posting schedule now, so let’s hope I’ll be able to stick to it 😅

So talk to you guys soon, and of course, please make sure you stay healthy and safe! ❤

~Luna

Follow my Blog

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this post! If you want to see, if I can stick to my planned schedule of publishing a blog post every Monday and Saturday, hit the button down below, and you’ll be informed once a new one is published 😊

Join 42 other followers

Come and say Hi!

More Posts

You read this post but have no idea what this is about? No worries, down below you’ll find from oldest to newest most of the posts published in this mini-series 😊

  • Prologue – The Path to Self-Improvement
    Before I write anything else, I want to thank every single one of you that has so far liked, subscribed or supported this blog in any way, so thank you so much! It means so much more to me, than you can imagine! ❤️ So, there is no need to mitigate here: 2020 has been […]
  • Day 1 – The First Step is Always the Hardest … Or is it?
    Monday marked the first day for our “path to self-improvement” challenge, but before I go straight into our “findings” as promised, I want to first explain, how we decided to gage things. It was clear to us that we needed some way of judging this whole thing, so we have decided to, besides just writing […]
  • Day 2 – Good Habit Central
    Day two of our challenge was filled with us picking up a lot more good habits and a lot of, let’s call it, “new year, new me” vibes (even though it’s obviously not the start of a new year, but I’m sure you know what I mean). Getting Up and Morning Routines Joan: “Getting up […]
  • Day 3 – A lil bit of both
    I know, I know, “wow Luna way to keep the title vague” but honestly, I don’t really know, how else to describe this day xD Nighttime, Getting up and Morning Routine Joan: “Waking up was the hardest so far today. I only really fell asleep at around 2am so that may be the reason why […]
  • Day 4 – Rock Bottom
    This day… was certainly a day… Oh, who am I kidding, this day was an absolute wreck, for both of us ironically, but I did want to include it, so you can see that not every day goes as well as you think it will. Nighttime, Getting Up and Morning Routines Joan: “I gotta be […]
  • Days 5 -7 First Impressions and Thoughts for the next Week
    Since the days are getting a little bit samey and I’m sure you’ve got better stuff to do, than reading the same stuff over and over again, I’ve decided to summarize the rest of the week. After hitting rock bottom and genuinely having a bad day on day 4, things started to look up during […]
  • Day 8 – Challenge Part 2 – Begin!
    Day 8 marked the first day of the second part of our challenge; getting up at 7am each day. Here is how it went: So, this is going to be a very Joan focused post because day 8 was practically non-existent for me. To summarize very quickly, getting up was still fine but around 11am […]
  • Days 9- 14 – “7am, the usual morning lineup”
    After 14 Days our challenge has come to an end. Here is the summary of how the second part of the challenge went: (Bonus points to whoever knows, what the title is from😄) Getting up and Morning Routines Our getting up- and morning routines stayed pretty much the same. Joan was definitely doing a bit […]
Posted in The Path to Self-Improvement

Days 9- 14 – “7am, the usual morning lineup”

Posted on by Scoraluna

After 14 Days our challenge has come to an end. Here is the summary of how the second part of the challenge went: (Bonus points to whoever knows, what the title is from😄)

Getting up and Morning Routines

Our getting up- and morning routines stayed pretty much the same. Joan was definitely doing a bit better with staying on track than I was though. She only overslept once, which she wasn’t thrilled about at all, whereas I really struggled with going to bed and therefore also getting up on time. For me, going to bed at 11:30pm was just so early (yes, for someone that used to stay up until at least 2am but often longer, this is early, fight me xD).

Me not making it to bed on time also meant that I rarely actually got up at 7am; at least not during the first part of the week. By the second part I had kinda adjusted and now I actually do get tired around that time (is that a success? – I guess so 😅).

Mood

I feel like our mood hasn’t really changed that much over the past few weeks. Depending on what was happening or what we had to deal with each day, we either had good and excited days or bad ones (I mean, duh, like everybody else). However, something we have definitely both noticed, is that having a morning routine did help us to feel calmer, more centered and more ready to tackle the day ahead.

I also used meditation to help calm down when I was struggling with something during the day, which also worked out great.

Productivity

We both have seen huge changes in regards to productivity. The days in general felt longer but not in a “ugh everything feels so slow” but rather in a “oh, I have so much time on my hands, what do I do with that” kind of way. Our morning routine helped us set the right tone for a productive day, but our productivity was of course also influenced by a bunch of other things, such as our mood and our sleepiness-level. However, I dare say that before the start of the challenge, my days were never as productive as they are now.

Starting early means getting done early and the feeling of getting done with the first chunk of work around midday, when before you had barely started around that time, (don’t look at me, I know it’s awful), is just absolutely incredible.

Sleepiness-Level

Our bodies again definitely took some time to get used to the new routine and our sleepiness-level reflected that. The first few days were a bit rough, but by mid-week, we had actually kinda gotten used to it again and our sleepiness-levels slowly but surely adjusted as well.

Motivation

With the changes in productivity came changes in motivation. More productivity basically led to more motivation because we had so much time to be creative and to work on our personal projects. Of course, as with everything, there were some motivation downs, simply because some days are better than others, however, in general I felt like there were so many opportunities to be creative. The feeling of actually having the time to be creative because you already have done everything else that needs to be done, feels so much better than feeling guilty for procrastinating on the things you have to do, with the things you want to do.

On top of that, usually I feel guilty for veering off track and doing something else for an hour but with the amount of time I now have on hand every single day, it kinda felt much less detrimental to do so and I felt significantly less guilty about it. (Haven’t really figured out yet whether that’s actually a good thing or my procrastination habit just rubbing its hands together maliciously because now there is even more time to procrastinate).

Alright and that’s a wrap, everybody! Hm, this doesn’t quite have the same effect as it would if this was actually a movie but hey, we’re wrapping up this challenge so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. There will be one last “closing thoughts/plans for the future” sorta blog post, which I hopefully will be able to finish and post tomorrow, and then we really are completely done with this challenge.

Thank you so much, to everyone that has read, commented on or liked these posts and/or followed the blog, I really appreciate all of the support! ❤

As always, please stay healthy and safe and take care of yourself!

~Luna

Follow my Blog

Hi, and thank you for reading this post! If you also want to read any future posts coming out and want to make sure you don’t miss them, please click the button down below 😊

Join 42 other followers

Come and say Hi

More Posts

If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy the others in this series. So if you’re curious, down below you’ll find most of the entries from this blog mini-series 😊

  • Prologue – The Path to Self-Improvement
    Before I write anything else, I want to thank every single one of you that has so far liked, subscribed or supported this blog in any way, so thank you so much! It means so much more to me, than you can imagine! ❤️ So, there is no need to mitigate here: 2020 has been […]
  • Day 1 – The First Step is Always the Hardest … Or is it?
    Monday marked the first day for our “path to self-improvement” challenge, but before I go straight into our “findings” as promised, I want to first explain, how we decided to gage things. It was clear to us that we needed some way of judging this whole thing, so we have decided to, besides just writing […]
  • Day 2 – Good Habit Central
    Day two of our challenge was filled with us picking up a lot more good habits and a lot of, let’s call it, “new year, new me” vibes (even though it’s obviously not the start of a new year, but I’m sure you know what I mean). Getting Up and Morning Routines Joan: “Getting up […]
  • Day 3 – A lil bit of both
    I know, I know, “wow Luna way to keep the title vague” but honestly, I don’t really know, how else to describe this day xD Nighttime, Getting up and Morning Routine Joan: “Waking up was the hardest so far today. I only really fell asleep at around 2am so that may be the reason why […]
  • Day 4 – Rock Bottom
    This day… was certainly a day… Oh, who am I kidding, this day was an absolute wreck, for both of us ironically, but I did want to include it, so you can see that not every day goes as well as you think it will. Nighttime, Getting Up and Morning Routines Joan: “I gotta be […]
Posted in The Path to Self-Improvement

Day 8 – Challenge Part 2 – Begin!

Posted on by Scoraluna

Day 8 marked the first day of the second part of our challenge; getting up at 7am each day. Here is how it went:

So, this is going to be a very Joan focused post because day 8 was practically non-existent for me.

To summarize very quickly, getting up was still fine but around 11am I got a really bad headache and some circulation problems that lasted through the entire day. Therefore, I wasn’t really able to focus on anything until the evening, where I did get some work stuff done, but I pretty much felt like a useless wet rag for the entire day. 😅 Needless to say, my mood also was less than great. So, now that that’s out of the way, let’s see what Joan’s Day 8 looked like.

Getting up and Morning Routine

“It was the first day of the second part of the challenge which meant I had to get up at 7am. I didn’t really get up immediately but rather stayed in bed for like an additional hour to browse on TikTok and look at pics and videos on Instagram. A perfect way to start your morning (note to self: Put your phone somewhere else so you literally have to get up, you idiot). “

Mood

“I was a bit fidgety today. I am not sure why exactly but I hope that it will be better tomorrow. Doing my yoga routine and meditation helped to center myself today so much that I am thinking of implementing it in my nighttime routine as well.”

Productivity

“Apart from my morning stuff I actually surprised myself today by cooking up a really tasty rice casserole (at least I think that’s what you call it 😅) and almost mastering the “Toss a coin to your Witcher” guitar part. I also had a nice little make-up session in the evening, where I tried out some new looks, which turned out way better than I anticipated.”

Sleepiness-Level

“No real change in that department.”

Motivation

” I felt motivated to do a lot of creative tasks today, as I already mentioned with the guitar and make-up. Coincidentally, or not idk, my positive affirmation today was “I am filled with creative energy”. I really internalized that today. I am also contemplating on starting a different kind of “mini challenge” regarding make-up looks because I really wanna check out more looks and maybe even find something new.”

Thank you so much to everyone that took the time to follow us through this adventure so far and for following the blog or liking any of the posts, I really appreciate you! ❤

I have decided to summarize the rest of the challenge for you guys because, as I already noticed last week, the days have gotten very samey and I feel like at this point Joan and I already have established our routines that we are following, so there won’t be that many changes anymore. Also, depending on how long that summary gets, I will either write about our final thoughts in the summary itself still or write one more separate blog post to finish off this mini-series.

I hope you are looking forward to that, and as always please make sure you stay safe and healthy! ❤

~Luna

Follow My Blog

Hi there, and thank you so much for reading this post! If you liked it. please let me know by leaving a like and if you liked it so much that you never want to miss a future blog post, you can click the button down below 😊

Join 42 other followers

Come and say Hi 👋

More Posts

You have read this post and want to know how it all started? Down below you’ll find most of the blog posts of this mini-series. Give them a read, if you’re interested 😊

  • Prologue – The Path to Self-Improvement
    Before I write anything else, I want to thank every single one of you that has so far liked, subscribed or supported this blog in any way, so thank you so much! It means so much more to me, than you can imagine! ❤️ So, there is no need to mitigate here: 2020 has been […]
  • Day 1 – The First Step is Always the Hardest … Or is it?
    Monday marked the first day for our “path to self-improvement” challenge, but before I go straight into our “findings” as promised, I want to first explain, how we decided to gage things. It was clear to us that we needed some way of judging this whole thing, so we have decided to, besides just writing […]
  • Day 2 – Good Habit Central
    Day two of our challenge was filled with us picking up a lot more good habits and a lot of, let’s call it, “new year, new me” vibes (even though it’s obviously not the start of a new year, but I’m sure you know what I mean). Getting Up and Morning Routines Joan: “Getting up […]
  • Day 3 – A lil bit of both
    I know, I know, “wow Luna way to keep the title vague” but honestly, I don’t really know, how else to describe this day xD Nighttime, Getting up and Morning Routine Joan: “Waking up was the hardest so far today. I only really fell asleep at around 2am so that may be the reason why […]
  • Day 4 – Rock Bottom
    This day… was certainly a day… Oh, who am I kidding, this day was an absolute wreck, for both of us ironically, but I did want to include it, so you can see that not every day goes as well as you think it will. Nighttime, Getting Up and Morning Routines Joan: “I gotta be […]
Posted in The Path to Self-Improvement

Days 5 -7 First Impressions and Thoughts for the next Week

Posted on by Scoraluna

Since the days are getting a little bit samey and I’m sure you’ve got better stuff to do, than reading the same stuff over and over again, I’ve decided to summarize the rest of the week.

After hitting rock bottom and genuinely having a bad day on day 4, things started to look up during the following days. Our mood was actually consistently good during the three days and we both were in a good headspace. Granted, it did help that it was the weekend as well, but we did keep going with our challenge and even managed to get up early on the weekend. Something I did not expect I would be able to keep up with because I’m the kind of person that loooves to sleep in on the weekends.

Productivity wise it’s also a little hard to say because we both didn’t really have much to do during the weekend, but Friday went down really well. I was super productive in doing my work tasks, a work call and Joan also got a boring lecture done and did some other stuff, such as setting up her weeklies for her Bullet Journal. We also both joined a two hour zoom event in the evening that day.

The most interesting thing that happened during those three days, however, has to be how we both slowly but surely adapted to the new getting up time, managed to keep our sleepiness levels more and more consistent overtime and Joan managed to completely overcome her usual energy crashes. I found myself often getting tired around the time that I should be going to bed, in order to be able to wake up rested, which is something I haven’t really experienced before. When my sleeping schedule was all over the place, so were my bed times (except for always consistently being past 2 am but ssssshhhh 🤫 we don’t need to talk about that).

So, where are we at the end of week one?

There have definitely been some improvements that both of us have seen. We have noticed some great changes in behavior and health; both mentally and physically and we are both excited to keep going. We even talked about how excited we are to get up even earlier the following week – like what? Who are we and what happened to us? xD

No, but in all seriousness, I am really glad we decided to do this and so is Joan as far as I know. We have discovered some things about us, our work-life balance and our relationship with procrastination that I know I wouldn’t have discovered, if it wasn’t for really giving this whole thing a shot.

There were definitely also some downs, some bad moments and some days where we instantly could have fallen back asleep but we pulled through so far and I am honestly proud of us for sticking with it. Let’s carry this spirit into the next week as well! 💪

So yeah, that was week one. I hope you enjoyed reading along with our journey and will join us next week as well when it’s 7 o’clock wake up time. Make sure you stay safe and healthy ❤

~Luna

Follow my Blog

Hello, and thank you for reading this post! If you’re intrigued about how this saga is going to continue, make sure you hit the button below, so you’ll never miss a blog post 😊

Join 42 other followers

More Posts

Down here you’ll find all the previous posts in this miniseries, so if you’re curious as to how this whole thing started or what this is about, make sure you read the prologue 😊

  • Prologue – The Path to Self-Improvement
    Before I write anything else, I want to thank every single one of you that has so far liked, subscribed or supported this blog in any way, so thank you so much! It means so much more to me, than you can imagine! ❤️ So, there is no need to mitigate here: 2020 has been […]
  • Day 1 – The First Step is Always the Hardest … Or is it?
    Monday marked the first day for our “path to self-improvement” challenge, but before I go straight into our “findings” as promised, I want to first explain, how we decided to gage things. It was clear to us that we needed some way of judging this whole thing, so we have decided to, besides just writing […]
  • Day 2 – Good Habit Central
    Day two of our challenge was filled with us picking up a lot more good habits and a lot of, let’s call it, “new year, new me” vibes (even though it’s obviously not the start of a new year, but I’m sure you know what I mean). Getting Up and Morning Routines Joan: “Getting up […]
  • Day 3 – A lil bit of both
    I know, I know, “wow Luna way to keep the title vague” but honestly, I don’t really know, how else to describe this day xD Nighttime, Getting up and Morning Routine Joan: “Waking up was the hardest so far today. I only really fell asleep at around 2am so that may be the reason why […]
  • Day 4 – Rock Bottom
    This day… was certainly a day… Oh, who am I kidding, this day was an absolute wreck, for both of us ironically, but I did want to include it, so you can see that not every day goes as well as you think it will. Nighttime, Getting Up and Morning Routines Joan: “I gotta be […]
Posted in The Path to Self-Improvement

Day 4 – Rock Bottom

Posted on by Scoraluna

This day… was certainly a day… Oh, who am I kidding, this day was an absolute wreck, for both of us ironically, but I did want to include it, so you can see that not every day goes as well as you think it will.

Nighttime, Getting Up and Morning Routines

Joan: “I gotta be honest. I feel like I already kinda failed the challenge a bit [please insert gif of Alfred here]. I didn’t wake up at 8 AM but overslept about half an hour. I attribute this to my bad sleep tho tbh. I went to bed at midnight, fell asleep at around 1 and woke up around 5 the first time (?) and 6:30 the second time (???). Nevertheless I still got my morning routine done and felt a bit better after completing it. Maybe my body is already kinda accustomed to my new rhythm (now watch my body screw it up for week two 😅).”

Me: Not gonna lie, I now know what people mean when they say that a ruined morning kinda equals a bad rest of a day, but let’s start with the morning. I got some annoying news from my university that sent me on a treasure hunt through the whole flat in order to look for something that I haven’t looked at in three years . Didn’t find it and got super worried about what that meant, only to find out that it wasn’t that important at all… 😒. That whole ordeal led to me not being able to do my morning routine at all, which made me realize how much I’ve already gotten used to it.

Mood

Joan: “I wasn’t in a bad mood per se, but I felt kinda disappointed in myself for not waking up on time (I know it’s a bit nitpicky but still. Sometimes I felt kinda aggravated and even lashed out a bit because of minor inconveniences but overall I wasn’t death on two legs (please tell me there is a Queen fan out there that gets it 😅). I just felt kinda discombobulated.”

Me: The best way how to describe my mood for that day is: all over the place. It started out with being angry and annoyed and only got to somewhat neutral after some meditation in the afternoon. I also wasn’t really satisfied with anything I did. In short: I didn’t handle my frustration well at all.

Productivity

Joan: “As my energy was kinda absent today, I decided to postpone the two lectures I had today (they are asynchronous) and spend some time working on my Bullet Journal and on my guitar skills. This helped a bit with getting out of my funk.”

Me: Thankfully, I didn’t have much to do at work as my productivity was extremely low and I only did what was absolutely necessary.

Sleepiness-Level

Joan: “Yeah so sleepiness-level… IT’S OVER 9000 (too cliche?). No but seriously, I basically felt sleepy the entire day and even after my morning routine and the creative break, that didn’t change a lot. I’m really looking forward to going to sleep tonight and hope that I won’t wake up that often again.”

Me: Honestly? Couldn’t have said it better than Joan already did. I almost fell asleep several times during the day and felt extraordinarily exhausted as well. Don’t really know, if the weather or the general lack of motivation are to blame here but probably a combination of both.

Motivation

Joan: “Not a lot of energy for me also equals not a lot of motivation. I didn’t really feel motivated to practice guitar or to Bullet Journal, but I know that it helps when I’m having a bad day so I decided to do that nonetheless.”

Me: Looking at the rest of the parameters today, it’s safe to say that my motivation was also kinda trash. I did get dressed and put some make-up on in the hopes that it would improve everything a little bit but while it helped a little, it did not do a whole lot.

So yeah, this was a indeed a day. But I hope that it helps you understand that not everything always goes according to plan and that there can be bad days. You can still learn something from bad days tho, so I’m kinda glad I do get to experience both the ups and the downs of this challenge.

Please make sure you stay safe and healthy and I’ll “see” you in the next blog post. ❤

~Luna

Follow my Blog

Thank you for reading! If you want to keep up with this challenge and also read any of my future blog posts, make sure you hit the button down below, so you won’t ever miss an upload. 😊

Join 42 other followers

More Posts

Down below you’ll find any previous days that were published at the time of this post’s release 😊

  • Prologue – The Path to Self-Improvement
    Before I write anything else, I want to thank every single one of you that has so far liked, subscribed or supported this blog in any way, so thank you so much! It means so much more to me, than you can imagine! ❤️ So, there is no need to mitigate here: 2020 has been […]
  • Day 1 – The First Step is Always the Hardest … Or is it?
    Monday marked the first day for our “path to self-improvement” challenge, but before I go straight into our “findings” as promised, I want to first explain, how we decided to gage things. It was clear to us that we needed some way of judging this whole thing, so we have decided to, besides just writing […]
  • Day 2 – Good Habit Central
    Day two of our challenge was filled with us picking up a lot more good habits and a lot of, let’s call it, “new year, new me” vibes (even though it’s obviously not the start of a new year, but I’m sure you know what I mean). Getting Up and Morning Routines Joan: “Getting up […]
  • Day 3 – A lil bit of both
    I know, I know, “wow Luna way to keep the title vague” but honestly, I don’t really know, how else to describe this day xD Nighttime, Getting up and Morning Routine Joan: “Waking up was the hardest so far today. I only really fell asleep at around 2am so that may be the reason why […]
Posted in The Path to Self-Improvement

Day 3 – A lil bit of both

Posted on by Scoraluna

I know, I know, “wow Luna way to keep the title vague” but honestly, I don’t really know, how else to describe this day xD

Nighttime, Getting up and Morning Routine

Joan: “Waking up was the hardest so far today. I only really fell asleep at around 2am so that may be the reason why I really didn’t feel like getting up.”

As I mentioned, I tried to not listen to anything or at least not to anything with talking while falling asleep. Boy, when I tell you that this was hard…. I couldn’t do it. I had to resort to an episode of the “Harry Podcast” by Coldmirror, as I always love listening to her. Given that I have listened to that episode more times than I can count (yes, they are over an hour long, don’t at me), I wasn’t really paying attention to anything she said. 

Also, I must say that I am surprised how much “better” I have gotten at Yoga in that short amount of time, but it’s only a beginner course and I am already pretty flexible to begin with (weird FLEX [GET IT?] but ok 😅).”

Me: Getting up was a bit rough today cause I didn’t get my full 7,5 hours of sleep. (I know I sound like a whiny little baby right now, but being tired/ not having gotten enough sleep tends to put me in a real bitchy mood 😅). On that note, a while ago, I have started to actually pay attention to sleep cycles, which are 90 minutes long each and you should get at least 6 hours but maximum of 9 hours of sleep each night, in order to have a healthy sleep schedule; at least according to scientists. For me, I have figured out that the middle between these two, so 7,5 hours, works best, as I feel really well rested and tend to be able to keep my sleepiness in check during the whole day.

I have also started to actually get dressed and get ready for the day so that I could leave the house at any time. I figured out that it helps me be more productive and alert, if I don’t hang around in jogging pants all day and it feels almost like a reward to actually get changed into comfy clothes after having a productive day.

Mood

Joan: “My mood was pretty good overall. I felt a bit off right after waking up and it wasn’t that nice, but after I did my morning routine and got into my groove, I felt pretty good.” 

Me: I had a bit of an up and down on that day. I had to deal with some organisation stuff for university, which got me in a bad mood cause I figured out that there was still some stuff that had to be done, until I can finally start with the next step on my university education path, but there were also some good and positive things happening during the day, which kind of counterbalanced the negatives.

Productivity

Joan: “I didn’t feel that productive today as I just attended the 2 lectures I had and washed/styled my hair. (Takes a long time so I felt pretty accomplished after that). I did my makeup and got “dressed up” because that’s usually what helps me get into a good mood and mindset.”

Me: I’d say my productivity was medium today. I did the stuff that I needed to do, but I found myself getting more distracted by things than I did the past two days. (*Procrastination is laughing in the shadows*).

Sleepiness-Level

Joan: “Just like the past 2 days, I had energy crash at around 10-11am but otherwise there was no no real change.”

Me: I did end up falling asleep for like 15-20 minutes in the afternoon, which I think was also influenced by how garbage the weather was that day, but I definitely felt a little bit more sleepy during the day in comparison to the past two days.

Motivation

Joan: “Because I’m getting up way earlier than I usually would, I feel like I have way more time on my hands to actually do stuff and not feel guilty about using some of my time to relax or to do creative stuff. The day feels longer now and like there is a lot more potential to make use of. I felt motivated to “make myself pretty” (I am always pretty and so are all of you, but I digress) and participate in my classes today (talking in online classes…. the bane of my existence). All in all I think my motivation has kinda improved already at least from what I can tell so far into the challenge.”

Me: I kinda had a bit of a lack of motivation today. As I said, I did get the stuff that I had to do done, but I didn’t really feel like doing any personal stuff/projects. However, I do think that my bad mood is to blame for that. Also, it is okay to have bad days or days where you don’t feel that motivated and we should all accept that and be okay with that. We’re not machines after all 😊

And with that, boom, another day is done! I’m certainly curious to see what tomorrow brings 😄 Hopefully you’re still enjoying reading about our journey through this challenge and please make sure you stay safe and healthy! ❤

~Luna

Follow my Blog

Hi there, and thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this and wanna know how it continues, please make sure you hit the button down below to make sure you don’t miss any future posts! 😊

Join 42 other followers

Come and say Hi

More Posts

Down here you can find all the parts of this mini series that were already out by time this post was published 😊

  • Prologue – The Path to Self-Improvement
    Before I write anything else, I want to thank every single one of you that has so far liked, subscribed or supported this blog in any way, so thank you so much! It means so much more to me, than you can imagine! ❤️ So, there is no need to mitigate here: 2020 has been […]
  • Day 1 – The First Step is Always the Hardest … Or is it?
    Monday marked the first day for our “path to self-improvement” challenge, but before I go straight into our “findings” as promised, I want to first explain, how we decided to gage things. It was clear to us that we needed some way of judging this whole thing, so we have decided to, besides just writing […]
  • Day 2 – Good Habit Central
    Day two of our challenge was filled with us picking up a lot more good habits and a lot of, let’s call it, “new year, new me” vibes (even though it’s obviously not the start of a new year, but I’m sure you know what I mean). Getting Up and Morning Routines Joan: “Getting up […]
Posted in The Path to Self-Improvement

Day 2 – Good Habit Central

Posted on by Scoraluna

Day two of our challenge was filled with us picking up a lot more good habits and a lot of, let’s call it, “new year, new me” vibes (even though it’s obviously not the start of a new year, but I’m sure you know what I mean).

Getting Up and Morning Routines

Joan: “Getting up proved to be harder today. I am not entirely sure if that is because I didn’t sleep well or if my body has yet to get used to my new sleeping schedule.”

Me: Getting up for me was a bit easier than on day 1, probably because I actually slept through instead of staring at the ceiling for an hour at 2am, like the day before.

I now also have a morning routine – whoo go me I guess … Let’s just gloss over the fact that I am in fact a 24-year-old adult that definitely should have already had that but hey, better late than never, right? My morning routine now contains meditation, reading for 30 minutes and skincare. Three habits I absolutely wanted to pick up and put into my day regularly and they fit quite nicely in the morning .

No exercise yet, even though that’s the fourth habit that I want to pick up during this challenge, however, I don’t really yet know where in my day to put that. If any of you have any input on that, please let me know in the comments.

Mood

Our overall mood was again pretty much the same. It was good and I now was even more excited about this challenge than before because it allowed me to do stuff like meditate and read, since I had enough time on my hands to actually do so.

Productivity

Joan: “I felt really productive today. I had two lectures to attend and I felt extremely accomplished after completing them. As always I cleaned the flat and decided to practice on my guitar skills and then let the day end with a bit of bullet journaling and a nice ‘cuppa tea’ (*Britishness intensifies*).”

Me: I again managed to get done with my work stuff pretty quickly. To be fair, it does help that this week seems to be a bit of slower week and there isn’t that much going on but I did all the stuff that I had to without procrastinating so that’s a huge plus right there. I then just used the rest of the day to relax, watch some videos and work on some personal stuff.

Sleepiness-Level

Joan: “Once again, I woke up having a good amount of energy but I had a down at 10-11am just like on day 1. Could be because of my lectures or because of my sleeping “transformation” and my body not quite yet knowing what’s going on. (My money is on the lecture though …¯\_(ツ)_/¯).”

Me: My sleepiness-level actually was very consistent during the day and I wasn’t really sleepy until I actually had to go to bed. At that point my body was like “it’s almost 12:30am, we go sleep now.”

Motivation

Joan: “I felt rather motivated today. With each task I completed, I felt more and more motivated to do more. I felt drawn to a lot of creative tasks today, maybe to balance out the blandness of some lecture. (Definitely not looking at anyone in particular …. *cough*).”

Me: My motivation was alright.. I did get my work stuff done and kept writing stuff for the blog but other than that I didn’t really do as much personal project work as I would have liked to, but I was okay with that and tried not to be disappointed about it and instead celebrate the things that I did do. (Yay to a more positive mindset!)

Plans for the next few days

Joan: “I am going to try and minimize my use of my phone and such, especially when going to sleep. I want to try falling asleep without any background noise/just music and no talking, to see, if that makes me fall asleep quicker.”

Me: I also want to stop using my phone and particularly social media shortly before bed. To try and do that I want to try and read and/or meditate before bed as well because that usually helps me to wind down and get sleepy.

So, that’s day 2 done. So far, we have definitely have noticed some improvements straight away but it’s still too early to say anything conclusive. Let’s see how tomorrow goes!

Hopefully, I’ll see you there and as always stay safe and stay healthy ❤

~Luna

Follow my Blog

Thank you for reading! If you want to keep up with this challenge and with any other blog posts that are coming out in the future, please make sure you press the button down below, so you’ll never miss a post! 😊

Join 42 other followers

Come and say Hi

I also do some stuff other than writing blog posts, so if you’re curious about that, come and check out my socials! 😊

More Posts

If you’ve missed day one or wanna know how that whole thing started, feel free to check out the first two posts in this miniseries:

  • Prologue – The Path to Self-Improvement
    Before I write anything else, I want to thank every single one of you that has so far liked, subscribed or supported this blog in any way, so thank you so much! It means so much more to me, than you can imagine! ❤️ So, there is no need to mitigate here: 2020 has been […]
  • Day 1 – The First Step is Always the Hardest … Or is it?
    Monday marked the first day for our “path to self-improvement” challenge, but before I go straight into our “findings” as promised, I want to first explain, how we decided to gage things. It was clear to us that we needed some way of judging this whole thing, so we have decided to, besides just writing […]
  • Day 2 – Good Habit Central
    Day two of our challenge was filled with us picking up a lot more good habits and a lot of, let’s call it, “new year, new me” vibes (even though it’s obviously not the start of a new year, but I’m sure you know what I mean). Getting Up and Morning Routines Joan: “Getting up […]
  • Day 3 – A lil bit of both
    I know, I know, “wow Luna way to keep the title vague” but honestly, I don’t really know, how else to describe this day xD Nighttime, Getting up and Morning Routine Joan: “Waking up was the hardest so far today. I only really fell asleep at around 2am so that may be the reason why […]
  • Day 4 – Rock Bottom
    This day… was certainly a day… Oh, who am I kidding, this day was an absolute wreck, for both of us ironically, but I did want to include it, so you can see that not every day goes as well as you think it will. Nighttime, Getting Up and Morning Routines Joan: “I gotta be […]
Posted in The Path to Self-Improvement

Day 1 – The First Step is Always the Hardest … Or is it?

Posted on by Scoraluna

Monday marked the first day for our “path to self-improvement” challenge, but before I go straight into our “findings” as promised, I want to first explain, how we decided to gage things.

It was clear to us that we needed some way of judging this whole thing, so we have decided to, besides just writing down our experiences, also create some parameters that would help us determine what exactly has changed/will change over the course of the challenge and we came up with the following:

  • Mood
  • Productivity
  • Sleepiness-Level (Energy Level was too mainstream xD) and
  • Motivation (that includes motivation for non-work/uni things as well as the stuff that we have to do)

Alright, now that you know the ins and outs, let’s jump straight into our experiences, shall we?

Thoughts on getting up early

Surprisingly, getting up at 8am for the first time in forever was not as bad as we both thought it would be. Joan even said that she felt surprisingly awake and excited in the morning but also mentioned that that might be due to her excitement about getting started with the challenge, which I shared. However, I think my brain was like “what the actual f is going on” because I was awake at 2am at night, after having gone to bed on time mind you, and couldn’t fall asleep for like an hour or so. Thanks brain… 😑

Morning Routines

Unlike me, Joan actually already had a morning routine (kudos to you girl, I thought I could never), which consisted of making her bed, doing her skincare routine and brushing her teeth, followed by “a nice steaming cup of coffee and some music to lighten my mood and make me feel less dead.” Her new morning routine isn’t drastically different but rather just improved. She added a 10-min yoga session and a 5-minute guided meditation with positive affirmations to the things that she was already doing.

As already mentioned, my morning routine was practically non-existent. Besides making my bed and brushing my teeth, my mornings always looked different from day to day. Sometimes I would have breakfast immediately, sometimes I would read for hours in bed or just be on my phone for ages and sometimes I would get up and have breakfast while watching a YouTube video. Basically pure chaos, zero structure (that sounds like a very bad ad for something). So, I definitely wanted to change that and start my day with some structure. Didn’t manage to do so on the first day tho, so more on that in the Day 2 Post.

Mood

Our mood was practically identical. We both were super excited to get started with the challenge and nothing really bad happened to us during the day either which led to both of us being in a pretty good mood for the entire day.

Productivity

Joan: “As it was the first day of a new uni semester today, I had a lecture to attend to and make some decisions of an organizational nature and plan some stuff out. I did more than usual on that day with the morning yoga and getting a healthy breakfast and all that. I noticed that I had a lot more time and I used that to learn some songs on my guitar like “Toss a coin to your witcher” (if anyone wants to start a band – let me know ;D).”

Me: Seeing as I work from home, I sometimes have pretty jam-packed days, but for the first time in probably since I started working for this company, I was actually done with all my stuff by roughly 2pm and I suddenly had a all this time at my disposal that I barely knew what to do with.

Sleepiness-Level

Joan: “My energy level was pretty high, also heightened by doing the yoga and the meditation in the morning with a noticeable down at around 10-11am. This down lasted for about 2 hours and I had to “fight” the urge to take a nap or something. I managed to do so and had a nearly constant energy level only interrupted by a slight headache at around 11pm in the evening.”

Me: I felt completely fine during the day and I was definitely more energetic than usual and it wasn’t until I had come back from a brief trip to the shopping center that I experienced an energy crash, but when I did, I kinda crashed hard. You know the meme of the little girl who just lays down on the beach and goes ” I wanna take a nap” – yeah, that’s what I felt like. I did resist the urge tho, by basically just eating a lot of cookies to keep my blood sugar up and distracting myself with some personal projects because I knew that if I took a nap right then and there, I would not have been able to fall asleep when I needed to at night.

Motivation

Joan: “I felt some motivation to get things started but not as much as I had hoped for. I cleaned the flat and felt excited to start the yoga routine and meditation, but I’m not sure yet, if that is not just my brain going ‘uhhh new stuff… shiny’. Jury is still out on that one.”

Me: My motivation was quite high during the entirety of the day and suprise, suprise there was barely any procrastination happening (say whaaat?). I got some work on some personal projects done and, as you might have noticed, for the first time in a long time I have actually written a blog post again.

So, this was our first day and those were our first experiences with starting the challenge. We are both still super excited to see what comes out of it, so I will definitely see you guys in the next post!

Stay safe and stay healthy!

~Luna

Follow my Blog

Hello, and thank you for reading this post! If you’re curious about how this whole thing is going to continue, make sure you hit the button down below, so you certainly won’t miss, when I upload next! 😊

Join 42 other followers

Come and say Hi!

Wanna see what I do when I’m not writing blog posts? Check out my socials in order to find out! 😊

More Posts

Intrigued to see how this whole thing started? Here you can read the prologue of this miniseries:

  • Prologue – The Path to Self-Improvement
    Before I write anything else, I want to thank every single one of you that has so far liked, subscribed or supported this blog in any way, so thank you so much! It means so much more to me, than you can imagine! ❤️ So, there is no need to mitigate here: 2020 has been absolute crap for most of us, if not all of us. Admittedly, for me, there are some good things that have come out of 2020, however, the repeated lock downs and rule changes and heaven knows what not have been tiring, to say the least. […]