Retrospective Self Care Review:

As a busy parent who's always putting others before yourself, the idea of creating New Year's Resolutions and sticking to them might seem like an impossible task. This year, I suggest you don't even bother. 

Instead, I encourage you to do a Retrospective Self Care review. Why? I've found this method to be more valuable, informed and actionable than picking broader goals like "read 20 books" or "lose 10lbs". 

The Retrospective Self Care Review will help you get to the root of what really makes you happy (and what doesn't) to help you make your 2022 goals a reality. I did my first one in December 2020 after neglecting my social life while navigating my first year in business during a global pandemic, and I'll be doing them every year now. Grab a notepad, and let's go! It'll only take 20 minutes.

1. Take your notepad and create two columns: POSITIVE and NEGATIVE.
2. Go through your calendar from the last year, looking at every week.
3. For each week, jot down on the notepad any people or activities that triggered highly positive or negative emotions. Then put them in their respective columns.
4. Once you've gone through the past year, look at your list and ask yourself, "What 20% of each column produced the most powerful or reliable highs or lows?"
5. Based on the answers, take your most "positive" things and schedule more of them in the new year. Put them on the calendar now! Book things with friends, and, if you can, prepay for activities that you know work. E.g. An art lesson with an old NCT friend or a postnatal pilates class. It's only real once it's in the calendar. Then, take your top "negatives", write "NOT-TO-DO LIST" at the top, and put them somewhere you can see them each morning for the first few weeks of 2022. These are the people and things you *know* make you unhappy, so don't put them on your calendar. 
6. The key is not to just remove the negatives, as this will create a void which will inevitably be filled and dictated by life, children and commitments. You need to schedule in positives for this to work properly.

Here's to a happy and empowered 2022! 

Rosie x