January 2023 | End Notes

“You can rise up from anything. You can completely recreate yourself.

Nothing is permanent. You’re not stuck. You have choices. You can think of new thoughts.

You can learn something new. You can create new habits. All that matters is that

you decide today and never look back.”

Happy end of January, 2023 from me! It’s been quite some time since I’ve written these monthly end notes. I hope you had a great first start to the year. I like to ease into a new year at a slower pace to reset and refocus mentally.

I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, but I love the idea of a fresh start! It’s a great way to reset, as it were, and an opportunity for a renewal of intention to focus on. Last year, my word of intention for the year was resilience, and little did I know what an appropriately perfect choice that was! Without going on a tangent about the whys, let’s just say the quality of resilience was needed on a greater level than ever before. However, this year, my word of intention is Peace! Making time to heal. True mental peace and a positive mindset ultimately come from an intentional choice, not from a problem-free life. So, I took some time to think of how I can work towards accomplishing this necessary goal for more mental and personal peace in general.

I learned many valuable lessons in 2022: one of which is, to remember that progress isn’t always about pushing yourself beyond your limits to accomplish more. Sometimes it’s about bouncing back. Success is not only the peaks you reach – it’s the valleys you conquer. Every experience of enduring adversity and overcoming obstacles is a meaningful accomplishment. And the second is the one at the outset of this post that I want to keep in mind in the midst of struggles to help me be more attuned in keeping proper perspective.

One of several January additions we’ve brought into the house that’s making us smile right now. I can’t get enough of scrolly vintage wall sconces. The best part is I can operate these candles just with a touch of a remote!

MY AIM ON ACHIEVING MORE PEACE IN 2023

Achieving the changes we desire to make in our lives boils down to intentional choices and consistency, broken down into small daily bits that lead us to our goals. As I’ve said, one of my foremost goals is mental and personal peace this year, besides career and everything else. So here are the ways I plan on accomplishing this:

• I intend to make it a priority to change the way I see things, even amidst the storms of life. It’s not going to be easy, but I know making an effort to concentrate on changing the way I look at things when dealing with some of the unfavorable circumstances in life can free me from all the weight of feeling stuck in a meaningless rut. Something that will help me regain that peace I’m striving for.

• Hence, I aim to adopt the mindset that “things in life either happen to you or they happen for you.” At the same time, as a pragmatic individual, I know that even though perspective can change everything, I also realize that it doesn’t mean everything will always be great and sunny all the time. But, it does mean that everything can be accepted, dealt with, overcome, and made progress from.

• Instead of lamenting over unfair treatment and regrets, I plan on working to release regretful thoughts about the past. I want to work on being more mindful of right where I am – the best moments of my life now. That, in turn, will bring satisfaction and inner peace.

• In addition, I want to go back to keeping inspired by doing the things that fill my own cup up more. And one of those things for me is expressing my creativity by sharing all the beautiful bits that make life worthwhile, from home interiors to food and fashion. So I plan to dive back in here by posting more like before when I started this blog, so I hope you enjoy and get inspired along the way!!

• Carve out time to unplug. We’ve been attempting to have lazy Sundays (instead of getting caught up on minor home projects) for a while now. I want us to achieve that more this year.

• Speaking of projects, I’d like to finally finish some of our planned home refreshes for the house that has been neglected, so we can regain our time to enjoy the things we’d much rather do (like having those lazy Sundays we’ve been after).

If you haven’t taken time to list out goals that you’d like to see happen for yourself, I highly suggest you do! They don’t have to be big. Start small, so you don’t get discouraged and give up. Plus, they serve as a bullseye and help keep you going when the days start to feel monotonous and aimless. So let’s do our best to have more personal peace and reach positive self-improvement goals in 2023!

Wishing you all a beautiful and much more peaceful year ahead! Xx