October Intentions

Because it’s trendy as hell right now, I decided to set some October intentions. I wanted to review these and let you know how I’m doing with them this month. The month ain’t over but I really don’t anticipate much more progress and/or failure at this point. I set three intentions:

1. Spend less time on Instagram
2. Try/continue to try meditation
3. Make a strong attempt to limit unnecessary spending

I’m going to grade myself on each of the intentions below:

Less Time on Instagram

(Image credit: Storyblocks. This image is not actually me but it IS me, every day basically. This is how I walk around DC. Also, this is you too, I’m pretty sure.)

When I checked the amount of time I was spending daily on Instagram, I was, frankly, disgusted with myself. It was really my boredom go-to and I wanted to take my power back from Instagram. So I set a timer via Instagram – for 15 minutes. I think going from 90 minutes to 15 minutes was a rather harsh adjustment – so when the Instagram timer would notify me that I’d spent my 15 minutes a day – I’d be like, meh – what’s another 15 more. I did notice that I was able to limit myself to around 30 minutes for the first week or so of October.

Then I decided to UP the ante and set the actual time on my phone and only allow myself 20 minutes. This timer is more aggressive because you have to opt into allowing yourself more time. I’ve been successful at this. But is this sustainable?

Here’s the thing. This intention is making me a better person. I put my phone away for entire evenings with my daughter and also don’t look through Instagram while my husband and I enjoy the only time we have together on weekdays, aka dinner & TV time… Me not burying my face in my phone also led to him not burying his face in his phone… WIN WIN.

So I think there’s a happy medium here and I think that happy medium may be 30 minutes or less. I’m not an Instagram celeb (AT LEAST NOT YET! JK) so I think this is a sustainable goal.

Grade: B (although I’m pretty sure if I sucked up to the teacher I could convince them to B+ me on this one… cause that was a thing I was always pretty good at)

Try/continue to try meditation

(Image credit: Storyblocks. Spoiler alert: I will never be this person.)

As much as I’ve tried, the yoga/meditation/zen life does not seem to fit into my schedule. I freakin’ hate yoga and have tried probably a million times to become a cool yoga girl but it doesn’t do anything positive for my mind. Instead, I’m just thinking about how much I suck at yoga.

So meditation is super trendy right now and there’s tons of apps and even cute little “meditation gyms” where you can meditate for a half hour during lunch (or nap, if you want) but I’m definitely not high enough zen level for those yet.

So, recently I noticed that one of my workout apps, Aaptiv, has a meditation section. I decided I’d give it a go. DAMN, did I feel super mega accomplished when I did 10 minutes of meditation on October 1st.

And I haven’t done a single minute of meditation since. One of the perks to not scrolling mindlessly through Instagram anymore is that I don’t constant updates on how many hours the Wellness gurus I follow have meditated each day.

Should I make this an intention for next month or should I just finally give up on my dream of being a chill, balanced and level person?

Grade: F (If this was a ski race, I’d be DNF)

Make a strong attempt to limit unnecessary spending

(Photo credit: Storyblocks. This could be me, if those are dolla bills and not hundos).

We all know that November and December are basically giant money pits where you have to hemorrhage money in the form of gifts to your friends and family. I thought it would be fiscally responsible of me to hold back spending during the month of October to prepare for these months.

What was my strategy? I decided to become an Aldi grocery shopper. Conveniently, I saw this article toward the beginning of October and decided to try all these meals. Highly recommend – my grocery bill was comically cheap (for the DC area). The new GIANT Aldi they built near me certainly doesn’t suck.

But something very inconvenient happened during the Columbus day (has that title been officially dropped yet?) weekend. My very favorite sweatpants were on sale and I had to buy them (and two sweatshirts). I am considering writing an entire blog post on these sweatpants because they are the most amazing things ever created. Seriously, if these sweatpants were the product for an MLM, I would even considering joining that and hosting sweatpants parties.

So the sweatsuits weren’t a ginormous purchase but I definitely consider them a strike against my final grade. Somewhere along the line I also bought myself a massage (it was ON GROUPON, COME ON)… and just small things here and there so honestly at the end of the day it seemed like a normal-ish month where I was somewhat thrifty on the grocery side.

Grade: B-

Do you think intentions are stupid? I kindof do BUT I will say I feel like my Instagram intention has had a positive impact on my life (but we will seeeeeee how long this lasts).