dream life

How I started my glow-up/transformation/journey

Geen categorie, Lifestyle 🏃🏼‍♀️

At the end of 2019, when I had just turned 28 years old, I looked back on my year and realised that I wasn’t the person I really wanted to be. I had everything I wanted: a full time job that I liked, a perfect boyfriend, a nice house to live in and a rich social life. And don’t get me wrong – I loved my life and was very happy. But I still felt like I could be so much more.

How it started

Since I started working full time, I had developed some habits that weren’t working well for me. I ate relatively unhealthy, had many afternoon drinks, had 4-5 social events a week and partied and shopped a lot to ‘compensate’ for working 40 hours. I never really wanted to work full time when I was younger, but as a young professional it was a given that I should, so I did.

And in order to keep up with spending such a large amount of my time to ‘somebody else’s dream’, as I viewed it, I had to eat quick meals in between work and blow off a lot of steam on the weekends. And so I started gaining weight, making more and more poor decisions, spending a lot of money, and numbing myself down spiritually and mentally. At the end of 2019, in this moment of reflection, I had to conclude: no more of this.

I realised that in a few years, I was turning 30 years old. I felt like this was the time to change, since I didn’t want to bring my bad habits into my 30’s, and maybe 40’s, and maybe even 50’s. I thought about dragging this stuff throughout my life, and never realising my full potential, while probably catching all kinds of addictions and diseases. That thought was unbearable to me. I was too smart, too kind, too beautiful for that life (and so are you!).

I realised that if I changed my life for the better now, I could still turn this around. I wasn’t to old (are you ever really?) to be the healthy, ambitious, thriving woman that deep down, I knew I could be. On top of that, I found out that all my life, I had actually been underperforming because deep down, I was a perfectionist and I was afraid to fail or let myself down. With this knowledge, I felt it: this was my moment to take myself by the balls.

The momentum

So I decided to finally fully commit to some goals and ambitions I secretly had for the new year. The magic of that moment was that I finally admitted to myself that I wasn’t who I wanted to be, and that my life wasn’t where I wanted it to be. And I blamed that on myself. I was finally ready to make some promises to myself, and I was finally ready to keep them – simply because I was done letting myself down, and I knew I would spiral down even more if I let myself down again. And I simply deserved better (and so do you!). So I took a short course in journalling to get on track, and worked my way up from there.

First, I started keeping small promises to myself, like drinking a lot of water and not eating meat anymore. Then, I started to keep promises that I found hard to keep before, like moving my body everyday and doing some soul-searching whenever I felt down or ‘not enough’ (instead of blowing off steam in a club). I kept my journal for a year, and wrote down all the goals I had for 2020, along with the promises that I wanted to keep every month.

An important part was the monthly reflection, which made me proud of my accomplishments and helped me visualize what I wanted to accomplish next. All in all, my journal was the core of my transformation, I would say. Along with some real honesty towards myself, and a little help from miss ‘rona (who, let’s be honest, gave me a lot of me-time).

The outcome

Long story short still long: I literally reached every goal that I set for myself in 2020 (I had 15), even the ones on which I had no influence whatsoever. Some highlights being: get an indefinite contract at work, get engaged, lose 5 kg of weight (I lost 7) and read & meditate more. This year, I’ve set twice as many goals. The fun thing is, once you just start and show yourself that you’re capable of keeping your own promises, you realise that you can really do whatever you set your mind to.

These days, I set multiple big and scary goals for myself a month, since I now know from experience that when I tell myself ‘let’s do this’, the energy and motivation to do it follow naturally. And when I don’t reach a goal, it doesn’t bother me as much as it did before. I don’t feel like a failure or like I’ve let myself down again, because I have way more proof to show that the opposite is true. There really is no limit to what you can do, once you’ve joined your own team. (The only downfall is a burn-out or some overachieving, but let’s save that for another blogpost. 😉 )

I hope I inspired you to start your glow-up/transformation/journey if you haven’t already. Let me know how it goes and if you need any help. And if you’ve already started: What are some of your goals? I’d really like to know!

xx Coco

Tips for waking up early (and why you should)

Geen categorie, Lifestyle 🏃🏼‍♀️

To be completely transparent with you; I have never been an early bird. In fact, I always described myself as ‘an evening-person’. I never liked the mornings but loved the evenings. I was at my (creative) best after 10 pm, and never woke up before 8 am unless I really, really had to. My evenings were a last-minute party to celebrate that ‘it isn’t tomorrow yet’. My mornings were a struggle because I ‘had to wake up just to go and work all day’. And I always accepted that this was just my way of living. Until I tried something else.

Why I wanted a morning routine

The transformation of my mornings started with my general hate of working. Don’t get me wrong, I probably have the best job ever, but since I was very young I have felt it as an absolute unfair mistake that society somehow decided that everyone has to work all day for five days a week. It just doesn’t make sense to me. So, every job I’ve had felt like I had to do it, I simply didn’t have a choice, and that makes even the most fun thing to do always feel just like any other job. And since I didn’t want to quit my job (because there is no better job for me out there), I decided to change the way to look at it, from the moment I get out of bed.

I decided to wake up, do something for myself first, and then later on start my work just like ‘one of the many things I do in a day’. I decided to see work as a part of my day, not my whole purpose for waking up every morning. I had to make myself believe that there was something else – something more fun and more important I had to do first, before getting to work. And so, I invented myself a little morning routine.

First, I decided I wanted to stretch and move my body a little bit, just to feel more fit and healthy in the morning. A few days later, I decided to add a meditation to it for a good mood, and a little reading for some intellectual stimuli. Later, I found that I also wanted to clean my house for a few minutes, just so I would start my day more clear and organised.

then, I decided to add a podcast to my cleaning (because it’s more fun and hits two birds with one stone), and I found out that I really enjoy a short walk before I sit down behind my desk. All in all – my morning activities were stacking up, but my mornings did become a lot more fun than waking up cranky, rushing to get ready, and dreading to start working. And most importantly: they became an investment in myself, not my job, my relationship or my social life, but in me.

The pro’s

As bonus, I found out that having some time to spend on myself in the mornings also made the rest of my day a lot easier, more fun and more productive. The only downside is probably that I have to go to bed quite early to be able to get up at 6 am the next morning.

But honestly, I even like that part of it now: my evenings became a lot more relaxed since I am more productive during the day. Today, I would say that having a nice morning route is the biggest reason I stay on track in reaching my goals, and manifesting the dream life I want.

So, how do I (as an ‘evening-person’) manage to wake up every day at 6 am?

Here are my tips:

  1. Lay out your clothes for the next day. This makes getting out of bed and getting ready less of a hurdle. It lowers that bar of unpleasant things you have to do once you get up!
  2. Make sure you love the things you do in the morning. If you don’t like reading or meditation, please don’t do it! Do something that suits you and gets you in a good mood. It is totally fine if this includes activities that aren’t as productive or goal-oriented.
  3. At first, set your alarm clock a little earlier each day. You can take some time getting used to these early mornings. Then, set your alarm at the same time every day, and go to bed around the same time every evening.
  4. Enjoy the quiet moments where you feel like the world is still asleep, cannot bother you yet, and the head start you get by waking up early. Also take some time to enjoy the sunrise – a little present just for you!
  5. Play some music, light a candle, make yourself a fancy cup of tea or coffee. Set the right mood to start your day and enjoy the vibe. This can also make you more excited to get out of bed.
  6. Don’t give up if it takes time getting used to, or if you fall off track. You are totally allowed to sleep in now and then, just pick right back up when you’re ready.

Good luck transforming your morning!

xx Coco