Hey, everyone! Welcome back to the Delightful Diaries, my personal series on this little self love blog. 💙 Today’s theme is how to create your dream life, something that I’ve been thinking about a lot recently. It feels like the second my 30th birthday passed, my brain realized that I have the rest of my life ahead of me and I can do whatever I want with it! So I’ve been coming up with goals and strategies to make my dreams come true. It’s been going well, so I wanted to share some of those with you today!
For the Delightful Diaries, I always use this format:
1 song I’ve had on repeat in the last week
2 recipes I’ve enjoyed in the last week
3 words/phrases to set a vibe for next week
4 things that have been inspiring me lately, and
5 things I’ve doing to take care of myself.
1stly, a song I’ve had on repeat: Someone to Call My Lover by Janet Jackson.
Throwback. Nostalgia. Vibes. All of the above.
2 recipes – basically created my dream life already with these.
- French Country Garlic Soup by The View from Great Island. Delicious, what else is there to say? No, I did not emulsify my mayo correctly, but I’ll try again next week because this soup was still delicious (after I skimmed off some oil, haha).
- Back at it with the Classic Tuna Salad by Dinner, Then Dessert. Throw it in a sandwich. Dip a carrot. Dip celery.
3 words/phrases to set the vibe for my DREAM LIFE?
- Do 1% every day.
- Relaaaaaaax, it’s gonna be fine!
- Acknowledge accomplishment fatigue
What do I mean by that? Well, I’ve been achieving a lot of goals recently. And that feels great! …But after a while, it can feel less great when you hit a certain point of productivity and security. It starts to feel like the norm. Like it isn’t even special anymore when your self love journey is actually going well! So take the time to celebrate your achievements this week, readers. And, always, taking mindful breaks helps a LOT in dealing with accomplishment fatigue.
I cannot stress this enough: always stay used to doing nothing. Nobody should be in “go mode” constantly. The only point of working is so that you can live your dream life and have your dream lifestyle, right? So take that break, chill out, and put something off once in a while. I try to have a “lazy day” at least once a week, where the bare minimum is the GOAL.
4 things that have been inspiring me lately.
- Nerdwallet.com, as usual. I read this page a LOT. I learned so many personal finance principles here that I’ve actually gotten to a point where I feel I have money values. Managing money like a grown-up is a self-care skill that truly gets me closer to my dream lifestyle every day. When I ask myself, “how do I make my dreams come true?” the answer is usually “get in your money mindset.” I tend to be a little bit of a shopaholic, too, and learning the real value of my money by tracking my spending has been so helpful. Make sure you check out the financial journal prompts I posted last week, because these questions are the bedrock to my philosophy on personal finance. I’ll be posting more about personal finance in the coming weeks as well!
- Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Yes, I have finally caught up. No, I am not okay. Receipts, proof, timeline, screenshots? Check, check, check, and check. I talked about this last week, too, and I will continue talking about it until the end of the world. My dream life involves a lot of downtime doing mindless stuff like watching reality TV.
- I watched a Mina Le video about the transactional nature of relationships these days. She put words to something I’ve noticed a lot recently – that people treat every single exchange they have like it’s “emotional labor.” She pointed out that the term “emotional labor” originated as something you do at work in order to stay professional at work. I’m moving away from the idea that friendships are labor. I used to lean on the idea of it being hard work to be socially “on” as a way to have boundaries with friendships. My social life is pretty crazy, and I have a lot of friends. But truthfully, my friendships are built on doing nice things for each other like lending an ear, sharing, and exploring together. I’ve decided that my dream life involves helping others and accepting help. I’m no longer interested in looking at my life like it’s “work.” When I think “how to create my dream life,” I imagine my friends. They come and go from my house all the time, we hang out with with no plan in mind, and I don’t feel pressured to reply to texts because we have meaningful interactions outside of our digital correspondence.
- Moving away from “budgeting energy.” Seriously, when did I start using corporate terms to describe basic human stuff? It used to work for me to think of all my energy as one big bucket, that doesn’t serve me anymore. I’m realizing that when I don’t have energy for one thing, I usually have energy for another. So instead, I’ve been trying to think of different types of energy I have and which area of my life I feel like cultivating that day. For example, I decided I didn’t have energy for social stuff the other night, so I redecorated instead.
5 things I’ve been doing to take care of myself as I create my dream life
- Sleeping 8 hours a night who? This week, I’ve been staying up late. No, that’s not how I take care of myself, but accepting that sleep can be hard IS! Self-acceptance has been going a long way in creating my dream life this week.
- Working out 2x a week at most. I’ve been enjoying taking longer rest periods these days, especially as my sleep schedule shifts. It feels right, and my body feels good. I keep leaving workouts feeling invigorated! Which is great because the sun is really holding out on me lately, and usually I need sunlight to feel alive.
- Did a fall refresh on my bedroom! I used to have all my bikinis on the wall, and I’ve switched out my dresser decor so it’s no longer so summery. It’s easier to deal with the sun being in hiding when you aren’t literally staring at your swimsuits above your dresser. Pics later!
- Visualizing the future. Sometimes, I can have a bit of anxiety surrounding the future and where I might end up. I’ve been enjoying letting my mind wander to what it might actually look and feel like if/when my life changes! When I’ve redone parts of our apartment, when I have a car (soon!!), or when I have a partner or a child, for example. How to create your dream life: understand what your life will look like when it changes to feel at ease about the future.
- Eating a ton of KitKat. I’m really in a KitKat mood these days, y’all. Give me a break.
xoxoz