Making Space 2022: Day 31

Here we are at the last day of 2022, the last day of December, the last day of my Making Space posts.

I hope that you have found these posts useful and that you have found your own ways to make space for yourselves in your days this month. I also hope that you have found (or are starting to find) ways to continue making space for yourselves in the days that follow.

And speaking of the days that follow – tomorrow, I start a series of ‘Go Team!’ posts that encourage you to be kind to yourself as you figure out the habits, systems, and practices you want to take on in the year ahead.

But before we get to that, I have one more thing to say about creating space for your future self and it goes like this:

New Year’s Day may be a symbolic time to start but you can add new ideas, habits and practices to your life at ANY TIME.

And, you can create your own symbolism or meaning around the time that you choose.

For example, even though I like the symbolism of starting new practices in a new year, I had a bit of sideways December so I couldn’t give a lot of thought to things I wanted to do in 2023.

Instead of putting pressure on myself to find time to focus on that, I decided to let December be what it was and that I would figure out what 2023 would look like once it arrived.

Or, to put it another way, I’m choosing to have Planuary instead of January.

By labelling next month as Planuary, I have given it a shape. I’m not going in without a plan and hoping things will just happen – that would never work for my ADHD brain. Instead, I’m planning to spend January figuring out what my plans could be.

And I’m inviting you to create space for your future self by doing something similar.

If you WANT to start something new sometime soon, you don’t have to come roaring out of the gate tomorrow. You can decide on your own terms and your own timeline when and how you want to get started.

You can plan to plan in Planuary.

You can write one thing on an index card and do that until you get bored with it.

You can make a giant list and a big chart and have a grand time with it (as long as you aren’t going to be mean to yourself if you have to change your plan – I can’t get behind that)

You can choose to just keep doing what you have been doing all along but add in the plan to be kinder to yourself in the process (THAT I can full endorse.)

Basically, I want to encourage you to give yourself the space to do things in your own way on your own schedule.

Your tomorrow-self doesn’t need to have it all figured out and doesn’t have to have the perfect plan.

Please be kind to yourself as you make space for future you to develop, expand, and think up cool and fun things to do.

NOTE:Have you ever seen DSri Seah’s Groundhog Day Resolutions monthly personal review system? It’s a cool way that they developed to check in with their resolutions and projects all year long. I love how they worked out a system that works for them without getting caught up in when things *should* be done during the year.

Here are our final videos for the Making Space series. At first I was looking for new year/end of year themed videos but there was such a variation in tone from video to video that I didn’t want to choose something that would be irksome. So, instead, I chose videos for calm and for energy/feeling good – I figured those could be most helpful.

I also chose a yoga video AND a cardio video so you could decide if you wanted to see the year out in a low-key way or in a burst of movement.

Whether you do these videos or do your own thing, I wish you ease, energy and lots of space for yourself as 2022 becomes 2023.

See you tomorrow for our first Go Team! post for 2023.

About Making Space 2022

In December 2020, Fit is a Feminist Issue blogger Martha created a tradition – a series of reminder posts to take good care of ourselves during this last month of the year when it is far too easy to get swept up in your to do list, no matter what you are celebrating or not celebrating. Last year, it was my turn and after an introductory Go Team post called Give Yourself Some Space, I created a series of reminders called ‘Making Space‘ that offered a suggested short exercise video and a suggested meditation in case you needed an easy way to find space for yourself in your schedule.

For 2022, I’ll be doing the same thing but I’ll also be including a link to Martha’s post from the same date in 2020 and I’ll offer a few extra ideas for relaxation, creativity, and self-kindness here and there.

These posts are not about insisting that you do more, more, more during this busy season. Instead, I want to encourage you to remember that there IS a *YOU* who is doing all of the things and you are worth taking good care of.

Perhaps the things I suggest aren’t what you need in the moment. That’s totally ok. Perhaps you can use something else to create some space, something that will help you feel more relaxed or more in charge of your day.