Postpartum Month 4: Journal for Inspiration & Motivation

On January 4th, 2014 Audrey will be 4 months old. At this point in my 4th trimester, I am feeling a range of emotions. In my journal earlier today, I wrote that I'm feeling "blah," but I'm also feeling "inspired" somehow. Physically, how am I doing? I'm not going to lie--I haven't started exercising at the gym yet, aside from a few step aerobics classes I took recently; however, I'm constantly moving around when picking up Audrey and playing with her, rearranging the house, cleaning, running errands, and teaching dance. 

Audrey and I, last week, when we went out for sushi with friends.

I would certainly love to get back to my normal exercising self, but I don't feel like I'm in any rush to increase the amount of activity I am doing right now. I can't tell if my nonchalant attitude is because I am not ready to increase the intensity of my workouts or if it's because I'm lacking motivation. Either way, I decided to journal for motivation. 

I started by listing my current interests, and I made goals and jotted down notes on how I can reasonably achieve them. I suppose you could say these are my resolutions for the new year. (In your own journal, you can easily do what I did. Use my notes below as your template.)

Interests: 

Here are my current interests. (These interests are things that are impacting my daily life. You can certainly see this if you check out my Pinterest! )

• Birth
• Natural Parenting
• DIY 
• Health and Wellness
• Feminism
• Spirituality

Goals:

Here is a short list of goals I want to reach during the course of 2014.

1. Learn to sew (and sew well.) Make prefolds, clothes for Audrey, and Christmas and birthday presents for the next year.
2. Become a birth doula.
3. Blog more often. 
4. Workout, and get back to my pre-baby weight.

Steps:

Here are the reasonable steps I am going to take to achieve the goals above.

1. I received a sewing machine for Christmas from my parents. I already have that! Since I haven't sewn in about 7 years, I am going to be taking free classes from a woman in my community. This is a hobby that will be practical for my family, cheap for me to do, and will allow me some alone-time. 
2. I blogged about this in an earlier post, but I am currently perusing my training options. I will talk more about it once things are official! 
3. Blogging more often has always been a goal of mine. Now that I am gaining inspiration once more, I think this will really be a possibility in the upcoming year. 
4. I think this will come with time. I do have a Y membership. The Y is very family-friendly, so I think it's a great facility to help me get motivated. Also, with spring and summer *slowly* approaching, I am going to sign up for some 5K races with a couple good friends of mine. They're short races, but they give me just enough incentive to jog; plus, I have the opportunity to support some great causes. Furthermore, I do have a Groupon I purchased for Aikido. I might not get much of a workout from that, but at least I will get out of the house and moving around!

That's all for now! 

- Samantha Nichole

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