My challenge is starting well! Yesterday I did make an effort to be:

kind - stayed late at babysitting and provided emotional support to the mum when she got home because she’s having a hard time right now

happy - left work early to sit on the couch to watch my favourite reality tv shows rather than going to a bitch ex-coworkers going away drinks because i’m sick of her passive aggressive attitude towards me

beautiful - ok so i didn’t actually do anything to improve my appearance today I think this will be the biggest challenge

friendly - made an effort at work to make eye contact and have a genuine friendly conversation with everyone I saw

achieve - had a really successful meeting with my general manager about my ideas

Today I made more of an effort to be:

kind - helped a lady at the shops who dropped her things

happy - put on really cheesy pop music and sung at the top of my lungs while driving, also danced like a major dork with my kids at work when we threw an impromptu dance party

beautiful - I didn’t sleep well last night so this morning I used concealer under my eyes and a light foundation to look a bit more fresh for work (I usually don’t wear makeup at work)

friendly - msgd a few of my friends to see how they were going and make plans to catch up

achieve - went that extra mile at my kids club to do new activities which I think made the day a bit better.

My monthly challenge of staying off social media as much is going well, its really hard though. I realised how second nature it is to scroll through facebook when I have a spare moment!

So I have been doing a lot of thinking over these past few days about how important it is to better myself on the inside as well as the outside. I came up with this little self improvement challenge based on some things i have seen other people do. I guess I have been feeling a bit lost lately and trying to figure out who I am and who I want to be. I have been experiencing a lot of success career wise and I am really happy in my relationship but it just feels like something is kind of missing.

I think I spent so much time hiding behind my weight and now that I have lost 13 kilos (with 12 more to go!) and am no longer just the chubby nice girl I need to redefine myself a bit.

First thing was to figure out what qualities I really like about myself and how I would like others to see me:

• Kind - I am a very caring, loving person and I love doing nice things for others, I consider it to be my best quality. I like that I have such a big heart and I don’t ever want this to change about me.
• Happy - In general I am a pretty bubbly, fun person and obviously everyone prefers to be happy than sad. I see so many people getting bitter and jaded as they get older and I dont want that to happen to me.
• Beautiful - I have always been told that I am such a beautiful person (because I’m so kind) but I want to be beautiful on the outside as well as the inside. I really let myself go when I gained the weight so by focusing on being health and slim I can be just as beautiful on the outside as I am on the inside.
• Friendly - I am so nice to people I know and am comfortable with. I have grown apart from a lot of people of the years and I would really like to make some more friends. Because I can be shy I think it makes me seem a bit standoffish sometimes so I want to make more of an effort to be friendly with people when I meet them and hopefully that will lead to more friendships.
• An achiever - I am a hard worker and I am a dedicated person which means whatever I set my mind to I do very well in. I would like to continue to achieve things whether it is career success or a fitness goal like climbing a mountain.

Every day I need to do something small to focus on developing and embracing each of these qualities. It could be as simple as smiling at a stranger or putting my hair in a nice way or running those extra few minutes to beat a previous distance.

Every month I will set myself a new challenge which I think will enable to me to grow as a person. I am not going to set all the challenges now because I would like to see how I go and decide on a challenge month to month. My first month challenge is to reduce my social media use.

Challenge 1 - I am the type of person who lurks other peoples facebook’s / instagram / tumblrs whether they are ex’s or old friends or just acquaintances. I think I care too much about what other people are doing and I need to stop focusing on them and focus on me more. I am going to set myself a limit that I only check tumblr, facebook and instagram once a day (unless I receive a notification to say I have gotten a message etc) and I am purely going to look down my news feel to see how everyones going and not spending lots of time looking at peoples profiles.