With a New Job Comes the Need For New Habits.

Even though I’m always talking about starting new habits (at least in my mind, if not with anyone else), I never actually manage to change my habits.

I’ll be starting a new job on Monday, and I need to create some habits to go with it. Well, I will need new daily habits for this job, but I will need to try to start them beforehand so that they will come more easily.

I don’t know if I’m explaining this right…

I want to already have the habits by the time I start my new job. That’s what I meant. And I know that will be rather difficult. It’s almost impossible to start (and maintain) habits in just one week, but I can at least try to plan and organise them.

With the start of this new job I will need to be getting up at around 0530 each morning. That might be a bit of a shock to the system, and I may find that I don’t really need to be up until about 0600 or 0630 once I get in the rhythm of travelling to this job. But either way, that is still far earlier that I tend to get up to work in the shop.

That one will certainly be tricky, but getting up at a regular time every day will surely do wonders for my mental health. I certainly noticed it was easier to control my moods over the Christmas season when I was basically doing the same shift every single day.

Another good habit I will need to pick up is preparing packed lunches every night before bed. I can’t be wasting money on food (especially at London prices) when I’m already spending more on travel that I do currently.

Also, I want to try to avoid unhealthy food if I can. I don’t mind maybe having a sweet snack each day, but I don’t want the greasy, awful food they sell in fast food places. At least if I prepare myself lunches then I won’t be tempted to buy food while I’m at work.

Those are the two main habits that I’ve thought of so far, but there are probably a whole bunch more.

Obviously with the getting up early come the going to bed early as well. I’ll just need to sort out some kind of routine for each morning and evening that will allow me to cope with the tiredness and everything.

I’ll also need to fit in time for studying since I’m training for a qualification as part of this job.

Anyways…

Until next time…

Love Bobbi. Xx.

Big Life Change.

So…

Saturday morning I officially handed in my resignation at the shop!

I still can’t quite believe it. I’m finally leaving. And what’s better is that I’m leaving to do a full time job which will include training, and that will set me on the path to an actual career!.

Haha. I feel so grown up saying that I’m starting a career.

I will be taking up the role of Nursery Assistant in a nursery and pre-school in west London.

I’m so thrilled. I know that the commuting will probably be utter poop, and the job itself will be exhausting. But I think it’s also going to be rewarding as heck, and it’s going to involve so much training that will just help me to build up skills.

It is just going to do so much good for me career-wise that I can over-look how tired I’m going to be from early mornings and long hours. Not to mention five days a weeks chasing children all over the place.

I don’t yet know if I’m going to be stationed with a particular age group, or if I’ll be drifting between them. That’s something that I’m going to just have to wait and see. I’m happy to work with any age group there.

Even though I’ve had a trial morning and been told quite a lot about the place, I’m still not particularly sure what to expect.

I think that the worst thing about the job will be changing nappies, but I’m sure that will just be some insignificant thing that I do every day. Once I’ve done it a few times I’m sure I won’t even think twice about what I’m doing.

The thing that I think I’m most concerned about is if any of the parents have a problem with me. I don’t expect that they will… but what if they do? I’m sure my new colleagues will help me out. They’ll train me well, and they’ll talk to the parents about how I’m just training. As long as I make sure the children are safe there can’t be too much harm done. 🙂

Now I’m just rambling because I have so many thoughts running through my head at the moment. Maybe I’ll write a more coherent post once I’ve experienced a few days at my new job. Haha. I start next Monday, and I’m so excited (part of me still forgets that I’ve still got to work at the shop for this week).

Until next time…

Love Bobbi. Xx.

Physical Health and Environment.

Physical Health

Technically, I’m not overly unhealthy. But there are a lot of things that I need to improve about my physical health.

For example, I have bad eating habits (which include frequent snacking, large portion sizes, and regular trips to cafes and fast food places), and I rarely exercise.

I would like to pick up an exercise habit. I would even like to achieve a vaguely toned body. But I also want to build my strength and stamina as they are both incredibly poor.

I have in the past attempted an exercise routine of sorts. My biggest challenge at the moment is that I am not particularly confident in having other people see me exercise, which becomes tricky when I live with my parents, and the only space I have for exercise is either in public, or in my own back garden.

But I really need to just get over it. Easier said than done, but I’m never going to get it done if I keep saying that I’ll do it another time.

As for my eating habits, I need to start preparing lunches to take to work. But that always seems like so much hassle. I know that it is better to prepare food in the evening so that I don’t have to rush in the morning, but then I can’t be bothered in the evening so I just don’t do it at all.

That is a big habit that I need to pick up. It’s something that I can do nearly every night, so it should be easier to build that habit. And I don’t have to do it immediately before bed, I could do it after dinner, and then have the evening to relax.

I just need to find a way that I can fit new habits into my lifestyle to suit me.

Environment

So, my current living situation:

I live with my parents and older brother (who might be moving out soon idk). I have a reasonable sized room (especially considering that it’s the third bedroom), but it’s almost always a mess.

Personally I would prefer to have a separate space just for sleeping, and spend the rest of my time in a home office or something, but we just don’t have the space. Maybe one day when I have my own place.

Basically, I only have a small section of the house that I have to keep tidy, but I can’t always seem to do it, and I honestly believe that the clutter and mess in my room has a big effect on my productivity and mindset.

When my room is a total mess, I take my laptop to my bed instead of using my desk. Then I don’t tend to do anything that is particularly productive. Honestly, I’d like to have a bigger desk, but that’s not really feasible. My bedroom is completely full, and I have no space for any more furniture of any kind.

A solution would be to maintain a tidy bedroom, then I could be more product, work towards getting a better job/lifestyle, save up to leave home, and then get my own space where I can do what I want how I want to do it. But that is going to take some time.

All in all, I have a very long way to go when it comes to improving my life. I know that leaving home isn’t my only option to self improvement, but I truly believe that it would be a big help (if only I could afford it).

In the meantime, I need to put a huge effort into getting a new job which pays better so that I can afford the future that I want. I need to take the time to work on self-improvement, and building positive habits. I need to stop wasting time playing games on my phone instead of applying for jobs or reading my books. I need to stop blaming my situation and take action towards changing it.

There is so much that I want to do, and so much that I can do in order to make myself a better person, and to live the life I want to achieve. I will be difficult, and it will take ages. But I know that it will be worth it.

Until next time…

Love, Bobbi. Xx.

Occupation, Hobbies, Routines.

Occupation

I have had the same job for over three years now, and for about two years or more I’ve been saying that I want a new job. But I haven’t put all that much effort into getting one.

This is where the positive mindset will be a lot of help. Often I am too negative about my own capabilities, which prevents me from applying to a lot of jobs that I could probably do quite easily.

What I need to do is get in the habit of checking local job vacancies on a regular basis. I need to make sure that I have a couple of CV’s and cover letters for different types of jobs that are on-hand to be amended and sent off as and when I need them.

I need to focus on getting a new job instead of just wishing for it.

I need to become aware of the types of jobs that I’d be interested in applying for. I had previously thought that I wanted a basic administrative job, but more recently I’ve been thinking that I perhaps want to look into childcare. But that might mean that I have to study for a new qualification – so I’d then need to decided if that really is something that I want to do.

But mostly I just need to make the effort to actually do something about getting a new job. Just saying I want it isn’t going to do me any favours if I do nothing about it.

Honestly, I’ve been imagining the day that I can hand in my notice at my current job for months, maybe even years. I can’t wait for it, but it’ll never arrive if I don’t find another job to move to.

Hobbies

Early last year I decided that I wanted to take up sewing – in particular dressmaking. I want to be able to design and make my own clothes. So I bought a sewing machine.

It was a reasonably basic one. But it still cost £230, and I’ve hardly used it since. I started trying to make a fairly simple looking skirt, but I had quite a bit of trouble with it, largely because I’m just so unfamiliar with the process of following a pattern.

So that is something that I would really like to put the effort into learning.

I would also quite like to get back into drawing. I used to do drawing all the time (when I was at university and should have been doing other stuff), but in the past year I’ve hardly done any. I think I want to start drawing again, but part of me is worried that I’ve lost the ability to draw, and it would be too difficult to learn it again. On the other hand, I have loads of expensive colouring pencils that I really should use.

I used to really enjoy drawing faces, and trying to colour them with pencils. I did often just trace the outline of the face, but perhaps I should now put in the time and effort to learn how to draw a face without tracing. I know the basics, but it would be really good to learn some proper techniques.

Also, when I was at university I used to write fiction. I haven’t done much of that since graduating in 2015. I honestly can’t believe it was that long ago. But still, I don’t feel that I get many ideas for stories anymore. Maybe I just need to be thinking about writing more, and get back into the practice of coming up with story ideas again.

Another sort of hobby I want is to learn languages. I wish I could speak a whole bunch of languages, but I can’t. i learnt Spanish in school for five years, but never did anything with it. Now I’ve pretty much lost it altogether. But I guess there is still hope of learning it again. Like everything else, it just takes practice.

Maybe I could also think of some other hobbies and activities I could get into, perhaps something which I could do with friends, or where I could meet new friends. I don’t know.

Routines

As I’ve said in a fairly recent post, I’ve got out of the habit of my routines recently, especially my bedtime routine.

I need to put in the effort to rebuild my routines, or construct new ones in order to have a better flow to my life. I don’t think it will take too much effort, as this is only a recent routine that I’ve lost.

On the other hand, I think I need to amend my morning routine entirely.

Prior to doing a really early shift at work during Christmas, I didn’t even have a morning routine. I didn’t even have a regular time to get out of bed. Most mornings I would just stay in bed for as long as possible until I had to rush to get ready and run for the bus.

I don’t want to be doing that anymore. I need to set up a routine which allows me to wake up gently, and also gives me the chance to be healthy and productive before I have to get to work, or meet any other obligation in my life.

Over Christmas (the joys of working in a toy shop at that time of year), I was waking up at 0500, getting washed and dressed but 0525, having breakfast, and leaving the house to get the bus at 0600. I really felt that I got into a routine.

I always got up with plenty of time to get ready before I had to leave (except towards the end when I was waking up a little bit later that 0500), and I had a quiet, peaceful hour to just be by myself. I could get ready in my own time and without any bother from anyone else. It was practically perfect in every way.

But since that is over, I don’t really know what to do with myself. I have been managing to pull myself out of bed by about 0800, so at least I’m not staying in bed until lunchtime anymore. But I need a proper routine so that I can have a peaceful morning, and feel that I’m not wasting the entire first half of my day.

This one will probably be a bit more of a challenge than the night routine, not helped by the fact that I’ll still be half asleep when I’m trying to implement the new routine. So I think that might take some time. The best I think I can hope for at the moment is getting up at the same time every morning, getting washed and dressed, and eating a decent breakfast. After that I will need to find something productive to get me going for a good day.

Until net time…

Love Bobbi. Xx.

Reasonable Advice From an Almost-Stranger.

Recently I had to attend a family event where I met a lot of family who I hadn’t seen for many years, and some people who I’d only met once or twice before as they are friends of relatives.

As these were people who hardly knew me, there was the frequent question, “So, what do you do?”. And to be quite honest, I felt kind of embarrassed to say,

“Hey, I’ve been stuck in the same dead-end retail job for the past three years because I don’t have the motivation or inclination to bother applying for jobs, let alone the nerve to go to an interview for one.”

So I just left it as, “Oh, I work in a shop.”

Now let’s take a step back here. I have hated my current job for about three years out of a total three years and four months that I’ve been there. There are always good days and bad days, but quite often my mental health has got in the way of my relationships with my colleagues and the customers.

And I know that I’m the only one who can do anything about that, and personally I feel that my mental health has improved over the past couple of years (especially since I was put on medication for it). But that still hasn’t given me enough confidence or encouragement to proceed to finding a new job, no matter how miserable I’ve been whilst working at the shop.

Anyway, back to the family social event.

After a few hours of being asked the same question, “What are you doing with your life?” I had one of these ‘friends of a relative’ response to my brief answer with, “But what do you want to be doing?”

I had a moments hesitation. There is something that I’ve been thinking about for a while. I’ve hardly told anyone about it because I don’t know if it would actually be possible. But I really like the idea of working in childcare. I really enjoy interacting with children in the shop, and I love seeing their happy faces as they tell me about their toys or school or anything.

“I kind of like the idea of working in childcare,” I replied. “But I know that might mean I have to go back into education.”

There wasn’t much more conversation after that as other people came to talk to the friend, but she noticed me just before she left the venue.

She looked at me and said one thing:

“Follow your dreams.”

It might seem cliche, or vague, or whatever you want to say. But, to be honest, I kind of feel like that is the one small push that I needed to encourage me back to job-hunting.

I’ve started looking online for Unqualified Childcare jobs in local nurseries and such. I don’t know what to expect.All I need is one successful application and interview, and then I can start gaining experience towards building a bigger career.

So I guess, for now, “follow your dreams” will be a bit like my mantra”. Just a small phrase to give me that extra boost of encouragement to do the things that I want in order for me to achieve my goals.

i don’t know if it will be any help or encouragement for you, but I think we all need a little encouragement to keep us working on our goals, no matter how small it is.

Until next time…

Love, Bobbi. Xx.