The Feel Better Project
March’s tiny wins.
I wrote about the Feel Better Project here, so I’m not going to repeat too much of it. I’ll just say that this is something I’m doing to—feel better. Six buckets that I’ll fill month-by-month with tiny wins.
Here’s my list of tiny wins for March and a little more about why I chose each one. I’d love for you to join me, if you want to. Just choose your buckets and think about which tiny wins you’ll put in each one in March.
Remember that ‘tiny’ is the key word. The goal is to actually do the things. What every you do above and beyond is great. It’s icing. But the tiny win is the cake.
I’ve been thinking about whether or not I want to publicly log my Feel Better Projject work. Not on Medium and not here—I don’t want to fill up my feeds there with this stuff too much.
Yesterday my daughter was talking about Tumblr and I remembered that I have a Tumblr blog that I haven’t even thought about in several years. The last time I did something like this, I recorded it on Tumblr. And it was pretty awesome.
So, Tumblr it is. If you want to follow along, you can join me over there. I’ll update here, probably weekly. And on Medium monthly.
My March Buckets and Tiny Wins
Eating: Weekend vegetarianism. I’m going to read the book and only eat meat on the weekends.
Moving: Literally, just 10 minutes of any kind of movement that I wouldn’t ordinarily do.
General health: Make a follow up appointment with my family doctor regarding yesterday’s whole ER adventure.
Sleep: Go to bed by 1 a.m. every night. I’ve tried midnight for YEARS and it never happens. So I’m pushing it back.
Self-care: Log what I wear everyday — even if it’s my pajamas.
Space: Work on my bedroom for 10 minutes a day.
Eating
I love Jenny Rosenstrach’s Dinner a Love Story—the book, the Substack, all of it. Highly recommend. She has a new book called The Weekend Vegetarians that I just got the other day. I also get her menu plan/grocery list because I’m a Substack subscriber.
My goal for March is to read her book and only eat meat on the weekends. Not because I have any problem with eating meat, although I do know that eating less of it is better for the environment and probably for my body. But because I want to be more conscious of what I’m eating this month and I think that will be a good way to achieve that.
Plus—have you seen the cost of meat lately? Holy crap.
Moving
I’ve done this before—100 days of moving a minimum of 10 minutes. And it had a huge impact on my life. Ten years later, I’m finding myself in need of another boost. I’m just so sedentary.
That’s the life of a writer and an online teacher. I spend a lot of time online. Sometimes I start working at 8 in the morning and by the time I look up, it’s dinner time and I’ve barely moved except to get up to pee.
TMI, I know. But it’s true.
So, my tiny win for March is to just—move. Do something that I wouldn’t ordinarily do, for ten minutes a day. Everything counts. Going to get my own lunch instead of letting someone bring it to me. Walking outside with the dog instead of just sending him downstairs to let my husband let him out. Going grocery shopping instead of sending someone else.
Anything. It all counts.
General Health
I spent all day Saturday in the ER because I had some weird chest pressure. Turns out it wasn’t my heart, thank God. But it was something. Probably heart burn and anxiety? Or one or the other.
The ER doctor told me to follow up with my personal doctor. So that’s my general health tiny win for this month—just to make a doctor’s appointment.
Sleep
I’ve tried for, oh, most of my adult life to go to bed at midnight every night. It never works. So I’m trying something different this month. Going to bed by 1 a.m. That might seem weird to you. It kind of does to me, too.
But a whole month of not finally crashing at 3 in the morning? That could be very good. And maybe I can ease it back. I think 1 am is late enough not to trigger my rebellious streak. Sometimes I don’t stop working until close to 11 and trying to go to bed at midnight falls apart then.
Interestingly, this is the tiny win that I find myself trying to bulk up. Maybe I’ll add a PM routine. Maybe I’ll also read every night. I’m not going to do it, though. Not that I won’t read or, I don’t know, wash my face. But that’s not my tiny win.
Self-Care
I have this vague idea of what I mean by this bucket. I couldn’t think of a better word for it than ‘self-care.’ (Actually, Adrienne finally helped me even come up with that word.)
What I mean by self-care in this context is what my friend Stasia calls ‘inside out congruity.’ Presenting myself to the world in a way that reflects how I feel on the inside. Or who I am.
That doesn’t happen when I’m on day 3 of wearing the same damned pair of pajamas all day. So, my tiny win this month is just to write down what I’m wore every day.
I figure that will be a subtle reminder every morning to get dressed. I’ll write down ‘pajamas’ if that’s what happens. But knowing that I’ll have to write that down might be enough to get me into some actual clothes.
Space
I don’t know if this is just me, or if it’s pretty common, but my physical space often reflects what’s going on inside me.
Right now, my physical space is reflecting chaos and stress. It’s a disaster.
I’m going to attempt to be brave enough to take some before and after photos. In fact, I’m definitely going to take them. I’m going to attempt to be brave enough to share them.
My tiny win this month is to curate my bedroom. Curate, btw, is my personal code word for ‘declutter.’ I hate that word. My stuff isn’t clutter. But it does need some curation.
To keep this tiny, my goal is to spend 10 minutes a day on it. If I don’t finish by the end of the month, no big deal. The win is the effort. I’m starting with my closet.I have a teeny little child-sized closet that’s pretty constantly overstuffed.
Bonus Win: Journaling
I’m using my Silk and Sonder notebook to journal through this project. (That’s an affiliate link—if you like Silk and Sonder and use the code, you’ll get $10 off.)
My goal with journaling is to just log my progress. Nothing too extensive, because I know if I attempt that I’ll just end up giving it up. But I do want to keep track. Just see if I’m actually feeling better. That’s the whole point of this project after all.