hey there lovely friends,
i hope you’re having a great weekend so far, or weekday, whenever you’ve chosen to read my post!
i’ve been thinking about how i want the rest of my 2026 to look, so i decided to ask myself seven questions…fancy answering them with me? ♥️
1. choose three words for how you want the next season to feel
okay, my three words for this upcoming season or final quarter, however you want to look at it, are delusional, authentic and creative.
i’ve always treated september like the month of january (a fresh start) and as much as i want to get my cozy on this year as we enter the ‘ber’ months, i don’t want to take my foot off the gas for the last quarter.
i want to go into september being a fully delusional mother.
i want to be the person i’ve envisioned with ridiculous goals. i want to wear the jumper that i’ve saved for a special occasion, use the eye masks before i go to bed and actually go after my dream goals rather than endlessly thinking about them.
being authentic goes nicely with being delusional.
i want to follow my own north star with no regrets. i want to feel fully myself in how i look and dress, but more importantly, i want to make sure i’m forming and voicing my own thoughts before everybody else’s words and opinions can influence me.
i find it quite hard sometimes with so much information everywhere and consuming other people’s thoughts and opinions, it eventually leaves you wondering what you actually think and believe.
and finally there’s being creative.
being creative not only ties nicely into my ridiculous goals, it’s also part of who i authentically am.
creativity soothes me, from writing and designing, to projects around our home, and my absolute favourite is doing arts and crafts with my eldest.
being creative is part of my big dream, and it’s really important that i start making time for it daily.
2. make your take/ leave list
three things i’m taking into autumn are belief, space and creativity.
and unfortunately the three things i’m leaving behind in summer are, scrolling, spending and perfectionism.
If you’d like to know why, here’s wednesday’s article to find out more:
3. clear one frustrating space
we moved into our new home in july 2024 and whilst unpacking boxes and doing all the things you do when you’re settling into a new home, my husband received a call from the hospital to say that his previously postponed heart surgery was now taking place within the next few weeks…
it was one of the most stressful periods of my life, so stressful, in fact, that i got shingles and wasn’t allowed into the hospital before or after his surgery.
i’ve never felt in all my life felt so helpless.
thankfully, the surgery went extremely well and i was so grateful for all of the doctors and nurses who looked after and helped him. he was back home seven days later, although his recovery was hard and really took its toll on him physically and mentally.
later the following year, i unexpectedly fell pregnant after believing it was never going to happen.
we’d had two miscarriages after my first son and our hopes of having a second child had slowly disappeared, so seeing that positive sign on the pregnancy test (which my husband originally thought was a covid test! Haha!) was an absolute blessing.
so life was lifing i guess you could say.
our home understandably went onto the back burner. we made do with what we needed and quite a few things stayed in boxes…but most importantly, everyone was healthy.
we currently still have a spare room full of those boxes and i’m fully ready to tackle them.
a lot of the boxes contain books, so i think i can solve two problems at once. i’d really like to create half a wall of bookcases in our living room, with plenty of storage underneath for some of the kid’s toys.
it would make a lovely feature, give all those books a proper home and help us to finally be able to use the spare room.
it also ties in rather nicely with getting my creative head on because i’ve already been pinning ideas away on Pinterest!!
i can’t wait to get going with the project and for you to follow along.
you definitely don’t need to overhaul your entire house before september. what is the one space in your home that’s irritating you every time you look at it? start there.
my bookcase space (above) one idea from the courtesy of Pinterest (below)
4. remove one source of digital noise
i’m relatively new to social media. i only joined instagram about four years ago…i know, right?!
it’s the aquarius in my sun sign, i like to do things differently!
so with that in mind, i don’t actually have loads of social media apps to clear.
i’ve also recently cleared my phone of general apps i wasn’t using and cut right back on scrolling the news, which wasn’t great for my nervous system.
but one thing i really want to get on top of is my dreaded emails…
specifically, unsubscribing from every retailer that seems determined to separate me from my money…yep, i know what your trying to get me to do!!
because if i’m actively trying to spend less, why am i allowing companies into my inbox every day to tell me about something i apparently desperately need, it makes absolutely no sense.
so starting tomorrow, guess what, i’m unsubscribing.
so much less temptation, less digital noise and hopefully a lot less spending - the relief!!
5. put one thing you keep saying matters into the diary
something that matters most to me right now is having real, valuable time with my children…so i’m putting it in the diary as a non negotiable.
i want to drop my phone in it’s night night box and go into my evenings from 4.00pm until 8.00pm without ANY distractions.
i want to have dinner, enjoy time with the little ones, cozy up and read stories, catch up with my eldest after school, go for a walk after dinner and watch the seasons change in nature.
just four hours where i’m actually present and listening because that’s how i want our evenings together to feel.
this precious time is going into my calendar and i’m going to protect it at all costs, because if i keep saying something matters to me, surely my diary should reflect that, right??
6. choose one tiny wellness investment for future you
i will be 42 in february (eek) and my health and wellness has always been extremely important to me.
i also have two young children relying on me and i want to feel my best for them, and for myself.
there are quite a few things i want to work on here.
i’m currently 10 months postpartum and still breastfeeding, and i’m making sure i’m properly fuelling my body rather than grabbing whatever food falls out the cupboard first.
i desperately want to get back into yoga too, and eventually i’d like to work on my cardio fitness, but if i’m choosing one investment for future Jo, it’s going to be strength.
i want to build muscle, i want better posture and i want to feel physically strong because i keep thinking about 80 year old Jo, as crazy as that might sound.
if i’m lucky enough to make it there, i want to be fully independent. i want to be able to get up, move around, carry things and live my life without having to rely on somebody else to do everything for me.
obviously i can’t control what happens between now and then, but i can start putting in some time and reps now.
hopefully future Jo will be extremely grateful that i did : )
7. decide what you’re NOT doing
i’m not going to waste my own time and instead, i’m going to protect it.
my time is expensive and there are only so many hours in the day and in my life.
i'm going to protect my time from my own excuses, from things that continually drain my energy, from pointless scrolling, from perfectionism and from spending too much of my precious time watching other people live their lives online.
because if i hold myself accountable and start treating my time like a business would treat its resources (because my resources aren’t unlimited) i can spend more of it on the things that truly matter to me… my ridiculous goals, my creativity, my health and, most importantly, my children.
that’s my seven answers and none involve me becoming a completely different person by september. they are just ideas and decisions as to how i want the remainder of my year to go as the colder months draw in.
with just over 2 weeks of august left, why not give this exercise a go yourself?
here’s the prompts to get you going:
my three words:
three things i’m taking:
three things i’m leaving:
one space i’m sorting:
one source of digital noise i’m removing:
something i’m protecting in my diary:
one investment i’m making for future me:
something that no longer deserves my time
and i want to leave you with one final question:
how do you want the final months of 2026 to feel?
my answer?? magical and busy.
we’re about to enter my favourite and probably the most busiest part of the year, and i literally want both.
i want ridiculous goals and creative projects. i want evenings with my children, crunchy autumn walks, things scribbled into my diary that i’m so ridiculously excited about and that buzzy feeling that i’m really living my life rather than watching it disappear from behind a screen.
i’ve realised i don’t actually want less from my life…i want so much more.
more of the things that make it feel rich, exciting, meaningful and exclusivly mine and that’s what this september is really about.
i’m not trying to make my life smaller by any means, i’m actually clearing out the things that don’t matter so i have more room for everything that really does.
thank you so much for your precious time.
with love always,
Jo ♥️
(All photos are courtesy of Pinterest. Thank you so much to all of the artists, photographers and creators.)
if you’re in the mood to keep going…
