Much of this year seems to have disappeared into a haze of anxiety and stress, but something about the change in seasons and the change in routine, as kids head back to school has kick started my long-dormant creativity and got me thinking positive thoughts again.

I’m fully aware that this might be a temporary reprieve in the whole Covid situation and that things may well get worse before they get better, but at the minute I am carrying on as best I can fully masked up, limiting social interaction and trying to keep a ‘this too shall pass’ mindset first and foremost.

Spending a lot less time on social media has helped enormously, as has cutting the ties with Facebook for personal use and the toxic soup that is Facebook groups. Spending an intentional half an hour on the Mighty Networks group leaves me feeling recharged and energised and has proved to be the perfect way to both start and end my working day.

Another thing that has helped is getting back into writing again - always something that I love but that I seem to be only able to commit to patchily. I have dabbled with writing Morning Pages before - a three page ‘free writing’ session but have always struggled to stick to it, especially at weekends where my routine is wildly different to my working week and loss of momentum always seems to completely derail my fledgling habit.

This time though I was reminded of something that Sara Tasker taught when I did her 15 minute magic programme a while ago - basically that ‘Weekends Don’t Count’. Weekends are for many things but they are a chance to do things differently from the rest of the week. A chance to rest, regroup and allow your mind to mull over the challenges and happenings of the week. In short, they are a break to allow your creative, subconscious mind a bit of free rein.

So, with that in mind I went through and marked off all the weekend days on my 30 day habit tracker in advance. And oh, my goodness. The difference it made this weekend was incredible. Normally I would approach a weekend with a vague ‘oh, I must do my morning pages’ thought. I would prevaricate and procrastinate, feeling guilt that I hadn’t done it. Then by the time Monday morning rolled around I would have talked myself out of doing it altogether and chalked it up to just another example of how I can’t commit to anything.

This time though? Totally different mindset. Giving myself permission to take the weekend off - albeit from this small and totally self-imposed challenge was incredibly freeing.

And now I can’t wait to see what other areas of my business and creative life I can apply this to.