“I burned my planner”

May 24, 2018May 27, 2018Leave a comment

*Hi there! Super excited to have a guest post~ here on Ampersand. Just like how I love sharing cool new things with you, I love when people share awesome ideas/tips/events with me! Meet my friend Sam–pug enthusiast & fan of Ampersand. Y’all can follow her here on Instagram.

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Sam is a marketing professional in the Philly suburbs. When she’s not writing or working, she’s probably watching Grey’s Anatomy (or Villanova basketball #gocats) or online shopping.

“My planner is glued to me at all times but I really feel like it ties me down sometimes,” I said.

“So burn it.”

My therapist, who I’ve only been seeing for a few short months, learned quickly that I’m a planner. Her solution, to her, seemed quick and easy. To me, it was terrifying.

I started laughing when those words came out of her mouth. Then I said… “Wait, like … I might do that.”

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Finding Your Values

May 17, 2018June 13, 20181 Comment

Values. We all have them. If someone asked you, “what are your values?” You could probably rattle them off pretty easily: loyalty, honesty, kindness, compassion, hope, etc. etc.

But how often to you *consciously* think of your values during your everyday life? If you’re like me, not super often. They’re there, I can tell you what they are, but do I think about them frequently? Not really.

The reason I bring this up is because recently a friend of mine did this pretty easy/cool self-reflection activity where you pin-point your top 5 values. Five. That’s it. And not only do you recognize your top five, you rank them. I gave it a shot and wow, it was eye-opening (in a good way ;)) While I knew what I valued in life (as I’m sure you all do), it was pretty interesting to see what my top 5 truest values were. And since I did the activity myself, I’ve found myself thinking about my values way more often (& bringing them to mind consistently has definitely changed my perspective on things).

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My 30-Day Self-Care Challenge

February 28, 2018September 25, 20181 Comment

Hello friends! Super excited about this post (& a little freebie download for you at the bottom!) Over the past year, self-care has become more of a priority for me. It’s also an insanely “hot topic” as work-life balance is getting discussed more in general. It sounds so simple–take care of yourself = you feel better, but often time it falls to the wayside. You actually have to make time for self-care.

At the end of January, I was in a little bit of a funk. Probably because I haaaaate winter & January felt like 3 years of grey-dreariness (seriously, January went on forever, idk how that’s possible). So, to get out of my funk & in honor of February, the month of love~, I decided to do a 30-Day Self-Care Challenge.

I wrote a post about self-care here, just about general ways to get started, but this post is how to do a 30-Day Self-Care challenge, including tips, planning your self-care ahead of time & a calendar of self-care ideas/suggestions. Of course, self-care is all about what makes you feel good, so take this post as a guide and make your self-care challenge your own!