1. Happiness Planner

If you read my 2018 highlights blog  , you’ll see that this year I am trying to de-stress and have a more balanced year. One morning in December I was perusing Instagram and the Happiness Planner advert popped up. They saw me coming as I bought one immediately. However, it’s amazing! To start with, you do some long term goal setting, figure out what makes you happy and what doesn’t etc. For each month, you then get professional and personal goals to set. I can’t wait to look back at this month’s and see what I’ve achieved. Daily, you don’t just have a schedule and to do list, you have a mini gratitude list, focuses for the day etc. It’s a fabulous way of staying positive and being grateful for even the smallest things in life. I also just can’t function without a To Do list, but having a more long term one is a really nice motivator.

I also won a Project Love journal on a Twitter giveaway. Super exciting, as I never win anything. I am fully journaled out, which is not a bad thing.

2.  Being active outdoors daily

One of my New Years resolutions was to get outside for at least 30 minutes a day. Most days, this is covered by cycling to the office and back. When I’m working from home, or it’s the weekend, I’ve been going on a walk around my neighbourhood while listening to a podcast. I’ll get wrapped up and then walk for the length of the podcast, normally around 45min – 1hr. I can honestly say it’s been the best resolution – it has really helped clear my mind, get inspired, or change my mood if I’m grumpy.

3. Podcasts

I’ve really gotten into podcasts over the past year. It started with Jenna Kutcher’s ‘Goal Digger’, an amazing series for any girl bosses or entrepreneurs out there. If I don’t want something business related, I normally listen to Fearne Cotton’s ‘Happy Place’, or ‘Fit and Fearless’ by the Girl Gains.

I’ve now started to expand my listening to ‘Project Love’, and ‘Simple Pin’, the latter being a Pinterest focused podcast for businesses. If anyone has any other suggestions for great podcasts, please comment below and let me know 🙂

4. Exploring!

Another New Years resolution was to explore London more.  It’s super easy to be worn out at the weekend and stay at home, or be shooting a wedding every Saturday in the summer. This year I really am pushing myself to get out and see new places. This isn’t just limited to London. I also want to try and have a weekend away once a month (which may just mean to my parent’s house for some months ha!).  This month, we visited Crystal Palace park, had an afternoon in Hampstead, and I was back in Winchester for a weekend.

It’s been lovely getting back outside with my camera and being creative, getting fresh air, and exploring new places.

5. Starting a mailing list

This has been something which was on to my do list for over a year, but for various reasons I had never got round to it/put it off. This year, I finally introduced it! I really wanted to put out something of extra value for lovely brides and grooms, and a mailing list is the perfect opportunity to share more tips, news and offers etc. Each month I am planning on specialising the mailing list with a theme. This month is something I get asked all the time – how do you be comfortable in front of the camera? If you want to sign up, you can do so here.

6. Geneva

Every few months I tend to go to Geneva with work for shoots. This month I was there for a few days and it felt really good to have a bit of a change of scene. Travelling for shoots is always really tiring but they’re equally enjoyable. We normally don’t get much of a chance to explore, but we did manage to have a delicious dinner in the Brasserie Lipp. It felt so authentically Swiss, and was a really lovely way to end our shoot day. After dinner, we went back to the Intercontinental and had cocktails around the fire. I was sad to leave as I would have loved to spent some time in the mountains!

Reading list this month:

1. Life After Life – Kate Atkinson

This book had a really interesting concept about re-incarnation. The book follows a baby who dies during childbirth, but is reincarnated and lives several parallel lives. It’s got a ‘Sliding Doors’ feeling to it and makes you think about how the tiniest decisions can have a huge impact on your life. 4/5

For the rest of the month I’ve been reading Steve Jobs’ biography. It’s fairly long but really interesting, and very inspiring!

Caroline x