Hi, my loves!
Welcome back to Lavendaire.
Today, we're going to review our month of June,
and we're going to plan for July.
And because we've already gone through half of 2020,
we're also going to do a half year review at the end of this video.
So if you're new here,
this is a monthly planning series where I post a video
at the end of each month, helping you plan your month.
It's basically an interactive video
where I'll share questions and exercises to guide you through the process,
and you just pause and plan with the video.
The point of the series is to help you stay
accountable towards your goals each month
and help you stay on track to creating the life that you want.
The questions are loosely based off the Artist of Life Workbook from The Lavendaire shop.
So if you have this, you can use this,
but if you don't have it, that's fine too.
Just use any blank notebook.
Before we get started, make sure you give this video
a thumbs up if you like the series,
and make sure you subscribe and click that bell, if you haven't already.
So first, let's do our June review.
Describe June in one word.
What were your highlights from the month of June?
What is one thing that you're proud of?
What is one thing you learned?
How can you improve for next month?
I'll briefly share my answers for my June review,
but if you're not interested in hearing this,
you can feel free to skip over to this timestamp on the screen to continue the exercise.
June for me, in one word, was: Heavy.
And I find that ironic because when I was planning June last month,
I was like, “I want June to be bright,” but so much happened in June.
It was the month of Black Lives Matter –
obviously, it's still ongoing, but it was when a lot of people started protesting
and just a lot of news, a lot of heavy information,
and facing the ugly realities of the society we still live in today.
I spent a lot of time at reading and watching documentaries,
just educating myself on the topic of systemic racism.
And I made a whole video on YouTube, so I won't ramble on too much.
But I felt like that really set the tone for a lot of June.
Because of all this, I ended up creating a lot less this month
and I kind of threw my schedule and content calendar out the window.
And I decided to spend more time just reading and learning and going slower.
And aside from like the Black Lives Matter stuff,
I also randomly became interested in reading about numerology.
And I even learned a little palmistry.
I basically bought this PDF report from Numerologist.com
after I did a podcast with them.
And then it came with like 30 free bonus PDFs, so I was like, “Ooh!”
And I just spent a long time reading and learning about
these new topics that I never really dove into before.
On a lighter note, Wilson and I started to do hot pot nights at home for the first time.
Hotpot is something that I used to love to go out to eat all the time,
and I really missed it because everything's closed.
So to do it at home, I realized how easy it was
and how similar it tastes to when you're eating at the restaurant.
So that was a really nice revelation.
And I'm proud of us for learning to cook new things like that.
I bought new plants.
I bought two blueberry plants and an avocado tree.
The avocado tree is so small.
It hasn't really flowered or gave any fruits,
but I'm going to be very, very patient with them.
And this past weekend, I went on a weekend getaway to Joshua Tree,
which is the desert in California, with a few girlfriends.
And that was so refreshing to go out in nature.
I don't even like the desert guys,
but I had so much fun just going somewhere different than my house,
because I've been cooped up for so long.
We basically went glamping.
It was a really, really nice house in the middle of the desert,
and we got to see the stars, there were bugs in the room –
you know, camping with having a roof over your head.
That's basically what we did.
One thing I'm proud of is:
I finally beat my procrastination in finding new designers
for the projects that I want to execute with Lavendaire.
I have put that on my to do list since maybe January or February.
And I just didn't get around to it until this month
because it was such an overwhelming task.
And if you saw my video from last month,
you know that that was one of my main goals for June.
And I'm proud of myself that I took the time
to sort through so many different designers,
to go out and just find the right fit.
So I'm working on new designs for the shop,
for the whole Lavendaire brand, and I'm super excited about it.
One thing I learned from this past month,
which I kind of already mentioned was numerology.
But I went really deep.
I even picked up a book on life path numbers and personal year numbers.
And those are two numbers that I thought were really interesting
because it relates to what we talk about here all the time,
and figuring out what you're supposed to do with your life.
So I'm excited to share that new knowledge with you guys soon.
How can I improve for next month?
Well, I felt like I did a pretty good job
balancing self care with staying informed,
especially with everything going on in the month of June.
And it was a unique month because of the current events.
I did feel a little guilty for not creating as consistently
or creating as I typically do, partly because of world events,
but also partly because I was putting more time
into the behind the scenes work of finding new designers.
I'm learning to feel less guilty for creating less,
because I'm focusing on other important things in life.
Moving forward for next month,
I just want to have more structure and planning to my days.
By the way, if you're planning along with me,
comment down below with how you would describe your June in one word.
Now let's plan for July.
Set your intention.
July will be…
List the top three most important goals for your month.
Next, list any mini goals you might have for this month,
whether they're habits or fun activities or anything.
Now you want to do a weekly breakdown of your goals and mini goals.
And finally, put these action steps in your calendar,
so you make sure you're actually getting these things done.
Alright, so now I'm going to share my answers.
And again, if you don't want to hear them,
skip to this timestamp on the screen for the half year review.
I wrote down: July will be creative.
So my top three goals for the month:
1) I'm working on rebranding Lavendaire, redesigning our websites,
both the lavendaire.com and shop website as well.
2) I plan to make progress on my book,
finalizing the outline, maybe even writing a chapter if possible.
And lastly, 3) I want to start this design process for
a journaling deck that I've been planning.
For my mini goals. I want to focus on doing yoga and daily meditation.
And a house project I want to do is just to put up this gallery wall in our living room,
because the walls have been blank for a while.
So now I'm going to do a weekly breakdown for these goals,
and then I'm going to put them over in my calendar.
All right, we've made it to the half year review.
So the first prompt:
List and celebrate all the wins that you're proud of from the first half of the year.
Next, ask yourself: How has my life evolved over the past year?
What have I learned?
Then spend some time listing all the things
you're grateful for in the first half of 2020.
Finally: Where do I want to direct my energy
and focus for the second half of 2020?
So now I'll share some of my answers.
So I don't want to bore you with a long list of the wins that I'm tracking for myself,
but namely the win that I am most proud of in the first half of 2020
is finally hitting a million subscribers on YouTube.
I felt like that was such a surreal moment.
It was a moment that I spent so many years dreaming of,
not even sure that it would ever happen in my lifetime.
But when it did, I was like, “Wow”.
And I'm just really thankful.
That was a win that I'm super proud of.
And if you guys follow me on Instagram,
I was planning to make like a celebrating 1 million video.
And I asked some of you to participate,
but the pandemic happened during that same time.
And it just didn't feel right to come out with a celebratory video
when we were literally really scared and uncertain.
And it was a weird time in March.
Anyway, I want to thank each and every one of you.
And I want to thank those who submitted their photos to be part of that video.
I want to celebrate you guys here,
our Lavendaire community, all of you Lavi Loves out there.
You all are so beautiful.
And I'm just so grateful to just be here,
to connect with you guys and to also grow together.
Literally, each one of us is a light in the world.
And the original concept of the video was like, “I am a light, you are a light.
And when each of us lights up, we encourage the people around us to light up as well.”
And I just like the visual of the Lavendaire community,
all lighting up, lighting up the community.
And especially in a year as crazy and chaotic as 2020,
it is more important than ever for us to recognize the light we have within,
and to be positive, to shine, love, and light to others in the world,
to just step up and rise up and be a force for good in the world,
because that's what I'm about.
And I know if you're watching this, you're about that as well.
And we've seen that with the Black Lives Matter movement,
how many people are stepping up, standing up, and speaking up,
and change is actually happening.
So that kind of leads me into the next question.
How has my life changed over the past half year?
What have I learned?
I feel like collectively, we've all learned so much from the pandemic,
from Black Lives Matter and just everything else going on in the world this year.
A lot of stuff is happening.
We're waking up.
Our eyes are opening to more pain
and more broken systems and so much that needs to be fixed,
so many areas that need better people, better systems in place.
So I think we understand that there's so much to do,
but we are here now and we can make a difference, starting from now.
Personally for me, lockdown has taught me a lot about
spending time with myself, going inward.
Even though I'm such an introvert,
I still desperately need human connection.
And I've learned how to connect with people more
via video chats and FaceTime and things like that.
This year, I really learned to go slower, to take my time,
and also to do less so that I can give more time to myself.
I'm learning to not create just to prove myself or impress others,
but really take time to build a better solid foundation
for the business I want with Lavendaire,
which turns out to be a lot of behind the scenes stuff.
I felt like before, I was concentrating so much on the work that is external,
that people are seeing from the outside.
And when I'm focusing all my time on creating content,
doing things that are externally validated,
I'm not giving enough time for the behind the scenes things
that I really need to do to set a better foundation.
So anyway, this is my foundation building year.
It's my year to go inward, to get more spiritual.
Inner peace is really important to me.
I feel like before I was like, “Oh, whatever, I'll meditate later.
Let me do this and be productive here.”
And this year, because of so much going on,
I recognize how important it is to have inner peace,
to be grounded, to feel mentally healthy,
because only when you are grounded, mentally healthy,
and you have some sort of like calm, inner peace,
can you put your best foot forward in the world,
because if you're emotional, if you are irrational or crazy,
you're not helping anybody around you.
And with what I do, I always try to be the calm voice.
I want to be as sound as possible.
So yeah, I really got to work on maintaining that inner peace.
I just realized that I basically already answered the last question, which was:
How do I want to direct my energy and focus for the second half of 2020?
It was to focus on rebuilding the foundation of Lavendaire,
to have a stronger foundation for my business
and also spiritual growth and inner peace.
So, a lot of this year is me going inward,
growing under the surface, growing my roots,
so that whatever you see on the outside is not
what's really happening behind the scenes, but that's okay.
I have to learn that there are years where you focus on that inner growth,
growth that no one sees.
And then there are times for you to –
once you're ready, you can like finally go out
and create for the world and then people can see it.
With that being said, that's it for today.
Let me know if you like this monthly planning series.
Comment down below with your feedback.
Do you like me sharing my answers?
Do I talk too much?
Would you rather just see the prompts or do you like hearing my life?
Let me know down below and I will see you guys next time.
Love you.
Bye!