A Look Back At February

I don’t quite know where to begin with my usual monthly reflections. February felt like a weird month. I spent so much of it feeling tired and energyless. I felt stuck in first gear. The tiredness dissipated towards the end of the month, but as I pulled together my monthly ‘Look Back’, you’d never know it was a bit of an effort, although it probably does explain some of the zombie feelings!

I packed a lot into February. There were plenty of new opportunities, experiences and fun things to do. Maybe after a slow and peaceful January, I hopped, skipped and jumped into February with a few too many plans, and somewhere along the line, I forgot to create some time for myself.

Here’s a look back at February.

New Experiences

February was a month of experiencing new things and meeting new people.

I started the month by meeting two new dogs, Stella and Holly, from Borrow My Doggy, and their lovely humans Maria and Liz.

Early in the month, I ticked another thing off my list of things I want to do this year that I’ve never done before! I used to be sceptical of reiki healing, but after my Mum attuned to levels 1 and 2, she has used reiki, over the years, to heal me when I’ve picked up an injury or been ill. I’d never, however, had a full-body reiki treatment. That was about to change after meeting the lovely Emma from Heart To Head when I went to a Sound Bath in January. I will write a full review of the experience in another blog post, but it was a wonderful experience. I will definitely be adding reiki to my ‘wellbeing toolkit’.

February was also a month of new experiences to enjoy with my boyfriend. He had never been to the theatre before, but after watching the BBC Drama Noughts & Crosses during lockdown, when we found out they were bringing the stage show to The Rose Theatre, I think we both knew it was time to break his theatre virginity! Thankfully, he loved the experience, and the production itself was fantastic. The following night, we headed to NYEAT, a steak & seafood restaurant in Wimbledon, for an early Valentine’s meal. It’s the only restaurant we’ve ever been to where we had to pay a reservation deposit upfront! It was a lovely evening with delicious mocktails and some of the best food I’ve ever had! We’ll definitely be heading back at some point, as we didn’t experiment too much with the seafood. I’m dying to go back to try their lobster!

Professional Development and Work Stuff

I signed up for professional development galore in February and worked on some exciting work projects.

My camera came out with me in February to do a client photo shoot so my client could have some new photos for her website. I’m creating a new photography page on my website as I hope to start offering my photography services as an add-on product for my business this year. Check out some of my favourite shots from my client shoot here.

I had an exciting new client approach me via Instagram in February who asked me to create some product descriptions and email workflows on a project basis and some social media content for him as a longer-term piece. It was quite an exciting business development for me as he’s the first client to approach me on Instagram, and he didn’t find me via my existing network! I don’t promote my business that much on Instagram, but it has made me realise I need to rethink my social media strategy.

I’ve been lurking in the Being Freelance community for the best part of 2 years, but a lot of the community stuff was on Facebook, which I rarely use. This year, the brilliant Steve Folland, the mastermind behind Being Freelance, has moved the community onto Circle. And although you now have to pay to be part of the community, I’m delighted it’s moved away from Facebook. I’ve gone from being a lurker to an active part of the community, and it’s bloody brilliant! Last month I attended a Q&A about ‘Ditching Hourly Rates’, joined a Tea Brief and had a lovely one-to-one chat with Steve himself, went to my first ever virtual co-working sesh, AND jumped onto a Live Q&A with Andrew & Pete! Phew! That’s a lot of professional development squeezed into one month, but that doesn’t include all the stuff I do in Club WorkJoy and a Denise Duffield-Thomas money-manifesting course I’ve been tuning into over the last month! Oh, and there was a face-to-face planning day for one of my clients too!

Other Fun Things

I caught up with my friend James for a cheeky curry in London in February which was fab! James is one of my oldest friends, and it’s always good to catch up and eat yummy food in my fave city.

I received another exciting DM in my inbox in February inviting me to the launch of a fab new venue in Kingston called FuseBox! It felt pretty cool to be a ‘local influencer’ for the evening! FuseBox is the new home for Creative Youth – a group of young creatives in Kingston. It will be a place for local young people to show their creativity through traditional art, photography, singing, and acting. You can find out more about my visit to FuseBox here.

I also did lots of walking in February in preparation for tackling the National 3 Peaks Challenge in September. I started the month with a circular walk from Kingston to Ham, walked around the edge of Richmond Park mid-month and finished the month by walking the Box Hill Hiking route, which was my most challenging walk yet! I also managed to get back out with my walking group for a nice walk from Newlands Corner.