Hello and welcome to Day Three of your Thrive in 2025 Adventure! 

Today is all about building awareness of what drains your energy and what areas you want to improve (and no, if you're like me, this doesn't mean manifesting Keanu Reeves to come along and whisk me away!)

Below is a short video to say hello and explain why today's theme of an attitude of gratitude is so important.  

“The only questions that really matter are the ones you ask yourself.”

Ursula Le Guin.

Day 3 - Awareness 

Today’s theme is all about monitoring an aspect of your life that you want to improve or at least change somehow. This could be sleep, pain, energy, connection to body, breath, hormones, gut, appetite, libido, concentration, alcohol consumption… anything at all that you think just needs a bit of attention.  And no, I'm not talking about New Year Resolutions!

Icks and Slicks

Every person has what I call slicks and icks in their life; in areas of your health, your relationships, in your home and family management, in your job or career.  And very much so, in your emotional health. Some things will be working well (slicks) and some things might need altering or a bit of thought to make better (icks). 

Just thinking about the slicks can often help you realise that there is a way of doing something or communicating with someone that works well that could be applied to an ick. Or you realise that something that was maybe an ick before, is working better because you gave it some attention or got help with it. That means when you now look at some icks you are already seeing that things aren't always set in stone and can be improved.   

This comes up with my clients a lot. Maybe they need to be better on top of finances and when they see how their fitness improved with an app or tracker, they realise they can apply the same methodology to budgeting.  When they realised seeking expert advice or researching information around an area of health took away a lot of fear and gave them clear guidelines for example, they understood they needed advice or information around a problem their teen was having. 

Icks can drain so much energy and peace of mind from your life:

 - your emotional energy (a constant fight with your partner over who does a task),

- your psychological energy (the crap you never got over / help / therapy for and you carry it around like a boulder heaped on your shoulder),

- your health energy (putting up with a pain or symptom) etc..…

and very soon if you don’t tackle it immediately, it becomes the norm. Even though it frustrates, irritates, hurts, delays, slows you down, or holds you back, it becomes the NORM!

And once it is a norm, it stops being seen as something you can tackle and becomes something you simply tolerate. 

It can drain so much unnecessary time and energy from your day, your relationships and your enjoyment of life. 

So today is all about identifying your slicks and icks, bringing them into awareness so that things you are tolerating, can become tasks to tackle over time. It's important to identify the slicks as well as the icks as they can be the key!

 I’d like you to think about a particular area you want to really address in the coming year.  This could be sleep, gut health, home, hormones, sex, skin, career, parenting, a particular friction point, whatever.

Be really aware what is affecting it, what changes when you try different things. What small actions can you take? What do you need? Help, advice, guidance, a conversation, a plan, equipment, or to change your narrative about it? 

Mine this year is sleep.  I really want to improve my quality and quantity. When I look at some of the slicks that have emerged over the last few years, I see that the things I've wanted to improve, I've taken real action, made a plan and not just left it to chance, which is what I've been doing with sleep.  So I've bought an app with sleep music, done some research and am getting some magnesium powder to drink before bed, and have stocked up on some good books so I'm incentivised to go to bed earlier to read rather than sit up watching telly.  I haven't bought a sleep tracker yet but may do at a later stage. 

What is yours? 

I'd love to know the one ick you are going to focus on. 

Thought for the day: What are your slicks as you move through the day? What are you really proud you've worked hard at, what's running smoothly, what's surprising you about yourself? (I'm constantly surprised how much better I eat now than in my 20's and 30's. It's by no means perfect but I've really researched and take an interest in what's good for me at this age and stage of life, and am open to trying new things and experimenting. That's slick enough for me).  

Task: In your journal, continue with growing your glimmer list and then being intentional about having more of them in your day.  Continue with your gratitude practise of listing 3 things you are grateful for about yourself / in general / today. 

Start being aware of  your slicks and making note of what makes them work so well and what have you done / needed / tried / applied to make it so. Now think about an ick (don't start with too many - you can do this exercise over and over again with new icks, so one at a time please.). Pick one ick for the start of the year and just be aware of what you might need to do / have / ask for / learn / buy / get to make it less icky.