💬 Sunday Reflections #14 (ask me anything)
Thoughts on 3 months here, a party hat and a role reversal
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Celebrating small milestones
Hello friends! A big happy Sunday to you and also happy September. Is it me or has the light already started to shift? I do love the obtuse golden glow the Sun casts as we move into autumn. But I won’t lie, the summer never feels long (or hot) enough.
This week I’m celebrating a little milestone; Friday 1st marked 3 months of A Day Well Spent - woo! What did I do to celebrate? The same thing I do every Friday (my weekly practice that I believe helps me to fulfil my potential, last week’s post). But with a party hat on. And I had a glass of wine. Ok maybe not actually the hat.
Let’s face it, 3 months is a pretty minor milestone. But I feel like one of those proud new parents sharing cute black and white polaroid style mini milestone snaps of their newborns. This is my newborn and I’m proud of it.
It feels like a lot has happened since I wrote my welcome post at the end of May, talking about how I’d been writing for 10 years and the near annihilation of it by social media, my ‘what the hell is Substack’ phase, why I had decided to start a Substack and why I intended to use it to share a side of me people hadn’t seen before.
It’s all thanks to you
In all honesty, after the initial excitement of ‘I’ve launched a Substack!’ simmered down, I didn’t know if it would be viable for me to continue doing this 3 months down the line.
But here I remain, still writing and pressing publish twice a week and that’s largely down to you. And so today, I invite my readers to celebrate this milestone with me because without your support, engagement, enthusiasm and openness - without the amazing community you are helping to create here - this newsletter would not exist.
I started this newsletter from scratch 3 months ago with a mailing list of zero as a side venture responding to my desire to write; it’s something I work on in my spare time on top of my “actual” job (I am a team of one - it’s just me). It is where my most honest, private and best work lives. And I work really hard behind-the-scenes producing it.
It’s a reader supported publication, meaning it’s the financial support from readers that enables me to make all this writing possible in the first place. And the fact that you do choose to support it - both financially and with your energy - means the world to me.
The money you are paying for this subscription supports all the hours of research, editing, writing, reading, designing, production, admin and more that goes into producing the content here. By doing so you are telling me that you value my words, my thoughts and my time. You are making the statement that - despite what the ad-based internet has brainwashed us to believe for decades - writers should not be expected to write for free.
By doing so you have made this a two-way and equal relationship that allows me to talk with you and not at you. And you are enabling me to be responsive to you - my readership - directly. By doing so you are empowering me to be creative and open and you are instigating the most wonderful conversations with me and with each other. I can only hope what I produce here is sufficient in reciprocating that generosity.
Inboxes and lives are busy, there are a million and one other things you could be doing, a million and one other things you could spend that £1.20 a week on (1/3 of a flat white?). But you guys show up every week, every month, with your time, likes, comments, shares, thoughts, wisdom, lols and emotional intelligence. And it is just the absolute best.
Whether you are a regular commenter or are in and out of these posts like a bandit without leaving a trace (that’s totally fine!), I see you. And I’d like to use this opportunity to say a huge thank you - to you - for helping A Day Well Spent reach this 3 month anniversary.
So who’s here?
It is quite amazing to me how this newsletter has grown from a readership of zero to over 2000 in a short amount of time. A Day Well Spent is currently read across 46 US States and 76 countries from Peru and New Zealand to Ethiopia and Pakistan!
A relatively recent feature Substack has introduced is the ability for new paid subscribers to add a private note when they decide to join the club. There isn’t a way for me to reply to these directly, which always makes me feel like I’m leaving people hanging! But when a new one pops into my inbox it makes my day.
I thought I’d share some:
What have been the most popular posts?
One of the many things I love about it here and my wonderful readership is that you are permitting me to write about very varied topics. When you create a Substack, you are asked to tick up to two boxes that categorise it - such as Culture, Food & Drink, Sports etc. - and I honestly struggled to make my selection (in the end I settled on Health and Wellness as one and Faith and Spirituality as the other?!)
My point being, I’m not sure A Day Well Spent neatly fits into a box. Whether that’s to its detriment or not, who knows. But not only am I OK with that, I fully embrace it. Because I feel the box rejection is a true reflection of me, also. I so appreciate that you guys continue to stick around even when an email subject might make you think ‘Huh? This is new…’. Because it feels to me that thought is quickly followed by ‘I’m open to it, let’s have a look!’. Which is so mega.
Here are some of my most popular posts over the past 3 months according to views - quite the mash up:
I’m ready for any questions you might have!
To make this Sunday Reflections feel a bit special to mark the occasion, I thought I’d use it as the first Ask Me Anything, where you get to ask me anything (within reason) in the comments and I will do my best to respond.
It doesn’t have to be all ‘what is the meaning of life?’, although I do actually have thoughts on that. They can be big questions if you want, or they can be small and light-hearted. Maybe you’d like to know my favourite colour, what kind of music I’m into or if we eat cold food on MasterChef.
You might have questions about some of the topics I’ve written about here (you can take a look at the archive). You might want to ask for my advice, guidance, opinion or thoughts on something you are working on, thinking about or a situation you find yourself in. Or what name I think would best suit your cat.
Now let’s begin.
For new subscribers, welcome to the weekly Sunday Reflections! This is an intimate and friendly space for community and accountability.
How it works
Each Sunday I pose a prompt or question which we discuss (and say hi) in the comments. Topics often cover self-empowerment and personal growth and these weekly check-ins allow us to get to know ourselves and the other members of the A Day Well Spent community better.
Feel free to have a browse through previous Sunday Reflections to get an idea of the stuff we talk about, which include monthly New Moon intention setting.
Before we begin
A shout out to the amazing collective wisdom that crystallised in the comments section of last week’s reflections where we talked about what we know today we wish we’d known 5 years ago - 56 comments so far!
Sunday is for awakening the mind, body and spirit 🧘
Today’s topic: ask me anything