Make-it-happen March

Spring is here! And it brings some hope going forward in the future and some more sun and warmth for the here and now. Before we restart our ‘go go go’ lives, let’s take a moment to reflect on what we have done and can do looking forward, and then plan to make it happen.

Here are a few tips to consider this month, so that we can re-emerge this spring feeling motivated, hopeful and ready to enact change!

• Make a use-it-up list – while we are all at home, we can use our time productively to evaluate how we use our possessions. Go around your house and find any products that have been sitting half finished for a while and put them in a list, for example: perfumes, hand creams, cleaning products, baking ingredients, shampoo or candles, then commit to using them until they are finished. For one, using up products feels really cleansing and satisfying, especially ticking them all off from your list. But also, this is a great exercise to show you what you have. Maybe it means that you may not waste as many products by buying things you already have, or question whether it was a successful purchase. If that specialist flour has remained untouched, could you question why you bought it – trends, perhaps? Do you actually need to buy any more lip balm, or could you just use the ones you’ve got? BY doing this, you will hopefully connect more to your possessions and it may prompt you to think more about your waste production and spending habits.

• As spring arrives, it is time to get started on growing for nature. Wildflower seeds are an easy and fantastic thing to plant, which will create beautiful botanical scenes as the year goes on as well as providing food and shelter for all kinds of wildlife, including bees, butterflies and birds. Wildflower seeds can be spread around a garden, or in a pot if you are short on space. Try Bee Bombs (Beebombs), seed packs (Wildflower Seeds | Thompson & Morgan (thompson-morgan.com)) or as a gift for a friend or loved one (Eco friendly Plantable birthday card. Bee themed happ-bee | Etsy and Plantable Seed Notecards Wildflower Watercolours | Etsy) for a range of native species which will help nature thrive in your garden or green space.

• With life beginning to reopen again, let us reflect and plan before we rush back into ‘normal’. What have you learnt or done differently while at home? How can you apply this to your ‘reopened’ life? Take time to question each part of your day and how you could make it better for the planet, and try and make sustainability a priority – our planet needs us now. Do you have to drive to work, or is there some public transport available? Do you have to travel for meetings, or could you do some over video call? Will you continue to be an active part of your local community, take local walks and say hello to neighbours even when you could travel further? How often do you actually need to go shopping, or do you have more than you need at home? All this will help us use this time productively to make greater change going forward and to learn from what we did before instead of reverting to the safety of ‘normal’.

As the new season bursts into life, take some of that energy into your own life and make good things happen this March. Reflect on life right now and motivate yourself to learn from this time to continue to create positive change and make this year the year where we looked after the planet and each other 🌺