5 Habits for a Summer of Renewal

The summertime always brings with it a fresh air of possibility, excitement, and delight. The warm sunshine revives the once cold earth, gardens flourish, and the grass regains its lush charm. Especially in New England, the dawn of summer weather brings with it an energy that encourages the making of new adventures and memories. This vigor that summer carries inclines us toward not only rest, but renewal, allowing us to replenish our spirits through new inspirations, reflections, and opportunities for growth. Below are a few summer habits I have formed that help me tap into this season of rejuvenation.

Write Down Your Goals and Dreams

As summer begins, I enjoy taking time to write out my goals and dreams, creating a personalized summer vision board that captures all the various goals, dreams, and desires I have for the season. It’s nothing fancy, usually just a page or two from my journal or planner, but the significance lies in taking the time to reflect on how I want to grow. It could include tasks as mundane as making sure a particular closet in the house gets reorganized, or more personal desires such as making time in your week to journal or exercise. Recognizing and recording how you want to utilize your time is the first step to making it happen. 

Read Books That Spark the Imagination

Another activity I always look forward to in the summer is reading books that spark my imagination. I love trying to match my book with the season of the year: heavier, thoughtful, more informative reads for the colder months and lighter, captivating stories for the summer.  I find that this habit helps me enjoy reading more and speeds up the process by aligning the nature of the season and the type of text. Some of my favorite summer reads have included A Severe Mercy, a true story that intertwines romance and theology; The Inimitable Jeeves, a laugh aloud series of stories about an aristocratic bachelor and his clever butler; and Where the Crawdads Sing, a thrilling narrative that knits together the story of an abandoned girl and her connection to a grave crime. I have found that the books I read in the summer shape my memories of that time and create new channels for my imagination to grow and with it the spark of new ideas and inspirations.  

Dive Into a New Creative Activity 

In addition to stirring my imagination with captivating stories, I love to tap into my artistic side by finding a new creative activity or resurrecting an old hobby from the past. Whether its writing, watercolor, sewing, coloring, drawing, memorizing poetry or collaging, engaging your creativity through a concrete activity will bring with it increased confidence, fulfillment, and growth. Check out this short quiz if you need help finding the right craft to try out or take this interactive test to discover your creative personality. It doesn’t matter whether or not you think you are a “creative person” but whether you are using a medium through which your creativity can thrive!

Change Up Daily Routines

While summer is inevitably a time for adjusted schedules due to school breaks, vacations, and events, I like to find new ways to adjust my daily routines as well. Whether it’s getting up earlier, trying to go on a walk in the morning rather than the afternoon, or adding in a 15-minute workout to your day, the summer is the time to experiment with your schedule and discover new ways to maximize your time, test out a new routine that enhances your day, or just try to shake things up a bit. Ask yourself what part of your day you look forward to the least and see whether some simple adjustments might turn that around. If the afternoon seems to drag on in the office, schedule a 10-minute movement break to give yourself some extra energy. If you find that it takes forever to get yourself ready in the morning with your little ones, get up 20 minutes earlier so you can start your day with silence rather than chaos. The increased flexibility that summer brings presents the perfect opportunity to experiment with new routines until you find the one that works best.   

Enjoy the Beauty of Nature 

Lastly, I believe it’s absolutely vital to take time to enjoy the beauty of the natural world during the summer. Resting in the beauty of nature heals us from the go-go-go mentality of our daily lives, allowing us to simply enjoy our time, rather than seeing it as a calendar to fill. Being outside and taking time to notice the details of nature is like studying a great masterpiece of art, there is always something new to be discovered that reveals something about the artist. And the more deeply we can realize that the natural world was made for us, that the design of each flower, tree or blade of grass is a continual gift, the clearer our purpose and worth become. How could such a stunning creation not be made for a worthy recipient? Practicing this art of observation invites us to step away from the incessant stream of notifications from our phones and the demands of our daily work and renew ourselves. 

I have experienced many a summer during which rest and renewal had no place in my busy schedule and this lack of rejuvenation left me feeling agitated and anxious in the fall. By observing the characteristics of the season, I believe we can see how it is not only a time for vacations, tan lines, and BBQs, but for renewal and rejuvenation as well.