Every year I see other bloggers making resolutions and goals, and a couple of times I’ve done them myself. I’m currently sharing monthly goals over on Adventure is Out There, but I find yearly goals quite tricky to make. I often find that my priorities aren’t the same towards the end of the year as compared to what they were at the beginning of the year. In fact, my priorities often aren’t the same month to month!
So instead of trying to make a lot of specific goals for 2018, I want to make a couple of more general resolutions, summed up by one big one:
Be the best person I can be
I often feel like I’m being pulled in so many different directions in my life. I have so many ambitions and passions that I try to do all at once and sometimes find myself floundering.
So instead of picking specific daily, weekly or monthly goals such as “do yoga everyday” or “save £XXX every month”, I want to bear one thing in mind: that I can’t do or be everything; I can only be myself.
And so to be the best version of myself I can be, I need to look after myself, put more thought into my actions and be more conscious of my decisions.
One habit I’m guilty of is putting things off. It might be for a minute, a day or a month. For example, Ben might ask me to pop into the kitchen to help him with something and I’ll shout “Just a minute!”, even though the thing I’m doing really doesn’t need that minute. Or I might be sat at my desk in the morning wondering whether I just shouldn’t bother to do yoga at lunch because I can just do it another day.
My goal is to remember this quote:
Your decisions today define your tomorrow.
I came across this last year and stuck it on a post-it note on my desk because it really summed up my problem – the decisions I make today can make my tomorrow better, or they can make it worse. If I don’t put away that washing, the pile will be bigger tomorrow; if I put off that piece of work today, I’ll be busier and more stressed tomorrow; if I don’t do yoga today, I’ll find it more difficult when to fit in tomorrow or less easy to stretch.
But I also want to remember not to beat myself up about things. If I haven’t managed to workout one day, it doesn’t matter. If I manage to read for only 5 minutes, it’s not the end of the world. If I don’t reach a goal I set myself mentally, nothing bad will happen.
I do however have a few goals that I am working towards this year too:
Fitness & Health
Last year I did really well at doing yoga when I had the chance and working out. Thanks to our bosses putting in a gym for the office and getting us a personal trainer to run a Crossfit session once a week, I was feeling healthier than I had since I left school. I personally don’t weigh myself or judge my body based on measurements (because they fluctuate SO much!), but I felt so much better in myself. I even ran a Tough Mudder and loved it!
I fell out of the habit in the last couple of months of 2017 thanks to a series of colds that got stuck on my chest, but I’m making a conscious effort to get back into it this year. My work team is getting booked in for the Tough Mudder again this summer and they want to do the full one – I’m wondering whether I can manage this on my wobbly ankles, but I want to get myself up to the challenge for it, so I’m determined. If that goes well, I’ve recently been reading about Triathlons – I love swimming and have been wanting to get into cycling since one of my friends took it up last year, so I’m tempted. Because I’m not a good runner and just personally don’t like it, I don’t want to stick to just running events – mixing it up with other sports sounds fun to me, although I’d need to get myself sorted with some of the kit such as a Trisuit from Simply Swim for that since all my workout gear is from either Lidl or Aldi!
Writing & Blogging
Last year was an awesome one for writing for me; I can’t exist without writing. I’ve got into a flow with my various blogs and newsletters, and I have plans for even more writing in 2018.
I picked up fiction writing again last year after a burst of ideas and I want to continue that this year. I’m hoping that once the wedding is out of the way (and I’ll be a Mrs, eek!), I’ll have more time, energy and mindspace to dedicate towards this.
I’ve also got big plans for blogging in 2018 too, particularly at Big Cup Little Cup. Keep your eyes peeled for more over there, I’m excited!
Wedding & Travel
As I said above, the wedding is taking up a lot of my mental energy right now. Even if I’m not actively doing wedmin, there’s always something running in the back of my head that I need to do, need to think about, need to book. Right now I’m in the process of making 1000 paper cranes (with the help of friends and family!), and that’s only a minor job! While I am excited about the wedding, I’m more excited about actually being married now.
And tied in with that is travel. I love to travel – I constantly have ideas and plans of future travel wishes but not a lot of time to carry these out. Working a full time job is hard, people! This year, my travel is quite limited because of the wedding and honeymoon – I’d booked up every day of holiday bar 1 day for 2018 before I’d even finished 2017!
I am super excited for our honeymoon trip to Florida and Upstate New York, but because it’s a longer than usual trip, it doesn’t leave room for much other travel. We’re planning our minimoon still too currently – we’re thinking it will most likely be Cornwall right now as due to the timing of the wedding and needing to be back to work (plus it being Bank Holiday/half term that week), flights out of the UK to the destinations we want to visit are limited.
In 2018, I want to try to explore our local area more. We started doing this in 2017, discovering new places local to us, but I want to do it moreso in 2018, making the most of what’s nearby and spending time with friends and family in these places.
What are your goals for 2018?
PS: Here are the outfit details for these photos – I didn’t think it was quite worthy of a post all of its own talking about the outfit because I’ve worn most of the pieces recently, but I have a lace bodysuit peeking out under the T shirt (review at BCLC soon!) and thought it would be fun to share!
T Shirt: c/o MissPap (worn here) | Bodysuit: c/o MissPap | Jeans: Levis
