Hello everyone!
I’ve been meaning to write this for a little while….all month if I’m honest but January has been a bit crazy for many reasons. Work has been the busiest it has ever been in my whole 2.5 years there and I’ve been out to Barcelona for a week, and my dad has been into hospital for many stressful and invasive tests that luckily were clear. That combined with the general start-of-the-year fitness and diet routines and I’ve spent my month being the ‘exhausted pigeon’ flapping around aimlessly not knowing where to go next or indeed what I was doing 2 minutes ago.
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| Image from Google |
I have thought of many goals for 2017 and am aware that now I am already 1 month in and have not got even part way to achieving any of them, so time is ticking away and as usual I’m still not getting anywhere!
I decided not to put pressure on myself though and instead have a few general goals that I think are achievable, if not all easily measurable. I’ve separated them out and hope they make sense, they’re not ground breaking or probably that much different from everyone else’s, but I needed to get them on screen and on record so I have something to refer back to throughout the year!
1) Grow our audience and write posts more consistently – this is one that I’m sure many aspire to, and we all have our busy periods where we just don’t have time. I need to be better at planning and focus my time more on posts that I WANT to write and not feel that I have to, even though I normally have lots to share it can be hard to get them all done in a timely manner
2) Try to increase our Instagram follower count – numbers aren’t everything but we are late to the Instagram game and only used our account properly last year. We grew to 470 followers but it has plateaued since then. I’d like to get it to 1000 by the end of the year but with the ridiculous follow/unfollow thing and the algorithm it seems an ambitious level!
3) Up my photography game – I love taking photos, and I want to get better at it. I want to use props more and get better at remembering to take them in natural daylight, so I’m hoping to get a few more backgrounds to make it easier this year
1) Decide what I want to do with my job – I really want to love my job but at the moment it just doesn’t feel worth the hard work. I had hoped by now to find a role in a company that I could throw myself into, where the more I put in the more I got back. But that sadly isn’t the case and I often toy with the idea of giving up working in science altogether, but I won’t quit easily and I haven’t a clue what I’d do otherwise
2) Save – I desperately need to save some money, there are so many things in my house that need fixing or replacing and my car is definitely worse for wear. I don’t know what will need to be sorted first but I’m going to save like crazy and maybe I will get somewhere! Ideally I’d like a holiday but that seems like the biggest dream of them all at the moment!
1) Go on more dates – I absolutely hate Tinder/dating apps, but meeting guys is difficult when I travel with work and therefore have some long hours, try to get to the gym as often as possible and generally get caught up with other life and seeing friends when I can! I need to get out more so I’m just going to have to get used to using the apps (but I will probably still complain about it ha!). I have started using Bumble which seems to be better and I might even have a date this week, so fingers crossed! I’ve always been the kind of person that thought I would just meet someone along the way but that hasn’t happened and I get so bored with having no one to share my life with
2) The inevitable ‘lose a few pounds’ – since buying my house I have been going to the gym on average twice a week and not working hard enough. I need to go more often but also make it count, 20 minutes going as hard as possible is better than not at all and I feel so much better for doing it. If I lose the 10 pounds I’ve put on that will be good enough to start!
3) Read – I want to fall in love with reading again. I still want to read, and I still buy books…..but I don’t ever read them! It’s silly really as I have far too many now but I really want to love it again, there’s no better feeling than getting lost in a book!
As much as I would love to complete these tasks and tick them off (I do love a list!) I just want this year to be better than 2016. 2016 passed by in a year of stress and not much happiness, it was generally a blur of grey and I’d like this year to be a lot happier and stress free, whatever that means! I need to stop caring what people think and stop allowing people to have an opinion on what I choose to do.
What are your goals for the year? Would you like to make big changes or are you choosing small steps for big effects?
If you have any tips for completing any of these goals please let me know!
I’m off for a bath now, this seems to be a new unwritten resolution that every Sunday evening is bath time. Maybe I’ll even take a book with me….
L xxx