I don’t particularly believe in “New Year” resolutions, because of various reasons (society trying to make us buy shit to feel better about ourselves; setting ourselves up to fail with an arbitrary mission that’s lost its meaning; who wants the pressure of starting something during a very miserable time of year anyway?).
But I DO believe in always trying to make yourself a better person, whether that’s for the world, personally for yourself or whatever you wish. And I do think it’s nice when December/January rolls around to reflect and make goals for the future based on what you did or didn’t accomplish in the year just gone. Sometimes I like to start these things right away, sometimes I think of them more as a March-onwards plan (isn’t the beginning of spring just a much nicer time to do stuff? I’m not about this relative dark and cold).
So with all that in mind, these are my resolutions for 2018 – not just the new year, and THROUGHOUT 2018 – that I want to spend time focusing on. These will be less travel-focused (see my post on 2018 travel plans and goals) and more personal/general.
Establish a proper sleep routine
I’ve kind of always been bad at going to bed at a regular time each night, and I definitely surround myself with far too many screens. I’ve read – and it completely makes sense to me – that we should have an evening, pre-bed ‘wind down’ routine in order to get the best sleep possible. And, honestly, I really like sleep. This will be a challenge while I’m temporarily back to long distance with my boyfriend and I have to stay up pretty late on some weeknights for Skype, but I’d like to make the effort. I’m thinking no screens an hour before sleeping, a bedtime tea and either lavender essence or moisturiser to encourage those drowsy feels (lavender is well known to be relaxing and good for sleep).
Get somewhere with my career
This is somewhat vague, I admit, but basically I want to make some efforts for stepping up and having more responsibility in my career. The problem (scraping the barrel here) of moving and living abroad early on in your career means that you never stay in one place too long – long enough to move up through the ranks too much. I’m sure if I had stayed at one company since university, I’d be in a much different/higher position than I am now – but then again, I wouldn’t have had the incredible experiences I had having lived in Canada. Now that I’m back in the UK, I want to make sure I focus on making those strides I sort of feel like I missed out on.
Improve my surfing
This has been my intention forever now. While I’ve been “surfing” since I first visited Australia in 2009/university from 2010, it’s never been consistent enough to properly improve. I want to either go on a surf camp style retreat for a week, like through Star Surf Camps – most likely in Portugal or France – and/or make some weekend trips to either San Sebastian, Biarritz or domestically in Devon/Cornwall this summer. The goal is to make it a fairly regular thing so I actually improve and don’t have to add air quotes when I say I surf.
Workout classes
I do regularly exercise, but independently – I run, work on arms/abs and do at-home yoga. But I’d actually like to start finding some trusty, fun workout classes I can attend after I finish work. I’m looking to do one for yoga, and I’m toying with the idea of doing something a bit different from my usual routine, like a dance class. I’ve wanted to try indoor rock climbing for a while now too, and while I don’t think I could afford that weekly or anything, I think it’d be a nice monthly thing to do. Expanding my horizons and all that.
If anyone has any tips for workout classes or anything else I’ve mentioned above, I’m all ears and would love the suggestions.
My list does actually extend longer than this, there being two things I’ve left off, namely learn a language and continue learning guitar. That’s because while these are goals, I think it’s better to focus on a few first, see how they’re going during the year, then reassess. No need to put all the pressure on right away – I still want life to be fun!
Have you got any resolutions or goals, or how are the ones you’ve already created going? Do you prefer to make them at a different time of year, or not at all?
