Monday 7 January 2019

Now for 2019...

So time for a new page, a fresh year, and also a good time to make some decisions about what I want to achieve this year. Last year feels like a tough act to follow in some ways - and indeed this year's aims are going to be loosely based on what I set out last year with some additional bits thrown in for good measure. 

Personal/Health & Fitness:
- I will aim to keep up a good level of activity, averaging at least 13,000 steps daily across a year.
- Continue with eating well, using the FitBit to log foods some days to keep on track.
- Exercise at least 3 x per week - more is fine. Gym, running, swimming, circuits, HIIT Sessions - all good, also a brisk paced walk of at least a mile/15 minutes counts.

- Stretching - I had one injury last year partly as a result of not doing enough of this so an area to focus on.
- Bullet-ish journal - weekly lists, monthly planners, general to-do's.
- Aim for 500km total distance run in the year - I'm signing up to a virtual challenge for this one!
- Assuming they do the series again run 3 RunthroughUK "Chase the Sun" events
- Sign up and run a full 10k
- Bring running distance up to 10 miles
- Either get back to cycling or get rid of the bike
- Run the Dartmouth Regatta Road race in August - a terrifying 5 mile course with some horrific hills!
- Run/walk up Rueval - my favourite hill in the Hebrides

Home: We need to get back to sorting out the remaining works on the flat this year - from the more major stuff that still needs doing, to simple decluttering:

- Establish whether the electrician we were planning to use still wants the work, and if so get a firm start date from him.
- Find a new plasterer - lovely Geoff has retired!
- Plastering in Hallway and around windows - investigate whether we can do smaller areas ourselves?
- Hallway to be refloored/redecorated
- Decluttering at a low level - focus on seeing items within the house that we don't use
- New coffee table for front room - put measurements for this on the phone so I have them to hand and research and actually buy something.

Financial:

- Start to look towards replacing Ben's car - either just "at some stage" this year or earlier depending on MOT result.
- Joint savings to continue as they are
- I will keep a good eye on interest rates - if good deals come up we will switch money around to capitalise
- The "extra" savings will pay for a short holiday with friends in the spring - and will probably subsidise the holiday savings a little too as we have a short gap between the 2018 & 2019 Hebrides trips and had moved a previous surplus in that account across to long term savings
- Keep the focus on not frittering, and getting best value from our money

General/Random:

- Continue social stuff as last year
- Learn from the lessons I learned last year on friendships, and people who add value to my life rather than sucking the vibrancy from it.
- Try not to feel hurt or upset when other people behave unpleasantly or unkindly - I can't control their behaviour, I can control my reaction to it. (This one stays - SUCH a good life lesson!) Sometimes my reaction to it may be to simply step away from them as a regular part of my life - this works exceptionally well!
- Be conscious and mindful. Try to stop and think through choices and choose my path accordingly
- Brutal tidy and organise of laptop
- Sort out new power cable & battery for laptop
- sort out problem with desktop
- Keep up the momentum with the Beer Order stuff and don't let the workload pile up
- Another "big" walk - perhaps done in stages 
- Finish the Thames Path walk
- Finish the Jubilee Greenway walk

We have also agreed on some joint things to focus on for the year :
 - avoiding products with non-sustainable Palm Oil
 - Breaking the habit of procrastination (We're BOTH guilty of this!)
 - Working on cutting use of single use plastics even further


That seems like some good stuff to work on through the year, and a nice mix of "quality of life" stuff alongside building for the future. Social stuff will take a different turn this year in any event as there is likely to be less airshows partly due to taking up more responsibility within the National beer festival - the role we have taken on is a big one and there is absolutely NO room for not doing it well, so other distractions will need to take at least a bit of a back seat this year I think. There will also be meetings off the back of that too - which as a flip-side means more time spent with friends from that area of our lives which is great! 

My mantras for this year then:

Activity
Planning
Action


There WILL still be challenges - and I'll still be looking to see what I can achieve, but the focus this year will be more on maintaining the things I've achieved already within the running/fitness stuff. Last year started forcefully on the exercise front but tailed off later in the year - I found running in the heat of the summer quite challenging and as a result took more of a step back from it than I really wanted to for - this summer will be about finding a way of keeping going - hopefully the Dartmouth Road Race might be a way of keeping the momentum there!  

Feel free to join in for the ride - I'm starting out as I did last year with a challenge to do some form of exercise every day of January and so far, so good on that one. I think Frugal February will not be happening this year but I am intending to keep a focus on spending as I've said - we have more works on the flat to pay out for and lots of social stuff planned and intend to compromise on our longer terms savings as little as possible for those things. 

Has your last week been about planning challenges and goals for the year ahead? 

Robyn

2 comments:

The Busking Blues said...

It's always nice to see how far you've come, as it has served as motivation for me to get my own stuff done. I accomplished so much over the last year but need to find the time in the next week to take stock and set my goals and intentions for 2019. A big thing for me has been staying off the internet - while online diaries etc. helped me feel accountable, I was getting too easily distracted checking and responding to what others were doing, etc. and before I knew it the entire morning would be gone. It's been much better for me to just walk away from it all and actually do the work that needs doing. I need the internet for jobs etc., but social media and forums have taken a back seat and I feel I'm back in the land of the living. I still have a long ways to go, but I am pleased with my progress!
~Lynn

Robyn said...

Happy new year Lynn and thanks for stopping by! Great to hear that you're "getting there" with what you want to achieve - social media can be a devil of a time-waster for so many people I think - let's face it most of us are guilty of "just another quick scroll" at a time when really we should be getting up, getting to bed or just getting on with something else! I look forwad to hearing what your 2019 goals will be once you've finalised them!