“Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one.” – Brad Paisley
Happy New Years Eve everyone!
To tell you the truth, I have some mixed feelings about saying goodbye to 2016. In many ways it has been an absolutely terrible year with the deaths of so many inspirational people, Brexit (seriously Britain), the new President (seriously USA?) and a whole load of global disasters. Selfishly though, 2016 has been a pretty good year for me. This year I finally passed my driving test (on the 5th time – I know), ran the London Marathon and not only completed my final year of uni but managed to graduate with a first. So personally 2016 is going to go down as a major year in my books.
However I am definitely a firm believer that all things must come to an end, and that it’s so important to know when it’s time to start a new chapter. So in a way I am glad to say say goodbye to 2016, knowing that I will treasure many memories from it, but also looking forward to starting the next chapter of my life in 2017.
Even though it’s a total cliche, I am making one major New Years resolution, as I’ve decided that 2017 is going to be the year that I finally get my sh*t together. I am a walking talking contradiction as whilst I don’t have a 5 year plan (I barely even have a 5 day plan to be honest) and love to just go with the flow, I also hate not being organised. My life feels so much better when I sit down and write hundreds of lists, and timetables and little weekly goals that I can tick off as I go along. So this year my resolution is going to take advantage of my love of organising, and I am going to get my life back on track. This doesn’t mean I’m going to start fully adulting yet and settle down with a proper job and move into my own house, because to be honest that prospect still scares the hell out of me so I’m putting that off for a few years. But I do want to give my life a little bit more direction as I feel like I’ve been in a bit of limbo since graduating uni.
Stage 1 of ‘Get my sh*t together’ is getting my health and fitness back.
I was so fit at the start of 2016, because I had to be to be able to do the marathon. Since then I’ve let it slip but this year I’m going to start exercising 2 or 3 times a week, and try to eat healthier (because lets be honest, the whole of December I ate way too much using the ‘but its Christmas so its ok’ excuse). This shouldn’t be too difficult as last year I managed to go from nothing to training 5 or 6 times a week. I am planning on entering some sort of charity half-marathon to motivate myself even more.
Stage 2 is to write more.
I kind of forgot about blogging for pretty much the whole of December because I was so busy all the time. Whilst I did have some free time, after doing a degree where you feel like you have to constantly be doing extra work or reading, it was so nice to have free time where I could actually do nothing and not feel guilty!. But this year I want to blog more, as I do want to be a writer one day. As long as I make sure to set aside time for it I’m sure I can do it. I’ve also just started writing a novel, so need to make time to write that as well! Who knows whether I’ll actually ever finish it, but I’m definitely going to try!
And stage 3 is to start organising my travel plans.
This is an important one as I want to go travelling for at least 3 or 4 months in September so need to start actually planning and booking it. I need a better answer to the question ‘Oh so where do you want to go?’ than ‘Oh well, I’m thinking about starting in South America but I’m not sure where exactly or where to go from there’! I also need to start putting away more money each month or else there’s no way I’m going to be able to afford to go!
I’m trying to trick myself into thinking that I’ve only really got one resolution that encompasses a few things, rather than classifying these things as 3 separate resolutions as I feel like it might make it easier to stick to. But who knows!
What are your New Years Resolutions? How are you going to make yourself stick to them for longer than a week?
Until next time,
Aimee x
The Life of an Aspiring Writer 