Hopes and aspirations for 2023...

I’ve never really liked the word ‘goals’. They’ve always seemed unattainable to me – targets I was never going to reach that would haunt me throughout the year.

Like everyone else at the start of the new year, I sat down with pen and paper, waiting for inspiration to strike. The list that formed before me contained objectives that had been etched into a notebook many times before but never crossed off. A repeat offender was a strict exercise regime that was always unreachable.

Following my previous track record, this new list of goals was immediately discarded before the dawning of the next month, hidden at the bottom of a desk draw, not to see the light until a random episode of spring cleaning. In my head, the year had been scratched off before it had even begun.

Refusing to succumb to the usual feelings of another year wasted, I decided I needed to shift my mindset. Rather than setting goals, I decided to come up with signposts to steer my year in the direction I wanted it to head.

The Training Months

It’s become a yearly tradition that as a society, we set these impossible targets that must be adhered to every day of every week as soon as the clock strikes midnight on 31 December. As if we magically become a new person, who’s already formed new habits overnight to achieve our ambitions.

James Clear in his book, Atomic Habits, addresses the myth of the supposed 21 days to form a habit. Instead, Clear suggests that by getting 1% better each day, it’s the small things that add up to create big change.

Therefore, I’ve deemed the first half of the year as the training months, to give myself time to achieve those small wins every day and see what growth this leads to. It’s recognising that it takes time and dedication to create change. There’s no way to ‘fail’.

New Year Hopes

Rather than creating a list, my overall aspiration is to become more consistent this year. As a person who finds it impossible to stick to a routine, I’ve often found myself craving a sense of constancy.

I’m hoping that by creating one overarching aspiration, I won’t feel overwhelmed and self-sabotage, putting roadblocks between myself and what I want to achieve.

I’m still figuring out what consistency will look like in my life, but as I’m still in the training months, I’m in no rush to find out and define this. Here’s a few small changes I'm hoping to implement.

- Drinking enough water

With the chaos of running through life, this is something I often forget about, which then leads to a pounding headache.

- Taking care of my skin

As I said before I’m very inconsistent, and there is usually no in between with this one. I’m either a 10 steps before bed skincare type-of girl, or I miss it altogether.

- Reading

During summer under the warmth of the sunshine, you can find me outside, curled up with a good book but at any other time of year my books are left untouched, gathering dust on a shelf.

- Moving my body

Exercising makes me feel good and helps manage stress. So what do I do? Why I spend my time under the covers watching Netflix, of course!

- Healing my relationship with finances

Money doesn’t need to be scary! I’ve always seen it as unstable in my life, something that causes stress.

- Giving myself more time in the morning

I wake up in a sense of panic, triggered by the blaring of my alarm clock. Over the years, I’ve always given myself only 10 minutes to get ready, which I think has planted a sense of dread in my brain when I wake up.

I haven’t got it all figured out, but that’s okay. I’m excited to see how these will evolve as I grow throughout the year.