If you’ve been around long enough, you’ll know that every year in the first week of January, I post my goals for the year.
You won’t find any resolutions around here because we create goals that are achievable and are realistic. ‘Lose weight’ and ‘be happy’ aren’t goals, they’re whimsical.
It’s funny to think about naive little me, thinking how great a life she was having this time last year welcoming the New Year in New York City of all places. Oh the nine months that I had ahead of me. Little did I know.
So I thought given the absolute shit-show that was 2020, it might be entertaining educational to reflect on my goals that I made last year and whether I achieved any of them, given the state of things.
Related: 2020: New Year, New Location, New Goals
1. TRAVEL TO TEN STATES
Just the word ‘travel’ makes me want to stop before I go any further. However, although 10 states may have been a little bit far-fetched, luckily I did make a few trips at the beginning of the year and was able to see a little more of America.
We visited Washington D.C. in January and thankfully visited Nashville in February. I can’t even tell you how glad I am that I went to Nashville right before the coronavirus hit. It’s somewhere I’ve wanted to go my whole life and being able to visit it in all its yeehawing glory was something I’ll never forget.
Even though we didn’t visit any far-away states, we did see more of New York state and New Jersey than we ever thought we would. Day trips to Princeton and Philadelphia and weekend trips to upstate New York and Niagara Falls meant some travel plans still happened.
2. FIGURE OUT WHAT I’M DOING POST-NEW YORK AND GET A NEW JOB
If anything, I can thank COVID-19 for securing me a job and doing the figuring out for me as I was able to stay on and keep working for my employer in New York, just back in the UK.
Although I could be faced with the same predicament this September, when my contract ends, I’m just grateful that I was able to keep my job and keep working during the pandemic. Who knows what 2021 will hold work-wise, but I’m not getting too concerned just yet.
3. GET BACK TO BLOGGING CONSISTENTLY
Living in New York meant I had very little time for blogging and it definitely fell on the back-burner in terms of priorities. However, as things started to calm down towards the end of my time in the Big Apple, I decided to get back into it.
You would think with so much free time in lockdown that I would have had a great opportunity to get back to writing, but with so much despair and negativity, I had no motivation or inspiration for blogging.
Thankfully I did keep going with the blogging and even judged the 2020 Student Blogger of the Year over at PR Place back in June. 2021 is going to be a big year for the blog; it’s coming!
4. VISIT LIVERPOOL
Ha. I thought coming back from New York would either mean having to move to London for work or moving further afield again to someplace new. So not only was I able to visit Liverpool, I was able to move back and call it home again.
Seeing the Liverpool ONE Christmas tree always gives me the feels, but something tells me that this year might be the last time I see that tree for a very long while.
I’ll be spending the first three months of 2021 in Liverpool but I think that might be the end of being ‘home’ for a long while.
5. KEEP READING
If you read my 2020 list of goals, you’ll see that I set myself a challenge to read 15 books in 2020. 15.
Fast forward 12 months and here I am reading book number 77. Time flies when you’re in lockdown, doesn’t it?
I may have surpassed my goal by a lot in 2020, but I’m not hoping to read anywhere near as much in 2021. I want to be too busy living.
Related: Every Book I Read in 2020
6. LEARN SOMETHING NEW
I always add this to my list of goals and never really do anything about it. Thanks to lockdown, I took on two online courses from The Centre of Excellence and really enjoyed them!
I collected a few certificates, took part in some webinars and definitely spent a lot of time in 2020 developing new skills and learning new things about digital marketing.
For a list of online courses that I recommend (mostly free), click here.
7. DO SOMETHING NEW EVERY MONTH
Like ‘learn something new’, this was another one added to the list with no real substance. However, I have started incorporating new monthly goals each month and it’s something I want to continue doing in 2021.
For example, I started a 10k step challenge in November but didn’t stick to it much. I then started it again in December, missing only 4 days of the whole month. I’m going again in January and setting myself a goal to start running which I’m hoping to stick to for the entire month – rain, hail or snow.
Other things I want to do is Dry January, a month of no meat, a month of no Diet Coke, a month introducing exercise habits, waking up 30 minutes earlier each month etc.
I’ll go into more detail when I list my 2021 goals next week.
A YEAR IN REVIEW
Given that we faced a worldwide pandemic in 2020, I’m not going to give myself a hard time over not reaching some of my goals for the year. Travel was pretty much out the window, and the virus put a lot of things on hold.
But if anything, 2020 gave us a new perspective on what’s important in life and some of the things we thought were important, that really aren’t.
I’m adding spending more time with friends and family to my 2021 goals, more time catching up and checking in and taking more time to do things that I enjoy and that help me to relax and recharge.
I’ll be back next week with my annual goals list; see you then!
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