So it is 2018! Gosh 2017 seemed to fly by in the blink of an eye and it was a pretty darn good year! Little dude turned 1, we took an amazing holiday to California to spend time with Jon’s grandparents, we got our office, we started Vlogging and we have generally had such a lovely year. But now it is time to think about 2018.
I was tagged to do this post by the lovely Leslie of MessBlogUK and its the idea of giving yourself some goals or things you would like to do or complete during 2018. Instead of resolutions, as I don’t really do resolutions, but goals I can do! So here are 18 goals and things I plan to do going forward in 2018.
- Lose Weight! Oh I know that is such a cliche, but I got off to such a great start in 2017, dropped 1.5 stone, then my Slimming World leader left and I didn’t click with the new one and it all fell apart. I hate to say I have gained a significant chunk of the 1.5 stone I lost and I am just majorly annoyed with myself about it. But 2018 is the year I will get the last of the weight off, I am determined to finally reach my target, although it will be just my luck that I will finally do it and we will decided to start trying for baby number 2 and I’ll put it all back on again, hey ho! Life of a mum yeah!
- Finish my KonMari house declutter. I’d say I am about 70% done at the moment. I started this journey a few months ago, (and documented it along the way!) but had to stop during our busy Christmas season. But I am determined to finish going through our house and properly decluttering and organising everything. Me and Jon both decided last year that we had had enough of all the clutter and all the stuff in our home that we just didn’t need or use, so I started implementing the KonMari method and we are slowly making head way, plus it has changed our mindset about the shopping we do and the items we bring into our home.
- Work on my Food Budget. I am guilty of never having budgeted our food. We are lucky enough to have never been in such a tight financial situation that I have needed to worry about the money we spend on food, but I have come to realise (after conversations with my best friend, watching Fun, Cheap or Free on YouTube and Eat Well For Less on the BBC!) that we spend way to much on food over the course of the month! So this will be the year I start budgeting our food, which will mean I am also meal planning which should also help on the weight loss front too.
- Take Elian to Disneyland Paris. We have been talking about doing this for a few months and have finally started pricing it up for later this year! I can’t wait! I love Disney but haven’t been since my early teens, I can’t wait to take the dude and hope he will love it too! That will be our family holiday for the year and we are hoping to go in April! Expect to see some blogs and vlogs when we go!!
- Work smarter not harder. This is key for us this year coming and part of the reason we have finally gotten an office for our photography companies (and my vlogging!) We need to find a way to be more productive and get more work done but in less time so we can really start to live the life we have been working towards, more family time! It’s going to take a bit of work and juggling to get into a proper work/life balance but we are hoping we will manage it during 2018
- Launch my ‘Life Sorted‘ YouTube Channel. Eek this is my big challenge for this year, I finally made the decision to separate my family lifestyle vlogging content from my decluttering and organising content. This year I will be building a niche channel around productivity, organising, self motivation and general ways to get your life sorted! There aren’t any vlogs yet, but there will be when I return from our little break to Bluestone next week! I can’t wait to get it started and hoping it will grow well!
- Vlog more! As well as having the new channel I still want to vlog more this year. I have loved capturing Elian daily over vlogmas and enjoy the fact that I now have 2 years of xmas footage to look back on, its crazy seeing how much he has grown. So although I would love to be a daily vlogger I just know that isn’t feasible time wise for us at the moment, but I will be planning to film more vlogs and outings this year so I can capture him growing up and changing. Making and collecting memories.
- Take up yoga. This is something I have been toying with for a few months now and I am finally going to bite the bullet this month and go to my very first class!! Eek! Hoping I like it and it can be something I continue to pursue for the next few years, fingers crossed!! I am hoping it will start helping me get back in shape, give me a little me time once a week and help me destress.
- Learn some basic sign language. Me and Jon have joked about needing sign language to communicate across rooms when we are busy shooting weddings, and I have always had an interest in learning. So this year I have started teaching Elian some toddler sigh language and I am going to keep it up and try to find useful sign language for me and Jon to learn to help us when we are working
- Get up earlier. We are very lucky that Elian isn’t an early bird, 8am usually, the problem is unless we need to be up for something we have gotten into the habit of staying in bed until gone 9! So this year I would really like to start trying to get up at 8 when Elian wakes up! I’m not after super early as we usually work till late and are definitely night owls not early birds. I would just like to start our day a little earlier to be able to make it to morning play groups
- Drink more water. I do not drink enough! Its as simple as that. I know I need to drink more…I just need to do it. It will be good for my health overall and probably good for my skin too (point 17!)!
- Journal every day. I used to journal a lot in my teens and I think it often helps you work out issues that are in your head. Plus I have insomnia and it is usually down to an overactive brain, so I find having a good brain dump of thoughts and ideas can really help. I am also keeping a gratitude journal every night of a few things I am grateful for for that day. I am using this as a bit of a mindfulness and positivity exercise.
- Sort Life Insurance, Will and Pension! Oh the fun adult stuff! But we are guilty of not having sorted a pension plan or a will out yet (even though we are 30!) Being self employed means we won’t have a company pension life most of our friends! Jon has life insurance but I haven’t done mine yet! But we will be doing this over the next few weeks as it just needs doing
- Take more day trips. We enjoy getting out and about and seeing the country, and doing fun stuff with the dude, but we often find we just don’t do enough! We get put off by bad weather and we work too much! But no more, this year we are going to make the most of all our free time and get out and make more memories with the little man (plus it’ll make our vlogs more interesting for you guys!)
- Be less attached to my phone, I hate that I have to even say this, but we are both way too attached to our phones and I really want that to be less of the case this year. As we work with social media and a lot of our work is online it is very difficult to be away from our phones or computers. But I find that they are draining too much quality time in our life so we need to find away to detach from our electronics a little more this year.
- Get into a morning and night routine. This partly relates to point number 10 about getting up earlier. I think having a proper morning and evening routine will help a lot with productivity and just making me feel better
- Take better care of my skin. Hands up who doesn’t have a skin care routine…at all! Yep me! I have never really suffered with really bad acne or skin issues, so I just never got into the habit of doing it. But now I am getting older I am thinking I should probably start looking after my skin a little better
- Play more. Now that Elian is a little older he actually enjoys playing with his toys and I want to play more with him. I think it will help him learn too and I want to spend some quality time with him, especially if Jon is going to be in our office more often, so me and the dude will be home on our own more.
So that is my 18 in 2018 Now I tag Georgina from Pixie Does, Charli from Charli Blogs, Delia from Del’s Wellness, Sarah from Wild Dunk Camping, Leanne from The Globetrotter GP, Helen from Welshcakes and Wellies, Charli from Highstreet Beauty Junkie, Hayley from Winging It With Two Boys, Shelley from By Busby