Now I’m not usually one to rely on New Year’s resolutions but what better time to kick off with some new goals. This isn’t to say these goals will remain throughout the whole of 2020. I may complete some, or my prioirities and circumstances may change. But here I am shouting into the void that I’d like to focus on and achieve the following things within the next year.

1. Looking after myself
For a long time now I’ve been grafting so hard that I burn the candle right down on both ends and whilst it was important, I now vow to look after myself, my wellbeing and my health first so that I have the energy to keep my hustle going. That’s not to say I will exclusively take baths and get lazy from now on, it’s in my nature to be a busy bee, but I mean that I will consider how much is feasible to take on. I’ll say no to things if it means that my doing it is going to negatively affect my ability to sleep well, eat well and move my body: my three key steps to getting my shit together and feeling better. This one actually isn’t a New Year’s Resolution because I’ve been working on this self-care plan since October 2019. And me being me, I created a bloody figure for it:

I don’t believe in being restrictive on diets or whatever, life gets in the way and sometimes plans have to change but I’m trying my utmost to make this happen so I can feel better in my body! Other health things that are on the list include improving my vision (I got laser eye surgery right at the end of 2019 – blog post on this coming soon!), training my hair not to need washed as often and continuing to work my way toward becoming vegetarian.

2. Learning photography & graphic design
I love learning something new and these skills in particular will be so useful to me for work but I also think that I will find them enjoyable. For Christmas I got a swanky new camera so I can’t wait to play around with it, watch endless tutorials and just give it a whack until I figure it out for myself. In particular, I am keen to learn how to be decent at dance photography which can be challenging as what you’re trying to capture is usually moving pretty fast and in low light.

3. Making the most of living in Dundee 
This is a contradictory one but both are important to me. First of all I want to embrace living life in Dundee and all that has to offer. Enjoy some down time in my new flat, spend time with new friends but also get out and explore this new part of Scotland I find myself in for the next while!

4. Travel to more new places
That said, I also want to shift my booty and travel to some new places. Coming up soon is Copenhagen with my sister but I’m also hoping to explore the west coast of Scotland later this year before hopefully booking in visits to Germany and Spain – fingers crossed!

5. Taking time for skin care & make up 
This one is maybe more superficial but it has reasons. I suppose I am getting to the age now where I need to consider what it is that I’m putting on my skin and I’d really like to learn the best ways to care for myself in that sense, hopefully in the most sustainable way possible (both financially, environmentally and in terms of my time). I feel like for a while I’ve been taking care of my skin for the type that it used to be as a teenager and I need to reeducate myself as to what will serve my skin best.
When it comes to make up I am so lazy. I usually cannot be bothered putting any on and I’m quite glad that I don’t have a reliance on it. That said, there’s an element of creativity in make up that I’m really drawn to and I’d love to try and be more adventurous with my make up looks from time to time (and for me, just wearing some eyeshadow is probably adventurous so don’t expect the world – haha!).

6. Start learning French again
This is one that is on the eternal bucket list. Any other language really but my first love is French and I made some strong head-way with that one when I was in school. I loved studying French and I was pretty good at it, up until Scottish Higher level. I wanted to continue studying it at university but with having a joint honours course, there wasn’t a way I could fit it in. I find that I’m still decent at reading and recognising the language but I’m far too rusty to keep up to speed in listening and speaking. Maybe I need to find an actual French class to go to… I will look into this.

7. Find new music to listen to
I listen to the same albums on repeat and for the most part, they are musicals. Whilst I am happy this way i gotta push myself to find new things to listen to. I’m trying to rediscover my love for music. For a long time when I was teaching and choreographing so much music started to feel like a chore and I retreated into the world of podcasts far more but I’m ready to experiment and awaken my love for genres in addition to MT!

That’s more than enough to be getting on with for now, but we’ll maybe review halfway through the year and I can check on myself whether I’m actually progressing with my goals, and my Goodreads challenge I suppose.

What are your goals for 2020?