Happy New Year

 Happy New Year! It’s 2021 and like so many of you, I’m glad to see the back of 2020.

We’re starting the New Year in a Covid Quarantine. Debz tested Positive to Covid 19 on Boxing Day, having got it from a fellow worker. Luckily, the symptoms have hardly been noticeable and we’re grateful for that, but it means that we’ve got to stay inside until midnight on the 6^th of January.

I’m not one for New Year’s Resolutions, so I’ve not made any. Had I made some last year, I’d think I wouldn’t have achieved them after the ramifications of the last 12 months.

My abiding feeling from last year is of boredom and a lack of achievement. That’s not really true though because, during the first lockdown, I picked up my signwriter's paintbrushes again and started to fling some paint about, which started my creative juices flowing which pretty much led to me starting an online store selling prints that I’ve designed.

Nonetheless, I feel a bit underwhelmed with what I achieved over the year.

I read a lot of business, self-help and positive mental attitude books and during the summer I bought a book by an American artist, Austin Kleon in which he talked about building your art business, marketing it and tracking your results.

I signed up to his weekly newsletter and in one of those, he talked about some principles, one of which was tracking your weekly habits, and he promoted another writer, James Clear and his book ‘Atomic Habits.’

What he was talking about, piqued my interest as I’m not the greatest at following through on things I start. I work hard, but sometimes, if I don’t get the results I want and then my interest wanes.

On a whim, I bought the ‘Atomic Habits’ book and the writer was talking about how you can improve by working on your habits and instead of chasing your goals, work on  improvement of your habits by 1% on an ongoing basis.

This made sense to me. So instead of having goals and dreams that are too big to be attainable in the short term, which is what I normally do, I decided that this year, I’m going to make a serious effort to improve my habits.

Instead of going after big goals, I’m going to work day by day, on specific things that I know can improve me just by doing them.

I’ve bought a journal, and I’m going to track various activities that I’m sure will help me move forward this year. I’ve made a chart, and I’m pretty sure that once I start ticking off the activities and tasks I want to do, once I start to see the accumulation of crosses for each activity accomplished each day, it will motivate me to keep going.

What sort of things am I going to do? Nothing spectacular. Here are some examples.

I’m learning Spanish on the Duolingo app. I’ve already accomplished 1344 consecutive days doing it and what I’ve noticed is that because it shows me how many consistent days I’ve done, even when I don’t feel like doing it, I still do it because I don’t want to lose my run and for the consistent days tally to go back to 0. That reason alone keeps me going. I’m guessing that my Spanish is improving just because I’ve done it every day. And if it works in that way, then it can work for others.

As I said I read the kind of books I’ve mentioned above. I like them because they give me some positive input compared to what I read on social media for example, or in a newspaper where it’s negative for the most part. In the books, I actually learn tips and techniques that make me think positively about stuff. I read a lot, but not always every day. So I’m going to track my reading habits and try to become consistent and do it daily.

I’m bad for frivolously spending money I don’t need to spend. I’ll give you a perfect example. Last year, Debz asked me, one evening, if I could pop over our local supermarket and pick a loaf of bread and get some milk. I ended up spending £18 on bits and pieces...and forgot to get the bread!

So what I’m going to do this year is track what I’m spending. What I’m going to do is this. Say I’m browsing online and I see something that appeals to me, instead of buying it, I’m going to draw the money it would cost from my account and save it in a jar. I’ve got something in mind that I’d like to buy at around the £800 mark. Instead of dipping into savings to buy it, I’m going to put the money I’d have spent on spur of the moment buys, into a jar and when I’ve for the allotted amount I need, I’ll buy it with that money. I think it’s called delayed gratification.

Since I finished Slimming World last year when I’d lost 4 stones, I’ve been a bit lax with my eating habits and put a stone back on. As I’m getting older, I think I need to think about keeping a bit healthier. This year I’m going to track a few things such as making sure I drink 2lts of water each day, keep a check on my exercise routine as I pretty much stopped going out and walking when the Autumn came last year and it got a bit colder. Finally, I’m going to keep a check on my food intake as I’ve noticed all the bad habits I used to have are slowly re-emerging.

Putting a cross by each of those things each day will keep me ‘in the zone.’

There are other things I have on my list and by marking down each day when I’ve done them, I’ll know be able to visually see what’s being done (and improving), and what is not (which is not improving).  My hope is that once I start to get a few crosses in the boxes, as with Duolingo, I won’t to break the chain. By doing that in as many of the areas as possible, I think I should see some improvements in each area. And in the areas I don’t, I’ll either be able to get back on track, or I’ll decide that obviously, the task isn’t as important to me as I originally thought it was and then I’ll stop beating myself up over it and move on to something else.

I have to say, ‘Atomic Habits’ is an excellent book, very readable in bite-sized chunks, and it’s made me think about my days in a completely different way. I’m quite excited about seeing how it works out and I can’t recommend the book enough to you. If I achieve improvements in any of the areas I’ve decided to track, the book will pay for itself big time.

So that’s how my year’s starting. And by the way, writing my blog is another of the boxes I’ll be ticking at least twice a week!

As you can see, at the time of writing this, I've already completed three tasks today.

Feel free to let me know what you’re going to be doing this year.

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