New Year's Resolutions for 2023

The reason I am ditching New Year’s resolutions for goals this year for 2023.

As the clock struck midnight on New Year’s, I made my way outside onto the street, outside my house, to watch all the fireworks.

Our neighbourhood goes off every new year. Although fireworks for the general public are illegal here in Australia, that doesn’t stop anyone from firing off a few from their backyard at new years.

While watching the fireworks, I made a decision, and a promise to mysewlf. I will no longer make resoilutions, but instead focus on yearly goals.

Like all of you I’m sure, I work hard every year as a freelance content creator. And every year I learn from mistakes made the previous year, to ensure I improve on how I manage my business for the new year ahead.

And like most of you, I set resolutions, and barely achieve any of them.

But why? My theory is, we can not predict what the future holds and what the year ahead is going to bring. And if we have learned anything from the last 3 years, it’s that every day is entirely unpredictable, everyday brings something new and different. A reminder that life is fluid, like water, ever changing and ever moving.

So this year, I am working on personal goals and achievements for my business. A far more workable model to follow, that trying to set unrealistic resolutions, which will most likely get forgotten or lost in life throughout the year.

What are the goals?

Well, if you must know, I’ll let you know.

Get my body back in shape. After 3 years of uncertainly, and then some, i have struggled with my weight since turning 40 in 2020 – something I was warned about. It’s been up and down. As soon as we rolled into the 1st January, I began my clean eating journey. No dieting here. It;s all about finding better balance with my food, and going back to my high in green vegetable diet, less processed food, cut back on the baking and explore new recipes to help keep me motivated to stay healthy.
Take more road trips. If you follow my instagram, you will see that i over the last 3 years I have rescued a lot of cats from my neighbourhood. And although I love them all so dearly, bringin daily joy (and cuddles), they are a huge comittment in life, leaving little time for me to have downtime. I am aiming to close in the backyard, so I can have some flexibility for more travel. They won’t be locked up when I am home. But I will lock them away when I want to travel, so they are easier for family to feed and look after when travelling. And before you judge, the backyard is massive, with plenty of fresh air and sunshine, plenty of shelter from bad and hot weather and I have cat houses, trees and other great hiding places where they all go to sleep most nights and sometimes in the day too. Plenty of toys to keep them occupied. It’s a great space, and for a few days, they will be safe and happy whilst I am away.
Create more business freedoms. This is something I am forever working on every year since starting my freelance gig and then becoming a business owner last year – officially. If you could have seen me when I first started, I was working around the clock and working long hours, trying to earn money left right and centre and making myself way too available for work with my slow growing client base. As the years flew past, I learnt to adapt better, create better business boundaries and worked on allowing better rest time for myself. Last year was a great improvement compared to previous years. So this year, I am going to work on that more. This means, early morning rises, getting started on what needs to be done to get the job done for clients instead of starting later in the day – which is what i was doing last year.. And then try and switch off earlier in the day so I can have more freedoms to enjoy the things I like, like content creating of reels for instagram, trying out new beauty products and spending time with family and friends, without the need to race off back to working again when I am out.

As you can see, instead of setting 20 resolutions for the year, I am focusing on life and business goals that are far more achievable for the year, as a real focal point on what to manage for the year.

And along the way, I plan to have fun and enjoy life, whilst trying not to sweat the small stuff.