With a new year comes the chance to look towards the next 12 months, and think about how you want the year to look. Like many of you, we like to think of the new year as a way to start fresh – a chance to think of goals, and set out to achieve them.
Our new home:
We’re planning to start putting our own stamp on our new house over the coming years, and this year our biggest focuses are to:
Completely renovate the bathroom
Renovate the kitchen to enhance the current space (until we can do a larger renovation in a few years’ time)
Tidy up the garden so that we can hopefully enjoy spending time in it once the summer months come around.
Overall for our house the goal this year is to start to make it feel like it really is ours. We’re extremely excited to start turning it into our forever home.
Health and fitness:
This is a big one for us this year, as it’s something we’ve let slide recently. We’re keen to start focusing more on our health, so our main goals are:
To drink more water, and not just when we’re thirsty.
To cut back on alcohol – we got really into making cocktails during lockdown, but we’d like to limit how many we’re making.
To go to bed at a more reasonable time – we’re both night owls, so staying up past 12 is a common occurrence – not the best thing when the alarm goes off the next morning!
We’d love to start incorporating more of a plant based diet into our lifestyle – perhaps a few times a week.
Finding an exercise routine, we actually enjoy – we’d love to eventually convert our garage into a small gym. But for now the plan is to just start moving!
Hobbies:
The combination of the winter months and lockdown have led to us spending more time than ever binge watching TV. We have a number of hobbies we’d love to pursue:
Reading more books – we were both avid readers growing up, but recently that’s slipped.
Getting more into our blog and social media sites – starting up the page last year was a real mood lifter for us both, and a way to remember our love of travel during lockdown.
Trying out new recipes, both sweet and savoury, as way to get out of a food rut.
If COVID restrictions allow for it – we’d love to explore more of Ireland.
It’s a lot of goals to set out for ourselves, and we may fall short on some – but we think setting it out in a list helps hold us accountable. Perhaps we’ll do a 6-month review in June!
Do you have any goals for the new year? If so what are they?
Stay safe!
Brianna and Iain.
Ireland & Elsewhere 
These are all admirably goals to set yourselves but I’d beware being too keen on ‘improving’, or changing, your life too much. OK, so drink a little less if you feel you’re overdoing it, but don’t go down the line of cutting out all pleasure, do more exercise but if it’s something you don’t really like doing then don’t try working out, just go for more walks and walk more quickly. Definitely read more, it’s a process in which you learn about the world and yourself but don’t increase social media, relationships with tablets and phones are fake and can lead to disappointment with your own life, meet real people with whom you can interact, OK cut back on binge watching (this will give you time to read more) but as night owls (as I am) going to bed early isn’t easy. I try – every so often – to cut back by 15 mins. a night but I find it creeps back up to my normal 2.00 am – so then I start again! So, good luck with all your plans for this year but remember to enjoy life as you do, don’t be a martyr to current advice from ‘wellness’ gurus, have a drink, some chocolate, stay up late (but not every night), take long walks and meet more people outside and above all, be good to each other. Cheers and slainte!
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Wishing you the best for 2021! Cheers to more book reads and a healthier lifestyle. Home renovation is exciting!
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Congratulations on your beautiful new home! It must be so exciting to think about furnishing and decorations. I’ve been watching Dream Home Makeover on Netflix, and it’s making me daydream about interior design. Can’t wait to see how y’all do up the place! All the best for 2021! 🙂
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