Reflections on 2012

Well, well, well, what a year of highs and lows! I started to write a post which ran through all of the goals I set myself this time last year and tallied up my progress against them and then I realised that those goals aren’t as relevant as they used to be.

At the beginning of 2012 I was pretty darned miserable so I set myself a whole bunch of goals to achieve to distract myself from the reality of being so blue. I can’t lie, the goals were good and working towards some of them means I’ve had a great time; I’ve seen far more theatre shows than I usually do in a year and I did manage to leave the country 3 times but actually I failed on a number of those goals because I was too busy just living my life.

This year, 2 really significant things have happened to me. The first is that my ex and I split up. Initially this sounds bad and it was painful but from where I stand now, it’s a purely positive thing as it’s given me a whole new perspective on that relationship which will really help me in future. I still don’t regret that relationship at all and I thank my ex wholeheartedly for being such an amazing person, he taught me a lot about myself and gave me all the confidence I needed to get to where I am now.

The second really significant thing that happened to me is that I have made a career change, fuelled by the confidence my ex has given me 🙂 I’ve only just started on my new path but providing I succeed, it’s going to open a lot of doors for me in 2013 and it’s finally given me that feeling of independence I have been craving for years.

So for 2013 I do have goals and things to achieve but the main thing for me is to hold on to the feeling I have right now. The last 3 months of 2012 have seen incredible change in my life and now I feel happy, in control and really excited to move into 2013 with all the fabulous friends around me who shared the highs and lows of 2012 🙂

Bring it on! In a week I will be sat at my desk shattered from an amazing weekend in Paris and in a year I will be an auntie for the first time! I can’t wait to see what the next 12 months hold!

Enjoy the last day of 2012 everyone and I’ll see you in 2013 for the best year yet! x

Rewind Festival (Henley) 2012

I did it! I finally went to a festival! When I say festival, I mean a civilised one and when I say I went, I mean I went for both days but I went home overnight to sleep and wash, etc. but still, I did it! My festival of choice was the Rewind 80s festival in Henley and my festival partner of choice was my daddy 🙂

The festival was last weekend and we had some crazy hot weather for it; I don’t think I’ve ever been so hot as I was on the Saturday, I even had to sit down for Right Said Fred – sorry Fred! What was great about this festival was not only that it was pretty civilised as most people there were my dad’s age but it was pretty easy to get to the front right by the stage so we could actually see the acts. There was also some pretty tasty food on offer and I very much enjoyed chowing down into some goat curry on the Saturday. Anyhow, I had some great retro fun and I thought I’d share some of my pics. They’re taken with my phone so they aren’t amazing but I like them and if you are thinking of going along, I’d highly recommend you get tickets for this next year 🙂

Sinitta with her So Macho dancers!

 

Tony Hadley giving it some

Adam Ant

OMD

Me as an Angry Bird

 

Hello 2012, Year of Financial Freedom and Travel

Being the imaginative individual that I am, I feel it necessary to write a post on my goals for 2012; just the same as most other bloggers out there have done or will do. I’m not so much calling these resolutions as goals because there is still a degree of flexibility in what I am about to set out, these are not hard and fast targets. This year I’ve spent more time than ever thinking about what I want out of next year, mainly because a lot has changed this year and I want to continue along that path next year. What I’ve really contemplated is what makes me happy. I’ve always been led to believe that money and material possessions make me happy; this is what others around me have noticed. Whilst I agree, I have also now worked out that to a certain extent this is incorrect or by now I would be starting to feel pretty darned happy when actually I’ve been feeling like something is still missing. Until now!

I’ve worked out that with me, material possessions do make me happy, but only the ones I really enjoy, not the ones I feel I should have to be happy. My case in point here is my car; I started 2011 driving my beloved 2004 Mini Cooper, or Reggie as he was affectionately known. Unfortunately, Reggie was getting on a bit and needed more and more expensive BMW repairs so we had to part ways and Frank joined me. Frank was a 2002 Fiat Punto, (orange no less!) who filled the time when I wasn’t sure which car to buy next. He was basic but reliable and I appreciated him every day apart from the one when he melted the Easter Egg I had spent days making for my bf before he even saw it. However, he was a temporary measure and soon came Stanley, (or Seamus as the bf calls him) my 2008 Vauxhall Corsa VXR. Now Stanley is a ball to drive, his acceleration is immense and he’s so small I always nip into those tiny gaps everyone else is too scared to fill. BUT… I haven’t warmed to him. I want my Mini back. I rarely get to use Stanley to his full acceleration capacity and whilst he has more knobs and dials than Reggie, I haven’t even bothered to look up in the book what these knobs and dials are or how to use them; I’ve had this car for 5 months now!

The Beloved Reggie

You may be wondering where this is going and questioning if you really care that much about my car to continue reading but here comes my point. I bought a faster, more expensive, generally flashier car and it didn’t make me happy. A year ago I would never have imagined this could be the case but I have lived and learned and now know myself a little better. So this year one of the things I plan to do is sell Stanley and find myself a new Reggie – the replacement may or may not be a Mini but it will definitely be cheaper than Stanley. Then, I will use the money I save to start paying off my credit card – yes, I seem to have matured in the last year and I can’t quite believe it.

Here are my goals for 2012 in full:

• Weight 9st7 (or less) by March – somehow have managed to reach 10st…oops!
• Weigh no more than 9st at the end of the year
• End the year with £3,500 credit card debt or less (fair chunk to pay off to reach that!)
• Read 10 new books
• Star in at least 1 theatre show
• See 12 theatre shows
• Spend 3 weekends away with the bf
• Eat in 6 new restaurants
• Leave the country 3 times
• Exercise for at least 1.5 hours per week (up from 0 hours)
• Make my eBay store self sufficient by June (i.e. have enough profit to buy next lot of stock)
• Have a trip to NY booked in (actually have at least deposit paid)
• Make and try 3 home made beauty products

Some of my goals are fairly ambitious but they are considered and I think they will lead to increased happiness so here’s hoping I’m right! Anybody got any suggestions or links they’d like to share to their own goals for 2012??? BIG LOVE, I’m super excited about 2012, it’s going to be a good one! x

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• Tips to Keep your New Year Resolutions in 2012 (moneyexpert.com)

How Do I Set Realistic Resolutions for 2012?

Like most people, at the end of one year I start thinking about the next and what I want to achieve over the course of that year. In the Western world at least, this is programmed into us from birth. Personally, I think a good starting point is reflecting on the previous year and what you have achieved to work out how you can build on that for the next. So here are some of my highlights from 2011:

• Jan – moved out from the parental home into a room in a shared house
• Feb – promotion at work
• Mar – completed run of Teechers at Progress Theatre
• Spring – sold my beloved Mini Cooper which kept breaking and bought a rubbish old Punto for cost savings (moment of previously unseen maturity)
• Spring – started my Candida blog
• June – moved back home for a month, before…
• July – moved into a house with the bf
• July – went on my first girly holiday
• July – sold rubbish old Punto and bought sexy Corsa VXR
• September – further pay rise at work
• October – took bf away for a holiday, (our first one) though just in the UK
• November – made redundant
• November – started eBay shop
• December – secured new job at big global company!

All in all, it’s been a pretty busy year and my bf was not wrong a year ago when he said 2010 had built the foundations for 2011. This year has been insane, so much has changed! However, you’ll notice a few steps backward along the way, as is often the case in life and it seems to be these that I dwell on. Despite having made significant progress towards my goals overall, I still feel like I have wasted my year and like I’m way behind my peers in sorting out my life. Now, I confess this is partly because I happen to have especially successful friends but actually, I think it’s mainly down to me.

The bf and I had a conversation about what we had achieved this year and he could clearly check off 2 of his 3 goals and has set similarly achievable goals for next year…as has my sister. These are both people who I admire for being “sorted”. I however realised that I never break down my goals, I simply have huge ambitions which I can never achieve in a year so I am left feeling like a failure when I don’t get there. The problem is that I’m so impatient that short of achieving all of my goals in one hit, I’m not sure what success for me will look like in 2012. How do I set myself some resolutions or goals for 2012 that I can actually achieve and still feel like I’m moving fast enough? What if I set the bar lower and still fail?

Is anybody out there good at setting personal goals and can offer me some advice or do most of us live this way? It’s a vicious cycle I’d like to break some I’m on the hunt for some advice from those who are in the know…I’ll let you know what I find! x