A brand new page has opened before us as the New Year greeted us. Crisp and fresh and we… bring with us all the baggage from the last. It’s inevitable.

But how we handle that baggage and how we approach the coming year makes all the difference. If I had to choose a word for this new year, it would be ‘Change’.

Home & Personal Life

Home

We did actually manage to get a plan for the garden and get it started last year. Hopefully, we can continue to work on it this year (weather permitting).

The main thing this year (no, I’m not holding out hope on getting the kitchen done) is to Catify the house for our two terrors. This will hopefully stop them from trying to eat the lamps, hang from the wall-mounted TV (seriously) or pull down the large mirrors.

To Do:

• Catify the house
• Plan the kitchen
• Work on the garden

Personal

I’ve decided, it’s time to let go of some connections. For the last twenty years, I have attempted to keep in contact with some friends. However, these have continued to feel extremely one-sided and I’m no longer interested in being the one to always reach out first, and plan Zoom calls and meet-ups.

Everyone is busy. Life is one giant whirlwind that throws things at you constantly. But if in years, you still can’t find time to, for example, send a happy birthday text, a Christmas card or reach out for a quick check-in without someone always doing it first… Then that’s more than busy.

Sometimes we cling to things because of how they used to be. But sometimes you can be pouring into a bucket that never fills. After a while, the soul just gets tired. So I’m letting them go and using my time more wisely.

Health & Wellbeing

I am still planning to go to the gym at least twice a week (preferably 3 times) and I want to get back to walking every day. We hit an almost 100-day streak last year before I got the flu that put me on my butt. I’d love to try to better that. 🙂

One big issue I have is my phone. I have gone back to being on it too much! So that needs to change.

To Do:

• Renew gym membership
• Visit the gym at minimum twice a week
• Exercise 4 times a week
• Walk (almost) every day
• Cut out phone time (reduce by 50% what it currently is)

The Pod

The only goal I want to set for the Podcast is to reach 20,000 downloads. That’s a lot but honestly, we have been doing so well recently – might as well aim high.

To Do:

• Share all episodes on Pinterest (catch up to where we are at)

The Writing Desk

As of writing this, I have decided to submit The Blessed to the Page Turner Awards. It’s mostly about trying something new and allowing someone else to read my work. Sinc eI have a crippling fear of anyone reading it.

Also, I’ve decided to make this year a heavy writing year. It does mean other things will fall away, but I need to sacrifice some stuff to get back into my writing groove.

I am currently working on The Blessed book 2 and Storm. But I want 3 x manuscripts done by the end of the year (1st drafts). My third, I’m hoping will be book 1 of my Malory Warren series. I already have the small tasks planned out for actually completing these, so fingers crossed.

Dark Hart is going to one of my beta readers in January, as is. I’m not happy with it but I need a fresh pair of eyes. Even my partner has been immersed in that world for many years – I need someone who knows nothing about it to look over it.

I also want to run the Advent Calendar Story Train again. I’m actually going to be more prepared *laughs in delusions* by having a Google Form for participants that will allow them to sign up, and hopefully include ALL the information in one location for them. There will even be a nice spreadsheet for me to keep track of everything.

No idea why I didn’t do this earlier!

To Do:

• Submit to Page Turner Awards
• Complete A Coming Storm manuscript (at least draft 1)
• Complete The Blessed book 2 manuscript (at least draft 1)
• Complete Malory Warren book 1 manuscript (at least draft 1)
• Send Dark Hart to beta reader

BloggerLife

I want to make sure I’m posting one (non-podcast) post on this blog every month. I just can’t commit to more than that. I may do more, but I can’t add it as a goal.

In order to stay on track, I’m going to plan them so I know what I want to write and for which month.

Also, I want to look through the blog and clear up old posts as well as work on some new Pages even if they aren’t going to be launched yet.

To Do:

• Plan blog posts
• Tidy up old posts
• Create new pages

Biz-Ness

If no other surprises appear regarding regulations etc, I am hoping to do a little more with the business this year.

To Do:

• Create 6 new product lines
• Use Pinterest to drive more traffic
• Complete taxes in April
• Create a Christmas Time Plan to start it in August
• Work on a content calendar for social media

~ ~ ~

What I did do, was go back to last year’s “Hello” post and add in whether I completed what I had planned and I actually completed a lot! 🙂

I will also continue to create Kanban boards for my goals, as that has been super helpful throughout the last year.

What are your plans for 2025? Let me know in the comments.

Here’s to a great year, we hope 😉

Image sources: Canva

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