'Tis the season for celebration, ‘tis the season for reflection. As we recover from all the food comas and festivities and the end of another year draws closer, December always marks a time for me to reflect on the year gone by.
Unlike most years where I may have some New Years resolution I would decide to work on, this year I started off the year following Lavendaire’s "Artist of Life" workbook. I had originally bought it as a gift to hopefully help guide someone else to have more direction in their life, but instead ended up going through it myself. And though I was not able to keep up with the month to month tracking, it was still good to see what I had originally set out to do for myself and whether or not I was able to achieve them.
“This year, my theme for 2018 was all about self love: to take care of my health and well-being, personal development and revitalise my creativity. ”
My main goals were to:
Have a balanced life
Increase health and wellbeing
Be financially stable with steady growth of savings and investments
More adventures
More creativity and personal projects
If you follow the workbook it also further breaks down goals into subcategories: health goals, relationship goals, career goals, personal growth goals, creative goals, spiritual goals, home goals, money goals, adventure goals and your ultimate life goals. It can be overwhelming but sometimes it's good to have a guide to follow. It asks you questions that really challenges you to think a little bit deeper about how you want to build your life and what direction you want to take. I always find that writing things down forces you to structure your thoughts and provides something to refer back to and keep yourself accountable.
Looking back at my goals now, I can happily say that I managed to achieve most of them (the main ones at least).
A balanced life
I believe the key to a happy life is balance. There are so many aspects which contributes to your overall happiness that you cannot just focus on just one thing, but instead need to look at your life more holistically. That’s probably why you shouldn’t just have one New Years resolution, otherwise you may neglect other aspects of your life that also needs attention. For me, balance meant being able to manage my time across work; relationships (including social gatherings); me-time to look after myself, nourish my soul and pursue passions; and have control and responsibility of my adulting duties, maintaining an orderly household and planning for the future.
Ever since my move away from working at agencies, my focus has been less about climbing corporate ladders, but more work life balance. This year career wise I had transitioned through three different roles. I started out as a digital producer, took on a product manager role and now working in local government. Now that I have found a job that is so much closer to home and with benefits of accruing time off, I've gotten back so much more time that I can focus on life outside of work.
Increased health and wellbeing
Late last year I had come across this app called "Fabulous" which emphasised the importance of routines to motivate and improve productivity. Admittedly I had only gone through the first morning routine because I was too frugal to pay for a subscription, but it did instil the healthy morning habit of drinking water as the first thing you do when you wake up, and exercise. I’ve managed to stick to drinking lemon water nearly every morning as well as do a quick yoga routine to wake up the body in preparation for the day. I have barely been sick this year - only feeling off the 2 weeks post flu vaccine - so I’d like to attribute a stronger immune system to the increased vitamin C intake.
This year I also took up lunch time soccer to help with cardio, and workouts at the gym involved more body weight and calisthenics exercises as well as balance and flexibility. You can read more about my YouTube workout inspirations here.
Wellbeing is not only physical, but also mental. At the beginning of the year I was curious about the concept of mindfulness. I listened to an audiobook called "Mindfulness in Plain English" by Bhante Gunsratana, which went through what it meant and why you would want to be mindful. I was inspired by the concepts of having awareness in peaceful calmness - the zen of being able to hone your focus on just your breath and to accept things as they are. What is, is. I have yet to set time for proper practice of mediation but I do remind myself to be mindful. I’ve generally become a lot less stressed which does wonders for your mental health.
Financial stability
Between losing jobs whilst paying for a wedding and honeymoon and at the same time trying to get a loan, last year was a bit of a strain in terms of finances. For most of this year I was also still on a contract role. Since I’m planning for the long term, I needed a permanent job. Though I could have extended my contract in my previous role that earned more, security and time were my biggest concerns for employment. I am lucky to have found this in my current role.
In terms of savings and investments, this year we saw the completion of our investment property and we have been able to get some tenants in. This has eased the burden of having to pay off 2 two mortgages for the first half of the year. We haven’t saved as much as we would have liked but I would attribute a significant part of that the the trips that we have taken which we had already agreed was something we would splurge on before kids came into the picture.
More adventures
I am fortunate to have done a lot of travelling this year.
Over the Easter long weekend we managed to squeeze in a day trip to Brisbane to check out the construction of our investment property and confirm it was indeed real. We then spent the next few days camping at Gambells Rest near Bundanoon.
In May we jetted off to Hawaii for two weeks. It wasn’t on our original plan but with cheap tickets, why not? With minimal expectations it turned out to be such an amazing trip and way better than we imagined.
Winter saw us on a snowboarding trip in Queenstown. We used to go to the snow every year but had to skip the last two years to save up for the wedding. I had visited New Zealand a few years ago in the summer time, but it is so much more magical in the winter with those snow capped mountains.
The view from the Remarkables overlooking Queenstown.
To celebrate our anniversary we went glamping at Paperbark Camp in September and then taking the opportunity of being free and unemployed, I flew over to Adelaide for a week to visit my dad.
My travel bug was definitely satisfied this year.
Creativity and personal projects
This year I wanted to reignite my creativity. There is something so satisfying about being able to have created something with your own hands. So, in January my sister challenged me to learn watercolour. Of course I took it on and what I've produced has become some of my proudest work this year. Not just because I made them, but the joy it brings to those who receive my work as gifts.
This year I had the honour of helping to organise my friends baby shower where I helped to create a foliage backdrop for the woodlands themed party. Made out of branches and leaves I found in front of my house, it was something so different that I had never tackled before, but was so much fun to design and put together.
This blog was born out of the desire to find my voice and has become a creative outlet for my writing. I'm glad that I've managed to still keep it up.
Lastly, I managed to edit one video about our Barcelona leg of our honeymoon, but unfortunately that was as far as I got. I'm now so far behind with a growing backlog, I'm not sure if I'll ever catch up.
Other highlights that have brought me joy:
First wedding anniversary
Adopted Chippy
Attended one wedding
The birth of two friend's babies
Two baby showers
Two further pregnancy announcements
Two 1st birthdays
Three 30th birthdays
Two musicals
One concert
Three A-League games
Four Books
Got into podcasts and audio books
Discovered FI
Discovered BTS and Blackpink and got back into K-Pop
Zelda Breath of the Wild on Switch - still haven't finished it but it made my long commutes a lot more enjoyable
Gave more love to our balcony space and it's become a much nicer place to spend time outdoors
Garden is doing so much better this year
Lowlights and things to work on:
From cracked windscreens, busted alternators and rear end bumps, we haven't had too much luck with our car this year.
Training Chippy, who's been an outdoor untrained dog for 10 years, has been challenging
Need motivation to work on editing my trip videos
Continue practicing Konmari so that I can get to minimalising my sentimental items.
Still feeling like I scroll through social media too much even when there's nothing there.
Now that I have thought about it, for a transitional year I've done quite a bit and have so much to be grateful for, and thankfully, not any significant lowlights. Here's to another fulfilled year in 2019!
