The past year was a fantastic but definitely unpredictable twelve months.
In the first few months of the year I felt strong and unstoppable – I smashed my half marathon goal time at Brighton, committed to a weekly yoga practise and was feeling all kinds of balanced and awesome. I joined Classpass, flitted around the different studios in London and felt like a “proper” fitness blogger.
Then I got made redundant. When you’re single, living alone and balancing mortgage, bills and living costs this is pretty stressful, not to mention knocking your confidence. After a horrible few weeks of not knowing what was going on, including having to interview for my own position and continue working as if nothing was wrong, I made the decision to apply for jobs in the health and fitness industry.
One month later, I joined an awesome team of ladies as an Account Executive in a Fitness PR agency. I have spent the last six months learning the ropes, being promoted, training my replacement and generally loving working with lots of health and fitness clients who share the same passion as I do for helping people stay active and get fit.
It is a much more time-consuming career however, and somewhat ironically I have struggled to balance the longer days, never-ending list of tasks and smaller office with healthy eating and keeping active.
Add to this an annoying knee injury, which essentially came on during Brighton Half Marathon and hasn’t gone away since, and the last few months of the year were pretty lazy.
2016 is a chance for me to develop a routine, and get back to feeling fit and confident!
My word for 2014 was STRONG, 2015 was BELIEVE – which I think I did really, believing in my ability to get a half marathon PB, and to make a pretty drastic career change.
This year my word is:
FOCUS
I find it all too easy to get distracted – whether that’s by social media, when I’m trying to write a blog post or by other people’s success when I’m trying to forge ahead with my own. Focusing on FOCUS (ha!) will hopefully allow me to really pay attention to my own health, career and relationships in 2016, and bring some clarity to what I want to achieve.
“Always remember, your focus determines your reality” – Star Wars.
2016 GOALS
- To focus on my knee rehab, commit to the exercises and get the problem under control
- To focus on a regular achievable fitness routine that works for me, and not worry about keeping up with other people, so I can run another half marathon and take on some cycling races
- To focus on my new career and take every opportunity presented to learn and grow
- To focus on my finances, and budget appropriately according to my smaller income (and maybe afford a beach holiday somewhere hot!)
- To focus on my friends and family, spend time nurturing relationships that make me happy, and not waste time on those that don’t
- To focus on my health and wellbeing to create a better work-life balance, taking my lunch breaks and getting to bed earlier
- To focus on eating a healthier, fresher diet with less treats and evening snacking
I know that these are pretty general so I will be breaking them down into monthly targets, as I did at the start of 2015. Stay tuned for January’s Goals!
What word would you choose for 2016?
