Goals for 2015

I know we’re over halfway through January now, but I reckon it’s not too late to write a post about what I’d like to achieve in 2015. I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions, purely for the fact that I know I won’t stick to them, but in a moment of inspiration and motivation I came up with this year’s list.

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YouTube

I’ve had a YouTube channel for a few years now and started to upload videos of songs I’d written when I was much younger after a friend convinced me to share them. They’re not amazing, but it was fun to record and upload them, when I had expected them to never be heard by anyone. Also, I know my friends and family watch them when they’re missing me, which makes me feel happy.

Basically, I haven’t uploaded any videos in years and I want to get back into it again. I have recordings of previous concerts (even though they might be pretty bad quality) and I’m asking for a good camera for my birthday in April, so hopefully I’ll be able to upload some stuff fairly soon.

Get healthier, fitter and more flexible

I’ve gone through phases of having this sort of diet-plan thing (not really), where I would only allow myself the weekend to eat junk food. (Any more strict a diet than that and I would be sure to fail!) As of today, I’m starting that again, and might even extend it to the full 40 days of Lent, when it comes around (though that’s not certain yet!). When I do this plan, I always feel like I have more energy, I sleep better and just feel happier in general, so I want to stop myself giving into temptation and keep it up for most of the year at least.

As well as this, I want to get fitter. All my flatmates are really good runners and I’m very jealous. I also watched the film Fast Girls which was on the telly recently, and that inspired me to start running as well. I’m really bad at running – both physically and stamina-wise – but I really want to give it a good go. If not, I’ll need to think of something which is equally as good for cardio workout –– suggestions welcome!

Also, during November and December I was singing and performing in a children’s puppetry show of the book, Beegu (for very little kiddies) and as I’d never done puppetry before, I found the whole process very demanding – especially physically. I was using muscles I’d never properly used before and I found that I had to stretch at every opportunity (usually between 2 and 4 times a day) to stop myself from constantly aching. Now, I’ve never been a flexible person – Wendy was most certainly not bendy! I couldn’t even touch my toes – but I found that by the end of the run I was way more flexible than I had been previously and I actually found stretching enjoyable and quite satisfying (as I was finally getting results from it). I’ve continued this as much as I can over the past few weeks (though it has been tough for various reasons, as mentioned in my previous post) and have decided to set myself the goal to be able to do the splits by the end of the year. I think that I’ll only be able to do the scissors splits (I think that’s what it’s called?) but not the middle splits as the bone structure in my legs means my knees don’t seem to physically be able to go back (like they would in ballet pliés). As I’m actually seeing results from keeping it up, I hope I manage to stick to it and achieve my goal.

Flute

I started teaching myself flute in August and have made it to half-way through the second book in the set that I’m using to learn. I want to keep this up, start getting actual lessons and work towards an exam (maybe grade 5) to motivate me.

European languages

Taken from Google Images

I learnt German and French at high school, then went on to work at a distillery giving tours in English and German (and sometimes French). Since then, I’ve lost a lot of the vocabulary and confidence I had and I want to get it back. I’m going to set myself monthly goals to reach certain stages of vocabulary for both German and French as well as trying to speak them to my fluent friends. And I also have a resource which will help me to learn other European languages such as Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian – all of which I’d like to give a go!

Other than general life and work goals (which I’ll keep to myself), these are my main ones for 2015. What are yours? I love reading other people’s, so let me know if you’ve got a post on your resolutions or goals for 2015 and I’ll definitely have a read.

Wendy x