Happy New Year

the juliet report

Can you believe we are almost two weeks into 2017 already!! Wowza!

My first post for 2017 and I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year and say thank you for your ongoing support and love throughout 2016.

The beginning of a new year is a great time for reflection and appreciation for the year that has passed and also a great time to think about the future, or even just the year ahead.

Here's a quick little exercise:
Make a list, write a journal entry or a blog post, recapping all the highlights and lowlights of the year past. And then think about all the things you didn't have time for, or things you'd like to do more of, these things can form into your goals for 2017.

There's always so much hate regarding new years resolutions or goal setting and that makes me kind of sad, mainly because from my experience and my friends experiences, I've learnt that they are actually an important tool in realising your dreams, and help to make sure you have the chance to do all the things you love doing in your life. I'm reminded of this quote actually,

"When you fail to plan, you plan to fail".

It sounds kind of harsh, but I've found that even just having a vague idea of things to achieve, it keeps the important things in the top of your mind. If you know me I'm all for spontaneity and going with the flow, but looking back on 2016, I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't really take any trips or really spend any time doing things just for me, so that's something I'll make a conscious effort to improve on in 2017.

The other thing is, you don't have to wait for a new year to make new goals, it's just a good marker, but I have a friend who uses his birthday as his reflection point. My birthday is in July, so it's pretty much the halfway mark, and i've found I can use that marker to see how i'm going and see what i need to do to get closer to the goals, or even if I need to set new ones.

Last year I set my self the 100 Challenge: Read 100 books, watch 100 movies, make 100 recipes and try 100 places. I didn't really make it to 100 in any of the categories, but in each category I did more than I ever have in any other year. And so, yes, I didn't achieve my goal, but I don't really see that as failing. In 2016 I read 43 books ( the most I've ever read in a year before this was 20), I stopped keeping track of the others but the last numbers I tracked are: 37 movies, 32 places and 16 recipes.

I've decided I'm going to attempt this crazy challenge again this year. At a minimum I have to beat last years number, but I will try my best to achieve 100% in each category.

My other goal is to document each thing i read/watch/make/visit here in the blog, so that will take the form of either a dedicated blog post or Juliet Journal entry.

I'd love to know what challenges/goals/resolutions you've either set or would like to set for yourself this year, leave me a comment below so I can read them!