So hello, and welcome to the second post of 2018! (Yes I know there was meant to be a post on Saturday, but I don't think I'll be diving right into them just yet.) But today I wanted to have a chat about resolutions, new year intentions, goals, whatever ya call them! 

For me I like to start the year by looking at the last 365 days and seeing what I've achieved and not achieved at, then think about what I want to take forward into the new year and work on. I know a lot of people don't like the idea of New Year resolutions as the common idea is that you fail it within the first month, if not week. But for me I always try to make mine much more actionable and something I truly will try be exciting about achieving. 

This year, I decided I would note all my goals within my bullet journal and give myself some actionable points to be able to start achieving them. Most years I do kind of just write down whatever things I can think of but this year I took a much more level-headed approach by giving myself on goal for different areas of my life that are important to me like my personal creative development, what I want to be doing at work, and also things involving my health, finance and relationships. 

Laying it out the way I have (which was inspired by happily eve after) it gives me the opportunity to write down those actionable points I mentioned but also to give a space that I can mark off how I am progressing with them when it comes too April and then August. 

By doing all this I think this year I will be more successful in how I achieve my goals and the extent they'll be achieved as well. As a creative I think it's always important to strive to push yourself further not just creatively but in your regular life as well as what happens to you on an everyday basis can become the foundation for a new project or give a new perspective on an idea you have. 

Of course with goals though, you need to keep them somewhat manageable. Many times in the past I've strived to do the standard "loose X amount of weight" with no plan or steps to take, which is obviously going to end in failure. But it's good to give yourself some means to keep yourself accountable as in the end you'll be wanting to pursue that goal in order to keep ahead of the accountability. 

The last thing I wanted to touch on was something I've done for a few years, which is a word for the year. The idea for this is that you have a word that encompasses your goals, ambitions or feelings for the year ahead. It is a bit like giving yourself a mantra to follow throughout the months. For this year I've decided on the word "develop", largely because a lot of the goals I've chosen involve developing some aspect of myself or my life into something better. I also like the idea of using the word develop because one thing I'm aiming to do this year is to print off more photos on my sprocket that I got for Christmas and it obviously ties into the photography terminology. 

So what about you, have you got some goals for this year, has this post made you think that you need to add some actionable points to your goals? Or has it even inspired you to make a spread in your own bullet journal or even to give yourself a "word of the year"? If it has let me know below and we can have a chat about them!