Setting New Year’s resolution is a really, really fun thing to do. Grabbing nice, lined paper with good and fine coloured pens and writing out all my goals for the year to follow is a doorway into a dreamland for me; through the door I see a more fulfilled and better version of myself. Over the course of January, I start to become that version, a new person. But I only ever start to become it.

            Life gets in the way – that’s a standard, basic and bullshit excuse but it rings true. Work, school, friends, family; it’s not always easy to write two thousand words a day or hit the gym for more than an hour at a time in the evenings when you have to balance all of these elements as well. Resolutions are often things you have to make time for and making time for things sucks. Why clear out all the time it takes to cook in mass healthy food when you could buy a pizza and watch a movie with a friend?

            Before NaNoWriMo last year (yeah, 2018 is last year now, how fucked is that?) I really thought I’d struggle to write 2k words a day because I didn’t have the time, but then I made it. Because of that, I think my biggest 2019 resolution is make time for things.

            Admittedly, I’m not the biggest reader about which is a crime that I am completely ashamed of! I used to read tonnes when I was younger but since starting university, reading became a bit of a chore for me and my book intake slowed the fuck down. This year, I’m making time for reading and I’m shooting for a book a week to read. I know I can do it because I did it for a month or so in 2015. I’m starting with university reading and then in the Summer I’ll be happy knowing I can read whatever the fuck I want. I’m starting the year with No Mean City, which is for an English class I’m taking called the Glasgow Novel. I’m really enjoying it so far!

            I also want to write seven thousand words a week. That’s not one thousand a day (well, logically it is), it’s seven thousand a week. If I happen to not write a thousand a day that’s fine – I’ll make up for it another day when I have more time and inspiration. If I happen to write way more than a thousand words in a day, then that’s great! And my words will be anything from blog posts to essays to short stories, which I plan to write a ton of this year.

            Money wise, I’m going to play the game smarter. I’m going to implement no spend days into my weeks, maybe one or two a week. On these days, as the name implies, I’m going to spend no cash at all – no new books (since I have plenty of unread books to fill the New Year with) and no bad snacks I don’t need. In trying to save and be better with money I’m also going to only use cash and use card payments as little as possible. I’ll spend the money I’ve got on me and that’s it and hopefully I’ll save a few pennies while I’m at it.

            Cosmo alerted me to a money saving challenge – save a penny one day and a penny more each following day and by the end of the year you’ll have £600 by the end of the year when you save £3.65 on the last day. Today, on the third day of the year, I have 6p saved for this challenge!

            I have some very standard resolutions – eat better and be more active. In attempts to eat better I’m going to cut way down on sugar by replacing my favourite drinks with their sugar free counter parts and eating less sweet things too. In the Summer I went to the gym like, three or four times a week which was hard to keep up with when uni started back. I’m going to try going once a week at least again, and more if I can. I enjoy working out a lot but taking a week or two out can really stiffen me back up.

            Also, I’m going to start waking up at 6am every day. I did it for a while in September and I loved the early mornings and full days but a good sleep got me one day and wouldn’t let me go again.

            There are a few odd things I want to do this year as well – I want to make headway in learning to drive so I aim to pass my driving test. Me and my boyfriend want to move in together. I want to make some headway in writing scripts and enter more competitions and submit my stuff for publication more.

            Mostly, I just want to be good. I want to be kind and fair and be someone I can be proud of. I want to be more confident and get out my comfort zone now. I want to let more people in and get out more. 2018 left me feeling fulfilled in a happy relationship and with some good work behind me. I really want to hone in on that in 2019 and make myself and everyone around me proud too.