Hello 2016

Happy New Year! 😊 Sydney is one of the first cities to experience the new year because of timezones, and to be honest, having lived here my whole life, I couldn’t imagine it any other way. I’m quite used to it, and then waiting until the end of my day before greeting my European or American friends – be it for new year, Christmas, a birthday, or any other occasion.

We also seem to have the best and most famous fireworks in the world, with lots of people from other countries making their way down to see amazing fireworks. They cost a lot of money and they’re beautiful and the harbour views are too. However, after going to the harbour to attempt to see the fireworks a couple of years ago, I decided it was much better watching it on television. Or if you can get a vantage point at a higher altitude – which is possible in some of the city’s outskirts, or ‘suburbia’ – you can avoid the crowds. Last night I joined Nick and some of his cool friends for a low-key get-together.

In previous years, I recounted my previous year in my ‘Hello 20_XX_’ posts, but I did that a few days ago at the end of 2015 instead.

‘Resolutions’, goals, and similar things

It’s very cliche to write resolutions for the new year, and to be honest I like setting goals any time that is appropriate, but I feel like the new year is still a great place to, well, start. Like I believe Liz mentioned, I had stopped openly sharing my goals because there was always some pressure and a sense of disappointment that emerged if I blogged about it and didn’t commit very well to it. I feel like I’ve changed though. I have been thinking about the OKR approach which is quite common in some companies, and basing some of my goals around that.

For those unfamiliar with the concept of OKRs: In a nutshell, you form key goals that are measurable, but are a considerable stretch and that may be almost impossible to reach. The idea is that it requires a bit of a mindset change, in that you may write a goal to ‘travel to Pluto’ rather than ‘travel to the Moon’ because it is a harder goal you may not reach – however, if you tried to travel to Pluto, chances are that you would go further than you would have gone had you aimed for the Moon instead. And you’re doing something wrong if you 100% achieve your goals, in fact 40-70% is considered good.

Just a few things I have planned

I have some strange ideas and a few notes on what I have planned for the year:

• A trip to Melbourne at the end of January
• A trip around Europe and to Singapore in June-July
• A short trip to Indonesia in September for another cousin’s wedding
• I would like a nice 25th birthday bash, but maybe not as low-key as previous gatherings
• Trying to go through all my nail polish in a fun ‘52 weeks of nail polish’ project
• Gradually cleaning my wardrobe and buy no more than 8 items of clothing by June
• Still keeping away from buying more jewellery (I got a Pandora bracelet for Christmas so that’s my excuse to stop buying shit 😉)
• Attempting to go back to the gym or at least going for long walks on the weekends
• A bit of a detox in January for a few of my blogging ‘segments’
• Cleaning up the design of my blog (it feels like a continuous process indeed)
• Continuing to learn Italian (I finished Duolingo’s Italian but will keep practising)
• Experimenting with my own form of bullet journalling which I heard about from Manda (I did do a bit in the past couple of months but I’m still working with a way that works for me)

Last year I said I wanted to stay happy and learn how to say ‘no’, because succumbing to pressure or putting ourselves in ‘ouch’ situations isn’t cool. This year I want to try and focus on handling my negative emotions better, having patience, and taking my time. Taking my time is something I think I gradually improved in 2015, but this year I definitely want to make sure I feel on top of every day. 💪

Let’s all motivate each other this year – let me know what’s on your list! 😊

PS. My blog survey is still open, I’ll be writing about the results (and the changes I will make) next week but feel free to do it if you have a break between your festivities!