How I like to reflect and plan over the new years period.
Happy new year folks. It’s the end of 2020, something I know a lot of you have been looking forward to. I used to find the new year period quite difficult. Like a lot of people, I felt under pressure to make new year’s eve a big event where I’d celebrate everything I’d achieved over the preceding year, and toast in all the exciting things that would happen throughout the year to come. Ultimately, I’d find the whole thing both underwhelming and overwhelming at the same time. I’d feel like I hadn’t achieved ‘enough’, I’d compare myself to others and find myself lacking, and I had no idea how to make my next year ‘better’.
Now, I don’t put any pressure on new year as a single night and I use the whole period as a time of reflection and forethought. Hopefully that doesn’t sound too pretentious or airy fairy! As part of that process, I write a list. Basically, I love writing lists, I love having things to tick off and I love having something to look back on. Lists help me to keep my blinkers on to what I’m doing, what I want and what I have achieved. It’s not fool proof and of course I still find myself making unhelpful comparisons, but it goes some way to helping me keep focus.
For the past 2 years I’ve written a list of 100 things that I want to do over the new year. I originally got the idea from Countryfile magazine (I think) where they suggested a list of 100 nature focused things to do over the coming year. I decided I wanted to make my own broader list. In the first year (2019) I only managed to do 20 out of my 100 things and last year (2020) I managed to do 62 of them. I start compiling it around the beginning of December and I really enjoy mulling over the kind of things I would like to do or perhaps achieve over the coming year. I wouldn’t call it a bucket list and it’s certainly not a list of things I HAVE to do or SHOULD do, it’s more a tool to help me focus throughout the year on what’s important to me. What’s important to me could be as simple as dedicating some time to idly cloud-watch or as complex as figuring out which types of pollen are in my honey (I didn’t manage that one)! Just from these two years I’m learning that I almost always fail to reach fitness goals and yet I’m still moved to create them, I think I have more money than I do and I think I have more ‘free’ time than I actually have!
I would definitely encourage you to have a think on your own list and if you can’t manage to think of 100 things just make a shorter list. As a guide I’ve provided my 2020 list with a few comments and photos. The first 62 things are those that I managed to achieve and the 48 things that follow are those that I didn’t.
This year I had to make some changes because, well…the pandemic! A few months in I realised many of the goals would be impossible or irresponsible to aim for, so I made some new and more home and Aberdeenshire based goals, plans and aims. The original things are still shown below but crossed out, with the new 2020 friendly goal listed beside it.
- Visit
105 Aberdeenshire castles. (Banff castle, Crathes castle, Knock castle, Findlater castle, Abergeldie castle, Abergain castle. Also, Kinord castle and the Peel of Lumphanan but I wasn’t sure if they counted!)
2. Read 12 Books. (1. The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide, 2. The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski, 3. The Outrun: A Memoir by Amy Liptrot, 4. Better Recovery From Viral Illness by Darrel O. Ho-Yen, 5. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeymoon, 6. The History of Bees by Maja Lunde, 7. Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Lon-Distance Swimmer by Lynne Cox, 8. The Five: The Lives of Jack the Ripper’s Women by Hallie Rubenhold, 9. The Hormone Diaries: The Bloody Truth About Our Periods by Hannah Witton, 10. She Speaks: The Power of Women’s Voices by Yvette Cooper, 11. Louis Pasteur book, 12. Untamed by Glennon Doyle.)
3. Keep up to date with bee research.
4. Write monthly blog posts.
5. Climb a mountain. (Carn na Leitire in Abriachan.)
6. Take my Holiday.
7. Visit Ramsey. Do some natural dyeing.
8. Dye hair. (August: pink balayage, December: blonde balayage.)
9. Open a new savings account.
10. Visit Muir of Dinnet – Burn o Vat. (With Yvonne from Tarland beekeepers in January.)
11. Climb Bennachie (12/9/20).
12. Go on a boat trip. Finger or hand crochet something. (Blanket).
13. Get a facial. Research family history.
14. Visit Banff and Macduff.
15. Visit the Black Isle.
16. Make margaritas.
17. Get some sea monkeys.
18. See a red squirrel.
19. Raise a kombucha SCOBY.
20. Find 5 geocaches (orginally 10). (Mostly around Nairn.)
21. Go to the Isle of Skye.
22. Visit St. Machar cathedral. (Even went for a tour around the conservation work.)
23. Grow an avocado plant.
24. Sew something.
25. Paint something.
26 .Book Chernobyl trip. Make a macrame wall hanging.
27. Write a paper – publishing it doesn’t matter. (Completing my second year PhD assignment which counted in my eyes!)
28. Go to the Den and the Glen. Carve a turnip/pumpkin.
29. Complete a cross stitch.
30. Needle felt something.
31. Bake a cake.
32. Lie on a beach. (Hmm, I mean I did lie down on a beach BUT it was very cold and I had a lot of layers on. Not quite what I had in mind!)
33. Go on an Aberdeen tour. Climb Scolty hill.
34. Visit St. Andrews. Crochet something.
35. Learn more about Aberdeen’s history.
36. Make a Christmas wreath.
37. Visit a seabird colony. Fill your flat with plants. (I guess ‘fill’ is open to interpretation but I did by A LOT of plants this year!)
38. Monitor health better. (This one is also very open to interpretation but I feel like I did this.)
39. Stop and smell the roses.
40. Work a 9 – 5 (as opposed to overwork.)
41. Stand up for yourself. (I’m still working on this but I stood up for myself more I think.)
42. Celebrate your achievements.
43. Get another piercing.
44. Give a talk.
45. See an otter.
46. Learn more about politics. (I kept very up to date for a while and it made me really, really anxious!)
47. Do a jigsaw.
48. Have a day with an average resting heart rate below 50 (I have quite a low heart rate anyway! I think the lowest average HR for a day this year was 48).
49. Stroke a cat.
50. Complete a yoga challenge.
51. Drive a car.
52. Complete a 365 picture challenge.
53.Go to the theatre.
54. Go for a fancy afternoon tea.
55. Have a decent Sunday roast.
56. Go to a Highland show. ID 10 flowers.
57. Write a letter with a fountain pen.
58. Do some origami.
59. Buy a ring and wear it. (I really don’t like my hands so this is more of a challenge than it sounds.)
60. Go camping. (With parents in a campervan – it counts!)
61. Skim stones.
62. Watch a sunset.
The following 48 things I didn’t manage to do!
63. Keep up to date with M.E. research. (I started to do this, but it was really depressing so I stopped.)
64. Wear high heels…just once.
65. See whales or dolphins or porpii!
66. Go to a spa. Make a rope knot mat.
67. Get nails done.
68. Get a massage. Gamble 1ps and 2ps at an arcade.
69. Visit Loch Muick.
70. Visit Abroath.
71. Find out what pollen’s in my honey.
72. Swim in the sea.
73. Make mead.
74. See grandad. ID 5 spiders to get back into it. (Only did one!)
75. Get back into yoga.
76. Go on a ghost tour. Walk the Belties route in Tarland. (We went but did the wrong walk!)
77. Learn some Gaelic.
78. See a contemporary dance. Make another Winogradsky column.
79. Get to know Aberdeenshire whiskies.
80. Visit Forsinard.
81. Make a terrarium. (I tried to make a bog biome but nothing thrived, everything struggled so I scrapped it and now I’m turning it into a fish tank.)
82. Go to a conference. Nail forearm stands.
83. Climb Arthur’s seat. Whittle something.
84. Go in a hot tub.
85. ID ‘some’ mosses.
86. Nail crow pose.
87. Re-learn sailing knots.
88. Dancer without an aide.
89. Run somewhere – any distance.
90. Have a bonfire.
91. Meditate ‘regularly’. (I meditated more than last year but definitely not ‘regularly’.)
92. Cook more. (I can’t remember how much I cooked the year before but I definitely didn’t cook as much as I intended!)
93. Dance often. (Again, I danced more than previously but I wouldn’t say it was ‘often’.)
94. Eat less meat and dairy. (Yeaaaah, no.)
95. Do the splits.
96. Go to a BBQ or have a BBQ.
97. Bathe/paddle/swim in fresh water.
98. Reach level 1000 in game.
99. Go to the Shetlands. Make a sourdough starter.
100. Make a monkey’s fist doorstop.
So, there you go. My 2020 ‘100 things’ list. If you make your own I’d love to know the kind of things you put on it and if by the end of 2021 you’ve found it helpful.
Happy new years and here’s to 2021!
In A Kingdom By The Sea 