Happy New Year to you all!

I’ve had a hectic Christmas but am back in Birmingham and trying to revise for my two exams at the end of next week.

The start of a year always gives me a good chance to look back over the previous year and look forward to the new one. I am, however, not one to make specific new year’s resolutions in January. I tend to set myself various small and big goals throughout the year, some with a set deadline and others more open-ended. Often, it takes me until March/April to even sit and write anything down – this gives me time to see how the year is unfolding.

I usually focus on these areas of my life:

• work and career
• personal and family
• personal development (uni falls into this one)

The goals can be anything from aiming to complete a course or learn something new to making more of an effort to keep in touch with friends who don’t live close by to reading the book I got given for Christmas. If I don’t achieve something by the next new year, I don’t see it as a failure – but it is useful to look at why I didn’t meet the goal (time and money tend to be the main barriers here so I use this to help me be smarter with my finances and how I organise my time going forward).

At the moment, the only goal I have is to finish uni! The rest of the year remains unwritten and I can’t wait to see what it’ll bring…