My Promises for 2020

Of course, the only way for me to start this post is by wishing you all a very Happy New Year, a Happy New Decade in fact! If you’re brand new to my little area of the internet, thank you very much for coming for a nose and I hope you stick around to see my future posts this year. If you’ve been here a while, thank you for coming back!

My inbox this week has been flooded with blog posts on 2019 reflections, 2020 goals and new years resolutions and I love seeing what other people have planned for the year as well as how they review their successes and achievements from the previous 12 months.

Usually, I’m quite partial to writing my own post talking all things reflections and plans, but this year I’ve decided not to share any of that just yet but I’ve made a few, more personal promises to myself and I’d like to share those instead. I’ve learnt a lot about myself in the last 12 months and these promises are derived from the core of what makes me happy and what helps me live my life in the happiest, most content way possible.

So in no particular order, let’s jump in…

I promise to worry less

I have always been the biggest worrier. The amount of time I spend worrying about things that never happen is just ridiculous and this, of course, takes a lot of energy and brainpower, but it also takes me away from the present moment. Therefore, I’ve made a promise to myself that in 2020 I will worry much less, stop thinking about events that might (but probably won’t) happen in the future and just go with the flow.

I promise to be kinder to myself

I am naturally a perfectionist and my own worst critic, almost to a fault because the things I criticise in myself I would never pick at another person for. I saw a quote about listening to how you talk to yourself and thinking about whether you would talk to a friend or family member in the same way and the truth is, I absolutely would not. So the promise here is to just be a lot kinder to myself, to catch myself before I speak words of criticism in my mind and to generally give myself a lot more credit for the things I do.

I promise to practice gratitude daily

This is something I started last year and I have been picking it up every few days whenever I feel the need to focus more on the positives, but in 2020 I plan to practice this every day regardless of how I’m feeling. The basic principle is just to think of a few things every morning or night that you feel grateful for that day and it’s amazing how uplifting it can be. I think as human beings we often tend to focus on the bad parts of life and are always comparing and looking to gain something that we don’t have but even on the worst days, there is something that you already have to be thankful for – so it can’t hurt to focus on these things a little bit more.

I promise to continue saying no

At times over the years, I have been such a people pleaser. I think part of me always wanted to make sure other people were happy so if there was anything I could do to help that, I would. Another part of me just always wanted people to think I was a nice person, so I would hate saying no to things in case it gave someone a negative view of me. They are of course, not bad things to want but everything needs balance and I was saying yes, to the detriment of my own wants, views and mental health for way too long. So, again this is something I’ve been working on for a while and plan to continue in the new year.

So those are the four promises I’ve made to myself and I’m going to try my best to keep them up throughout the year.

Have you done anything similar to start the year or have you set yourself any personal goals you’d like to achieve? Let me know, as I said I love to hear other peoples goals and aspirations too…

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