Since the sun is shining and it’s now March I think it’s time for some goal setting and accountability. I try not to set any goals any earlier than that in the year or two days in and I’ve abandoned the idea. I don’t know about you but things have changed so much over the last two years my bad habits are firmly ingrained – there’s a lot of time on the sofa/social media and not much positive action happening. Plus I’m 46 and that’s traditionally around the time when people start to set seemingly unrealistic goals to try and claw back some semblance of their youth. I have health goals, qualification goals and personal/family goals so far and that seems like more than enough to get started.

Health Goals: Park some distance from work and walk 30 minutes to get there (man I can’t be bothered to do this but it would save me £17-25 pounds a week which is over £1k a year – gulp – and will go someway to offset the new food and energy bills); Actually attend the gym/go swimming at some point each week; Climb 10 Ethels in 2022 (1 down 9 to go); Run 5k by May 2022; Run 10k by September 2022. In preparation for these goals of course I need to buy new trainers and walking boots which will probably be enough work for this week.

Qualification Goals: Finish Level 2 in Equality and Diversity by April 2022; Enrol on Level 2 LGBTQ+ Awareness by end April 2022; Find £450 and enrol on Level 3 Award in Education and Training by the end of July 2022. All dull but some personal intellectual development would be nice…For clarification I’m not planning on going into teaching (those who do are frankly gods), but I like delivering training and would like to know how to do it properly.

Personal and Family Goals: Grow a variety of vegetables and a wildflower garden in Summer; Learn how to properly make bread (I know this isn’t 2020 what am I on about?); Write short children’s stories once a month; Learn how to throw a basic bowl that doesn’t look like the first pottery attempt of a caveman; Play an instrument twice a week (I’m hoping the new neighbours don’t instantly hate us); Learn to knit (I wonder what these goals would have looked like when I was 21 – not like this I expect…); Plan some family nights in that aren’t movie night (every day is movie/TV night); Go on more adventures (I know it’s not a smart target leave me alone).

Home Goals: Get someone to knock through a wall to the garage, or alternatively source the world’s cheapest kitchen so I don’t keep having to go into the garage to do the washing, by sometime in 2022; Carry on decluttering the house starting with finishing the kitchen cupboards (so I can actually put some things away) then attacking the shed so I can plant seeds in there; Get rid of the fires that don’t function and replace with something lovely that can provide heat when we can’t afford gas; Get around to painting the ceilings (yeah right like that’s going to happen).

Today’s Goals: Buy a book to set goals in and clean the fish tank.