Happy New Year From The Little Reesor House!
I certainly don’t mean to be insensitive to how delicate this past year has been, but the holiday portion may have been one of my favourites to date. The pressure was off to hit all the parties, please all the people, prepare all the food, scramble for all the best gifts, make all the rounds, and eat all the treats. Instead, we had a really slow holiday season full of many family meals, cookie baking and crafts, warm fires, lots of laughter, and cozy snuggles by the Christmas tree. It certainly wasn’t perfect, but it definitely was very special.
It felt like a nice way to end one heck of a year. Like a little hug that makes you feel like everything is going to be ok again. Where we live, life has shut down into lockdown again and I’m not going to pretend that it hasn’t frustrated me. But I’m looking forward to the fresh start that a new year brings and so I figured that I would share some of my goals for the year as a way to look ahead and keep on track for where I want to go.
First thing to note – I’m taking the pressure off. Maybe I will hit some of these and maybe I won’t. Maybe the unexpected will totally sideline me and throw it all off course and I’m just resolving right now to be okay with that. I like to make plans and goals and so I felt that almost more than ever this is something I still wanted to go ahead with. But if 2020 taught me anything, it’s that things can change in the blink of an eye. This time I plan to be a little more accepting of that.
Get my health in order. This is broad, but that’s ok. Without diving into too many details, something is “off” in my body and I’m sensing it is hormone related. Step one of this goal is seeking out a naturopathic doctor and seeing if we can make an action plan together. Maybe that will mean adjusting current lifestyle habits or maybe it won’t. Maybe that will mean seeking other avenues or maybe it won’t. But by the end of this year, I would like to feel like I am in better physical health so that I can live life with my family to its fullest.
Intentionally practice gratitude every day. This one is a little more specific. I want to live life on the half-full side of the glass and one area that I know I can very tangibly grow in is more intentionally practicing gratitude. I gifted myself (“Merry Christmas, love The Cats”) one of the most beautiful and straightforward gratitude journals out there and I am going to answer one gratitude prompt per day right before I hit the pillow. I hope it will spark a mindset of gratitude to reflect on as I fall asleep and act as a really simple way to journal my heart through the year.
Read 15 books. You may think that 15 is hardly any, but considering I finished a mere six books this past year, it’s safe to say I need to prioritize this one. I love reading and don’t do it nearly enough. I have a GoodReads list a mile long of dreamy books to read and a clear goal to get through at least 15 of them. Some of the ones I hope to dive into include this one, this one, and this one.
Do 6 full-blown branding projects. This is more of a business goal, as I am a freelance graphic designer. I have a handful of repeat clients that I am so thankful to work with, but I really want to push myself and grow into my creative process for visual brand development and the best way to do that is through practice. This one also requires quite a few small steps (like narrowing in on my client acquisition process, marketing, potentially refreshing my business website, etc), but I’m really excited about it all.
Hit 1000 Youtube subscribers. If you don’t already know, we have a Youtube channel! It has been so fun to post the occasional project video on there, but I definitely have a goal to add even more and more content. I had good intentions to grow it from the bottom up, but in true 2020 fashion, things didn’t go as planned and I wasn’t able to produce as much content as I dreamed of. This is the year!
A personal design project. This one is tricky because I don’t know exactly what it looks like yet, but I would like to use my love for design to produce some sort of physical product. Whether it result in being something I sell or simply just something I creatively needed to get off my chest doesn’t matter, I just want to do it. I’m leaning towards either an illustrated kids book, a printed toy or game, or a journal design. I’m still stewing, but I’ll keep you posted on this one.
Kick some home project butt. I have so many home projects I want to tackle. I’m sure I won’t get to them all, but a few I would like to try are a custom living room built-in, setting up our dining room, a budget-friendly spruce up to our kitchen, finishing the cozy room and home office, and potentially doing the entryway floors. Eeee!
What are some of your goals for the new year? Are you ready to get started?
