How R1 Will Live 2019 With Intention

Before all the flurry of a new year, new attitude begins to fade, I decided I wanted to write down my goals and set clear intentions for how I’d like my 2019 to unfold. I am fully aware that life happens and there are a lot of things out of our control, but what it means is that through the rough patches, I pledge to continue to stick to my goals regardless. I also am making this list public so that I can be held accountable by you guys, but also so that I can see it in writing…makes it more real, right? Right.

I’ll fully admit that lately, I’ve been one of those people who has silently held on to goals, but never fully affirmed them out in the open. Maybe for fear of judgement or fear of not accomplishing them. But what I have come to realise is speaking truth to your dreams is a real thing even if you simply make a vision board or making a list and work at crossing them off. So this year, I’m going to push forth and breathe life to the goals I want to meet in 2019.

Goals:

• Book & take the trip to Iceland: One of my pledges for 2019 is to do more travelling, it doesn’t have to be massive, epic trips, but I want to see and explore new places. One of the places I have been low key yearning to visit, is Iceland. So, this October (apparently the best time to visit), I’d like to plan a girly trip to Iceland and tick that off my bucket list.

• Be prouder of my work-blog & photography: One of the things I wish I was better at; is sharing my work more. I dedicate hours to it, yet when it comes to either posting or talking about my work, I somehow become mute and would rather disappear into oblivion. This is the case, particularly for my photography, Love Skylah Photography, I take thousands of shots, yet I may post one or two per week, out of fear that people won’t like them or worse still- that they will…cringe. I don’t often say it, but the majority of the photographs on the blog are taken by me, (R1) so this year, I’d like to push through it, feel the fear and do it anyways. So in 2019, I will introduce myself as a photographer and blogger, I’m going to own it!

• Do my ancestry: Little known fact about me, I am a lover of all things genealogy and family trees! I love the show Who Do You Think You Are, it exposes so much about the human spirit and resilience. Unfortunately for my family, many records were destroyed when hurricane Ivan hit the island of Grenada and adding to the complication we have many versions of stories no one knows which are true or not. On top of that, my jealousy, because my partner’s grandmother made it her mission to develop their family tree, which she was able to track right back to the 1600’s…so yea serious FOMO here🙄. I’m adamant this year we will start to piece it together- I will take the ancestry test to begin to trace our background, which I have always felt wouldn’t be interesting…maybe I’ll be proven wrong. Watch this space.

• Love myself & body more:  It’s not that I don’t love myself, I would just like to change my inner dialogue. I have never been one of those people who has overtly hated their bodies. I’ll cover this in detail on a future blog post. I just dressed it and went on with my day. Never really verbalising my disdain for parts of it. Sometimes I look down at my body and grumble at the changes it has gone through as if erasing the process will make me love it any more. Though I would like to return to the gym, it’s not because I’d like to lose weight, it’s more because it allowed me to clear my head, it was my “me” time…and oddly I loved seeing myself improve. I know that losing x amounts of weight will not change my inner thoughts- so it’s mainly mind re-working and curating the images I expose myself to so that I’m not comparing myself to people who don’t feed my self- growth.

• Say YES to more adventures: Sometimes when it feels like you’re stuck and nothing is happening in your life, I would often sulk and feel down about it, but at the end of the day you have to LIVE your life! No one will do it for you! Somethings might take more time or more planning, but it’s still an opportunity to seize! This year, I want to say yes to more adventures, when I get called or texted to do something, I want to jump at the chance to do it, and not make excuses why I can’t do it. But equally, there are literally tons of events happening all around me, I want to look for ones that peak my interests and go for it! Even if it means I have to do it alone.

• Walk Up Pendle Hill: If you’re from Lancashire, then you’ll have heard of Pendle Hill- I know it’s not a massive hill and by no means Everest, but in the 5 years I previously lived in the UK, I never climbed it and besides, I’m looking forward to the views! Disclaimer: At the time of posting, I was able to tick this off of my list! Didn’t get the views as it was extremely foggy but glad I got it done.

• Do Things Outside of my comfort zone: I have never spoken this out loud, but I’d like to run a marathon- nothing huge because I have 0 experience running, but I just would love the feeling of accomplishment of completing a race, knowing that at points I probably wanted to quit, but that I persevered. We shall see about this particular goal, but overall I’d just like to do more things that challenge me, be it little or large. Too often I want to do something, I speak it out loud and someone discourages it and just like that- I change my mind. I don’t want to come to the end of 2019 thinking about all the things I could have done.

• An All Girls Weekend Away: I have a lovely squad of women whom I trust and love and yet we have never had an all-girls day out or weekend away, so this year I want to make it happen! A weekend free of kids, partners, boyfriends and full of laughter, bonding and connecting. A way for us to celebrate womanhood, each other, but also surviving life! Lol. 

Do you have a list of big things you’d like to do this year or maybe in the upcoming years? How do you intend to make or meet them?