Now I’m 32

Happy birthday to me! Today I turn 32 and I guess since I’ve been writing birthday posts since I turned 29, this is officially a thing I do here.

Today I turn 32 and all I can say is wow, 31 was a roller coaster of a year. There were insane highs, like quitting my job and officially pursuing my career as a freelance writer, and insane lows, like saying goodbye to my Tickle.

31 was a year of major growth, lots of risk-taking, and a huge confidence builder. It challenged me, pushed me, and helped me realize that I can do hard things. I can believe in myself and I can accomplish a lot.

I’m walking out of 31 and into 32 so proud of what I have accomplished and energized to keep pushing forward. Last year was just the beginning. Just a sample of what I can do, and an appetizer, if you will, to what I want to do.

It wasn’t necessarily the year I planned or intended, but it was the year I needed. I feel like I’m finding my path and my place. I’m just beginning to scratch the surface of what I can do and crack the door to what I want to do. Before last year I don’t think I ever fully let myself dream as big as I really wanted, but now I’m slowly pushing that door open inch by inch. I’m slowly letting myself believe that the impossible is possible.

Last year was amazing, but this year can be better.

So, enough rambling. As we do, let’s take a look at what I planned to accomplish last year and how well (
or not so well) I actually did.

• Read more, hopefully, one book a month. – This was a fail. Outside of school, I read one book, Racing in the Rain, and nothing else.
• Start hiking more (once a month maybe) and spend more time outside. – I don’t think I managed to hike once a month, but I did start hiking more and did do more than 12 hikes (so it works out).
• Write more consistently, hopefully once a week. – Up until the end of the year, I did a pretty good job on this one.
• Get back into working out, getting strong, eating right, and loving my body. – X
• Continue to educate myself on gardening and eat more food that I grow myself. – Toss up. I did continue to learn more, but the weather was weird this year and we actually pulled back on our garden. But in this coming year I do plan to grow more, can more, and make more things from scratch.
• Build or refurbish something by myself. – X
• Start a new project, anything, my book, my podcast, shirts, soaps, something. – Another one I will count as a win. I started freelancing full time and I’m working on launching a candle business soon!
• Establish a side hustle or better yet, be able to sustain myself financially by freelancing or any of my other interests. – Big win! This one I did do all the way.
• Meditate on a regular schedule and do daily face yoga. – X
• Start every morning with a positive/supportive thought about myself and end every night by listing at least three things I am thankful for. – X
• No more phone in bed. – X

So what do I want to accomplish this year? What are my goals for my 32nd trip around the sun?

• Read more, once again, hopefully, one book a month.
• Rather than hiking more, this year I want to go camping more. We are aiming for every 6 weeks.
• Build this blog and my social media up. Create better more consistent content and begin to monetize in some way.
• Continue to grow my freelancing income.
• Get strong, eat right, and love my body.
• Build or refurbish something on my own.
• Start a side project – podcast, t-shirt company…
• Launch my candles officially!
• Take more pictures with my DSLR and get better at photography again.
• Meditate regularly.
• Daily face yoga.
• Get the VW running again.

In the last few years, I’ve also been setting intentions for myself. So for the next 365 I plan –

• to be more intentional with my time.
• to slow down and be ok taking a pause.
• to focus on the good, live life with gratitude and positive energy, and less pessimism and negativity.
• to create memories and spend intentional time with family, friends, and all my loved ones. To build myself my true tribe of people.
• to start speaking my mind.
• to not be afraid to dream and chase those dreams.

So it may seem a little repetitive, and some of the things are, but besides my goals and resolutions for the year, at the start of 2023, I also created a bucket list for myself. That bucket list, rather than a list of goals I plan to accomplish, is a running list of fun and exciting things I want to try to do this year. So you should go look at that too…if you want =)

Cover image by Pexels from Pixabay