New Years Resolutions

Every year we all make our New Years Resolutions and let’s face it, by the second week in January they are normally forgotten. This year I decided to go all out and set myself 10 challenges instead of resolutions. Some are easy, some are hard. I will be charting my progress on the blog in order to ensure I stick to them and to allow you to help me along the way.

1. January Detox – Admittedly this should be the easiest one as for the past 3 years I have managed to detox for the whole of January. This year I started the detox on the 2^nd January and will go through until the 2^nd February.

2. Sweet Stuff Detox – In 2007 I managed a month without eating any sweet stuff. This year I am going to extend the challenge to THREE (yes 3) months. Same rules apply – cereal bars, fruit and yoghurt are ok. Everything else – banned.

3. Weight Challenge – My current weight after all the Christmas excess is 67kg. My aim is to get down to 61kg by the end of the year. The weight loss is the equivalent of 6 bags of sugar. This will hopefully be made doable by the previous two challenges.

4. Debt Challenge – My current total debt is £13,477.45. This includes my graduate loan, credit cards and overdraft. Of the total £4,242.67 is on credit cards and £800 is my overdraft. I aim to have these cleared by the end of 2009 leaving only my graduate loan to tackle in 2010.

5. House Challenge – We are so close to finishing the house. The front room is the last room to complete so we can sit back and just enjoy living here. I really want to complete it by the summer so we can then start working on the gardens hopefully in the sun!

6. Training Contract Challenge – I completed my LPC in 2007 but as yet I have not secured a training contract. Therefore in 2009 I am going to try my hardest to get as many applications off to my list of firms who have music and entertainment departments. This is probably one of the hardest challenges but hopefully one I won’t fail.

7. Blog Updating – I’m an admirer of the ljcfyi blog as the lady who writes it manages to update it almost everyday. Admittedly her job is Chief Blogger at Kodak but I certainly have no excuse not to update my blog once at week at the least. So for 2009 I will be updating on a more regular basis. I will ensure my camera is always in my bag so I can take pictures and at least keep the blog interesting.

8. The List – Myself and my friend Tadders are having a bit of a mid to late 20’s crisis so we are each making a list of things to do in 2009. The idea is that each month we will do something from the following categories:

• Gig
• Play/Drama/Musical
• Museum/Art Gallery/Place of Historic Significance

In addition to this we have set ourselves things to complete over the course of the year. Mine include – learn to use a sewing machine, learn to knit, learn to have a basic conversation in Spanish, refresh my French and learn a musical instrument.

9. 10k Challenge – In 2008 I managed to run 5k in under 30 minutes and unfortunately missed out in getting under an hour in the 10k by 2 and a half minutes. Therefore this year I will be training hard to get under an hour in a 10k.

10. The Challenges Challenge – for the past two years I have run various 5k’s and 10k’s for Cancer Research. I have loved doing it but this year I felt I should at least do something special for the sponsorship money. So this year we have the Urban Fox team who will be participating in various events over 2009. So far I am signed up to the BUPA 10000 and the Run to the Beat Half Marathon. I am also planning on signing up with various of members of the team for the London to Brighton bike ride, the Pier to Pier swimming event in Bournemouth, Race for Life 5k and Run for Moore 5K, and between myself and my team, we will come up with some additional challenges. There are already some ideas in the pipeline. Watch this space for more details.

So those are my challenges. Some harder than others but any help and encouragement you can give me will be greatly appreciated!