Like last year, I have a number of specific goals that I want to achieve this year and my hope is that I can be just as successful with these as I was with my goals for 2015.
2016 New Years Resolutions
1. Lose a further 3 stone by May 23rd, 2016 - this is on top of the six stone already lost and will not include any weight that I may have (okay - definitely have) put on over Christmas. To clarify, this will be a total loss of 126.2lbs and I want to have achieved this on or before May 23rd.
2. Go Home to Bermuda - Fraser and I have been planning to go back to my home country of Bermuda for a couple of years now and I would like to commit to going back in 2016, ideally at the end of May and on completion of my weight loss goals
3. Visit a Mortgage Advisor - Fraser and I also have big dreams to buy a home next year. I don't want to make that a goal since finding the right home and exchanging on that home will take time and will be out of my control. However, I would like it if we could take the first step and visit a mortgage advisor to get an agreement in principle if possible, or understand the areas we need to work on to make that happen.
4. Save a further £3,000 - Some of my savings will be spent on Bermuda but I would like to continue my good budget habits by committing to a further saving of £3,000 in 2016.
The list isn't as extensive as last year's but I hope to continue some of the habits that I've developed this year (drinking water more, reading books) without having to set specific goals for them. I hope that this time next year, I am able to report success against these goals too and look forward to all the challenges and good memories that 2016 will bring me.
Tabitha
Xx
Thursday 31 December 2015
How To Keep New Years Resolutions
They're something we make every year and are quite often broken by the time we hit February. In fact, an article from Forbes suggests that just 8% of people keep their New Years Resolutions and manage to achieve them. It's easy to scream out "New Year, New Me" on January 1st but the real work has to start then too alongside an honest dedication to your goals.
Long term followers of my blog (hi, Mum) will know that I set myself some pretty specific 2015 New Years Resolutions this time last year and I'm delighted to confirm that I kept and achieved all six of these goals. You can read more about my progress on these in this post from Tuesday. I truly believe that the only reason I was successful with these resolutions versus every other year I've made them is because I was so specific with the goals. They weren't vague like my 2014 resolutions or easy to procrastinate on. They were very specific as well as published on a publicly available domain too. This meant there was an element of pride attached to achieving these as no-one likes to publicly fail.
The Forbes article from above agrees with this sentiment, stating that New Years Resolutions should be 'tangible'. There has to be a way to measure it. If it's to lose weight, you need to commit to losing a certain amount and measure this through a scale. If it's to fit into a smaller size of clothing, be specific with how small that size should be and measure this with a tape measure and some kind of log. All six of my resolutions were designed to be very specific. I turned "drink more water" into "drink at least 2L of water a day" for example.
These resolutions have to be achievable too, which means being realistic with yourself. I could have set myself an ambitious goal of 10 blog posts a month, but that would only have set me up for failure. If I fail at something, I know its very easy for me to throw in the towel on all of it so setting realistic/achievable goals was very important to me.
Finally, I think the biggest help in sticking to these goals was to regularly check in with myself. At the end of each month, I would check myself and my progress against the goals I had set. I'd look at my weight records, my savings etc and review the progress I'd made with these as well as my daily water/reading goals too. If I could see room for improvement, it was a lot easier to pick up the slack at the end of each month rather than trying to do a rush job in November. It's a lot like keeping on top of doing the dishes each day. If you do them on the day, it takes 10 minutes vs a half hour job if you leave them for a few days. Just be honest with yourself and your progress along the way and it's easy to keep up with your goals.
I hope that this post helps some of you when it comes to setting your goals for the new year. I'll have a separate post going up today with my 2016 goals. In the meantime, I recommend this motivational video to inspire you when you need it:
Have a wonderful and fortune filled 2016 <3
Tabitha
Xx
Long term followers of my blog (hi, Mum) will know that I set myself some pretty specific 2015 New Years Resolutions this time last year and I'm delighted to confirm that I kept and achieved all six of these goals. You can read more about my progress on these in this post from Tuesday. I truly believe that the only reason I was successful with these resolutions versus every other year I've made them is because I was so specific with the goals. They weren't vague like my 2014 resolutions or easy to procrastinate on. They were very specific as well as published on a publicly available domain too. This meant there was an element of pride attached to achieving these as no-one likes to publicly fail.
The Forbes article from above agrees with this sentiment, stating that New Years Resolutions should be 'tangible'. There has to be a way to measure it. If it's to lose weight, you need to commit to losing a certain amount and measure this through a scale. If it's to fit into a smaller size of clothing, be specific with how small that size should be and measure this with a tape measure and some kind of log. All six of my resolutions were designed to be very specific. I turned "drink more water" into "drink at least 2L of water a day" for example.
These resolutions have to be achievable too, which means being realistic with yourself. I could have set myself an ambitious goal of 10 blog posts a month, but that would only have set me up for failure. If I fail at something, I know its very easy for me to throw in the towel on all of it so setting realistic/achievable goals was very important to me.
Finally, I think the biggest help in sticking to these goals was to regularly check in with myself. At the end of each month, I would check myself and my progress against the goals I had set. I'd look at my weight records, my savings etc and review the progress I'd made with these as well as my daily water/reading goals too. If I could see room for improvement, it was a lot easier to pick up the slack at the end of each month rather than trying to do a rush job in November. It's a lot like keeping on top of doing the dishes each day. If you do them on the day, it takes 10 minutes vs a half hour job if you leave them for a few days. Just be honest with yourself and your progress along the way and it's easy to keep up with your goals.
I hope that this post helps some of you when it comes to setting your goals for the new year. I'll have a separate post going up today with my 2016 goals. In the meantime, I recommend this motivational video to inspire you when you need it:
Have a wonderful and fortune filled 2016 <3
Tabitha
Xx
Wednesday 30 December 2015
2015 Book Reviews
As part of my 2015 New Years Resolutions, I set myself the goal of reading 10 books this year. It's not too ambitious a goal given the average reading speed. It was more about making time for it and trying to make it a priority in my life. I've read some fantastic books this year as a result of this goal and I thought it might be worth sharing a summary of these books in case you're looking for any reading inspiration.
'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett
This is one of my all-time favourite films so I thought it was about time I read the book that inspired it. I'm glad that I did since, like most books, it was far better than the film. I loved that the different sections were written like the characters would talk with Aibileen's sayings and Minny's blunt attitudes. It's a truly beautiful story and I can't think of a single flaw in the writing or the story.
10/10
'Shanghai Girls' by Lisa See
I'm not sure what attracted me to this book in the first place. I hadn't had it recommended to me in any way. I just saw the cover and read the blurb then decided it would be the perfect book to transport me to another time/part of the world. I wasn't wrong. This is the story of two sisters in Shanghai during the war who go from being wealthy model girls to poverty stricken runaways from the Japanese bombings at the time. It is a tremendous story which I would recommend to anyone looking for something different that is set in history without too much of the history coming into it.
10/10
'A Year of Losing the Dating Game' by Samantha Bye
I read this on recommendation of a colleague as it was actually written by someone we work with. It's a short book but I can honestly say that I couldn't put it down. It's the tale of a single women in the modern dating world with references to Tinder and one night stands. It's a very honest and true representation of what it's like to meet people in this day and age so it turned out to be quite a refreshing read. Moreover, it made me more grateful than ever that I've found someone as wonderful as Fraser and that it was before the invention of Tinder too.
10/10
'The Almost Moon' by Alice Sebold
This was a random download onto my Kindle years ago on the basis that I'd enjoyed The Lovely Bones a few years back. I decided to read this without looking at the blurb so dived straight into a story without knowing a thing about it. I won't lie to you, it's not a lighthearted story. In fact, it's about a woman murdering her agoraphobic and dementia-stricken mother by suffocating her with a towel and follows the 24 hours after this happens. There are lots of flashbacks to her childhood which help to shape the background of what led her to take such an action. Ultimately, you end up questioning whether or not her actions were justified. I like any book that inspires you to question your own moral compass so would thoroughly recommend as a result.
10/10
'When You Are Engulfed in Flames' by David Sedaris
After the heavy read above, I decided that something light would be good across the summer and picked up this book. It's a collection of short stories or 'essays' by David Sedaris capturing various anecdotes from his own life. I don't think I've ever laughed out loud because of a book as hard as I did while reading this. It is so well written with such perfect comedic timing that I ended up looking for interviews with David Sedaris on YouTube once I'd finished it just to see if he was as witty in person (I was not disappointed).
10/10
'Lucky' by Alice Sebold
I then decided that I could manage another heavy read and went for this auto-biographical memoir from Alice herself where she describes her experience of being raped. The story starts with the event itself and then follows her recovery afterwards and the years following as she works with the police to capture and convict her rapist. It explores the experiences of a raped girl in the justice system of the time and how (shockingly) the attitudes towards rape victims haven't seemed to change in the 20 years since the book was published and the 40-odd years since the attack happened. I think that this is a very important read for anyone. Alice Sebold strikes the perfect balance between humour (as a coping mechanism afterwards) and the grave seriousness of the event itself.
10/10
'Life of Pi' by Yann Martel
I can appreciate that I am years behind the curve on this one, but again it was a case of seeing the film first (thanks, Channel 4) before deciding that I had to see the film. The book was more incredible than the film and was another one that I was hooked by almost instantly. My only complaint was that I hated the Canadian author character. I think this was a leftover from the film where the very English Rafe Spall tried to do a Canadian accent which felt like nails on a chalkboard to me. I couldn't shake this image even when reading the book. However, those parts are minimal and (again) it was a book that led me to question myself and my own beliefs which I loved.
10/10
'Before I Go To Sleep' by SJ Watson
This was another random Kindle download which I really enjoyed reading. It's about a woman who loses her memory each night when she goes to sleep (self-explanatory from the title) but there's a thriller element in that she slowly starts to discover (by keeping a journal) that she's being lied to each day. The story is about her discovery of what is truth and I really enjoyed the character's journey through the book. I was delighted to see that they'd made this into a film but the key element - the journal - had been turned into a video diary which I thought was a bit shit. I've yet to see the film and may decide not to given how much I enjoyed the book.
10/10
'Eat Pray Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert
Again, I'm late to the curve with this one and it was another book read as a result of my enjoyment of the film (Julia Roberts can sell me anything). I loved this book, I really did. I wasn't expecting much from it but actually it contains a lot of wisdom without being overly preachy. Some of the jokes were a bit flat in places but overall there were some very good lessons to be learned from her experiences and I found these very useful when trying to overcome some stress at work towards the end of the year so would definitely recommend this.
10/10
'The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake' by Aimee Bender
This is the story of a young girl who can taste the emotions of the people making the food she eats. It sounds like a load of bollocks but actually the story is quite enjoyable as it follows the dysfunction in her family as well as a young girl trying to find her place in the world. However, I can't fully enjoy this book because the author has decided to remove the inverted commas from the writing so that there's no indication when someone is speaking. She said that this was an 'aesthetic' choice but I really don't like it. It makes it really difficult to read for me because you'll be halfway through a paragraph before realising that the character is actually speaking the lines rather than it being her internal monologue. Apparently blurring the inner and outer monologues is the point of doing this but I really didn't like it and it made the book difficult to read for me. For that reason, it will be the only book that I mark at less than 10/10 this year.
6/10
I hope that this has been useful to some of you when looking for a new book to read. I can't wait to get my teeth into some new novels next year and see where these take me. I don't think I'll be able to get through quite as many but I'll certainly try. Please leave any book recommendations in the comments below for me to take a look through as well :-)
Tabitha
Xx
'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett
This is one of my all-time favourite films so I thought it was about time I read the book that inspired it. I'm glad that I did since, like most books, it was far better than the film. I loved that the different sections were written like the characters would talk with Aibileen's sayings and Minny's blunt attitudes. It's a truly beautiful story and I can't think of a single flaw in the writing or the story.
10/10
'Shanghai Girls' by Lisa See
I'm not sure what attracted me to this book in the first place. I hadn't had it recommended to me in any way. I just saw the cover and read the blurb then decided it would be the perfect book to transport me to another time/part of the world. I wasn't wrong. This is the story of two sisters in Shanghai during the war who go from being wealthy model girls to poverty stricken runaways from the Japanese bombings at the time. It is a tremendous story which I would recommend to anyone looking for something different that is set in history without too much of the history coming into it.
10/10
'A Year of Losing the Dating Game' by Samantha Bye
I read this on recommendation of a colleague as it was actually written by someone we work with. It's a short book but I can honestly say that I couldn't put it down. It's the tale of a single women in the modern dating world with references to Tinder and one night stands. It's a very honest and true representation of what it's like to meet people in this day and age so it turned out to be quite a refreshing read. Moreover, it made me more grateful than ever that I've found someone as wonderful as Fraser and that it was before the invention of Tinder too.
10/10
'The Almost Moon' by Alice Sebold
This was a random download onto my Kindle years ago on the basis that I'd enjoyed The Lovely Bones a few years back. I decided to read this without looking at the blurb so dived straight into a story without knowing a thing about it. I won't lie to you, it's not a lighthearted story. In fact, it's about a woman murdering her agoraphobic and dementia-stricken mother by suffocating her with a towel and follows the 24 hours after this happens. There are lots of flashbacks to her childhood which help to shape the background of what led her to take such an action. Ultimately, you end up questioning whether or not her actions were justified. I like any book that inspires you to question your own moral compass so would thoroughly recommend as a result.
10/10
'When You Are Engulfed in Flames' by David Sedaris
After the heavy read above, I decided that something light would be good across the summer and picked up this book. It's a collection of short stories or 'essays' by David Sedaris capturing various anecdotes from his own life. I don't think I've ever laughed out loud because of a book as hard as I did while reading this. It is so well written with such perfect comedic timing that I ended up looking for interviews with David Sedaris on YouTube once I'd finished it just to see if he was as witty in person (I was not disappointed).
10/10
'Lucky' by Alice Sebold
I then decided that I could manage another heavy read and went for this auto-biographical memoir from Alice herself where she describes her experience of being raped. The story starts with the event itself and then follows her recovery afterwards and the years following as she works with the police to capture and convict her rapist. It explores the experiences of a raped girl in the justice system of the time and how (shockingly) the attitudes towards rape victims haven't seemed to change in the 20 years since the book was published and the 40-odd years since the attack happened. I think that this is a very important read for anyone. Alice Sebold strikes the perfect balance between humour (as a coping mechanism afterwards) and the grave seriousness of the event itself.
10/10
'Life of Pi' by Yann Martel
I can appreciate that I am years behind the curve on this one, but again it was a case of seeing the film first (thanks, Channel 4) before deciding that I had to see the film. The book was more incredible than the film and was another one that I was hooked by almost instantly. My only complaint was that I hated the Canadian author character. I think this was a leftover from the film where the very English Rafe Spall tried to do a Canadian accent which felt like nails on a chalkboard to me. I couldn't shake this image even when reading the book. However, those parts are minimal and (again) it was a book that led me to question myself and my own beliefs which I loved.
10/10
'Before I Go To Sleep' by SJ Watson
This was another random Kindle download which I really enjoyed reading. It's about a woman who loses her memory each night when she goes to sleep (self-explanatory from the title) but there's a thriller element in that she slowly starts to discover (by keeping a journal) that she's being lied to each day. The story is about her discovery of what is truth and I really enjoyed the character's journey through the book. I was delighted to see that they'd made this into a film but the key element - the journal - had been turned into a video diary which I thought was a bit shit. I've yet to see the film and may decide not to given how much I enjoyed the book.
10/10
'Eat Pray Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert
Again, I'm late to the curve with this one and it was another book read as a result of my enjoyment of the film (Julia Roberts can sell me anything). I loved this book, I really did. I wasn't expecting much from it but actually it contains a lot of wisdom without being overly preachy. Some of the jokes were a bit flat in places but overall there were some very good lessons to be learned from her experiences and I found these very useful when trying to overcome some stress at work towards the end of the year so would definitely recommend this.
10/10
'The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake' by Aimee Bender
This is the story of a young girl who can taste the emotions of the people making the food she eats. It sounds like a load of bollocks but actually the story is quite enjoyable as it follows the dysfunction in her family as well as a young girl trying to find her place in the world. However, I can't fully enjoy this book because the author has decided to remove the inverted commas from the writing so that there's no indication when someone is speaking. She said that this was an 'aesthetic' choice but I really don't like it. It makes it really difficult to read for me because you'll be halfway through a paragraph before realising that the character is actually speaking the lines rather than it being her internal monologue. Apparently blurring the inner and outer monologues is the point of doing this but I really didn't like it and it made the book difficult to read for me. For that reason, it will be the only book that I mark at less than 10/10 this year.
6/10
I hope that this has been useful to some of you when looking for a new book to read. I can't wait to get my teeth into some new novels next year and see where these take me. I don't think I'll be able to get through quite as many but I'll certainly try. Please leave any book recommendations in the comments below for me to take a look through as well :-)
Tabitha
Xx
Tuesday 29 December 2015
2015 New Years Resolutions: My Results
At the end of 2014, I set myself some very specific goals for this year and I am delighted to confirm today that every single one of these goals has been achieved and surpassed in some cases. It's been a fantastic year as a result and one I'm proud of too. The full post about these goals is here but in summary, I had the following goals:
2015 New Years Resolutions
1. Read 10 books
2. Update the blog 4 times a month
3. Fully pay off overdraft
4. Lose 6 stone
5. Have a dental check-up
6. Drink at least 2L of water a day
1. Read 10 books
I'll admit that I slacked on this one a little bit until about halfway through the year where I learned to utilise my lunch hour for reading rather than binge watch Netflix. However, I managed to achieve this one in the end and have a post coming out tomorrow with a short review of each book read. This goal felt second nature for me in the end because I really do love to read, it was just a matter of making this more of a priority.
2. Update the blog 4 times a month
This one was a struggle. Again, it was about making it a priority but I found that I ended up writing all four posts in one day with them all releasing towards the last few days of the month. It was an ambitious goal but one I'm proud that I kept. I can still say that almost no-one actually reads this blog but it felt really good to do a bit of writing and force myself to make time for it too.
3. Fully pay off overdraft
I'm going to say that this is definitely one of my achievements that I'm most proud of. It was difficult to do but I have not only managed to clear the £2,000 of debt I was in through my overdraft but actually put away savings in excess of that amount too. I scrimped like a trooper of course, but most of this came down to being very fortunate with overtime hours at work. In fact, since January of this year, I have been starting at 07:00 every morning right the way through to my last week before Christmas break. This included at least one five hour Saturday shift a month. This meant an extra 10 to 15 hours a week at work which definitely made a difference in my ability to save as well as the quality of my work too. Win-win all round!
4. Lose 6 stone
I did it! On 22nd of November this year, I got down to my lowest weight and a total of 84.4lbs lost which is the equivalent of 6 stone (84lbs or 38kg). I managed this through the simple act of calorie counting using the MyFitnessPal app. It's a free app that I believe most people have heard of or used before, but it just makes keeping track of my food and drink so easy that it became second nature. I've still got a few more stone to go until I reach my goal weight but this 6 stone chunk has been such a massive chunk off that I'm well on my way to this goal.
5. Have a dental check-up
I actually felt a bit ridiculous once I'd had this check-up. I can't imagine why it was such a big deal or why I put it off for so long. I'm not scared of dentists (well, not that much) nor was I worried about the cost. Again, I think it was a case of making it a priority which is something this resolution forced me to do. So in May, I called up my local dentist's office, got myself registered and went to see the dentist. I needed one filling and had my teeth polished to perfection by the lovely dentist there. In November, I saw her again for another polish. I intend to keep going every six months as recommended and feel that I've set up a new healthy habit that is easy to keep.
6. Drink at least 2L of water a day
I actually bossed this one. I've never been more hydrated in my life and I feel so much better for it. I've got a little cup at work that I was getting through several times a day. I tried to stick to plain water where possible. However, I found this sugar-free 2-calorie squash in Aldi that doubled my water intake because it was so delicious in November. I'm fairly confident I've been doing 3 or 4 litres a day easily, particularly as I found I was less hungry the more hydrated I was and it was therefore easier to stick to my calorie goals too.
All in all, it has been a very productive and very rewarding 2015. I definitely feel like having specific goals really helped me keep my resolutions and I'm genuinely so pleased with myself. I've had a tremendous year and I'm grateful to everyone that supported me with these goals.
Tabitha
Xx
2015 New Years Resolutions
1. Read 10 books
2. Update the blog 4 times a month
3. Fully pay off overdraft
4. Lose 6 stone
5. Have a dental check-up
6. Drink at least 2L of water a day
1. Read 10 books
I'll admit that I slacked on this one a little bit until about halfway through the year where I learned to utilise my lunch hour for reading rather than binge watch Netflix. However, I managed to achieve this one in the end and have a post coming out tomorrow with a short review of each book read. This goal felt second nature for me in the end because I really do love to read, it was just a matter of making this more of a priority.
2. Update the blog 4 times a month
This one was a struggle. Again, it was about making it a priority but I found that I ended up writing all four posts in one day with them all releasing towards the last few days of the month. It was an ambitious goal but one I'm proud that I kept. I can still say that almost no-one actually reads this blog but it felt really good to do a bit of writing and force myself to make time for it too.
3. Fully pay off overdraft
I'm going to say that this is definitely one of my achievements that I'm most proud of. It was difficult to do but I have not only managed to clear the £2,000 of debt I was in through my overdraft but actually put away savings in excess of that amount too. I scrimped like a trooper of course, but most of this came down to being very fortunate with overtime hours at work. In fact, since January of this year, I have been starting at 07:00 every morning right the way through to my last week before Christmas break. This included at least one five hour Saturday shift a month. This meant an extra 10 to 15 hours a week at work which definitely made a difference in my ability to save as well as the quality of my work too. Win-win all round!
4. Lose 6 stone
I did it! On 22nd of November this year, I got down to my lowest weight and a total of 84.4lbs lost which is the equivalent of 6 stone (84lbs or 38kg). I managed this through the simple act of calorie counting using the MyFitnessPal app. It's a free app that I believe most people have heard of or used before, but it just makes keeping track of my food and drink so easy that it became second nature. I've still got a few more stone to go until I reach my goal weight but this 6 stone chunk has been such a massive chunk off that I'm well on my way to this goal.
5. Have a dental check-up
I actually felt a bit ridiculous once I'd had this check-up. I can't imagine why it was such a big deal or why I put it off for so long. I'm not scared of dentists (well, not that much) nor was I worried about the cost. Again, I think it was a case of making it a priority which is something this resolution forced me to do. So in May, I called up my local dentist's office, got myself registered and went to see the dentist. I needed one filling and had my teeth polished to perfection by the lovely dentist there. In November, I saw her again for another polish. I intend to keep going every six months as recommended and feel that I've set up a new healthy habit that is easy to keep.
6. Drink at least 2L of water a day
I actually bossed this one. I've never been more hydrated in my life and I feel so much better for it. I've got a little cup at work that I was getting through several times a day. I tried to stick to plain water where possible. However, I found this sugar-free 2-calorie squash in Aldi that doubled my water intake because it was so delicious in November. I'm fairly confident I've been doing 3 or 4 litres a day easily, particularly as I found I was less hungry the more hydrated I was and it was therefore easier to stick to my calorie goals too.
All in all, it has been a very productive and very rewarding 2015. I definitely feel like having specific goals really helped me keep my resolutions and I'm genuinely so pleased with myself. I've had a tremendous year and I'm grateful to everyone that supported me with these goals.
Tabitha
Xx
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