1. The shape of my year: I’ve decided to observe the major pagan festivals – solstices, equinoxes, and cross-quarter festivals. I feel like I want to be more in touch with the passing of time in the natural world and pay more attention to the seasons. It also means that every 6-7 weeks I’ll have a point at which to pause and take stock and that feels like a useful interval for regular check-ins.
Next festival in the southern hemisphere is Lúnasa, the first of three harvest festivals. It will be a good time to think about what I am ‘harvesting’ this year – to take stock of where my energies are going, what I’m committed to this year and what I’m investing in. This lines up with the commencement of study for 2025 and my starting a new job as a student nurse, so plenty to reflect on and journal about.
2. Pee more and eat more beans on toast: these are two simple ways I want to prioritise my health this year. The first is to be mindful of my body and help develop my interoception. When I am on nursing shifts it’s easy to push my body’s needs aside to focus on patient care. This year I will build mindful habits (like taking regular pee breaks) to prioritise my body’s needs even when work is busy.
Beans on toast makes me happy, it’s a simple, delicious breakfast. It’s high fibre and low fat. It’s also a breakfast I will eat at home rather than at work, as I need to sit down at a table and take my time – so it’s a way of being mindful about eating. The idea is to extend this mindfulness to eating in general, but I’m going to start with beans on toast.
3. Perform in two chamber orchestra concerts this year and go to ballet classes regularly: music brings me joy, and it always has. I bought a viola last year after a 25-year hiatus, and joined a local chamber orchestra. The orchestra performs four concerts each year – this year I want to do at least two of them. Work and clinical placement makes attendance difficult sometimes so I’m not aiming for four, but I think two is a good goal.
Ballet is physical exercise which is a good goal in itself, but moving to music also fills me with joy. It feels good to try to make even simple exercises beautiful and flowing as I perform them, and although I am not innately graceful, ballet is a way to embrace being quite bad at something while slowly building skill and enjoying the process.
4. Drinking more mindfully: you can definitely have too much of a good thing. As I get older, I still enjoy drinking alcohol for a range of reasons, but it does tend to get in the way of other things that are important sometimes. This year, I am choosing to limit the number of days I drink alcohol to 75, preferably at social events that include food.
5. Reduce choices: I’m plagued by decision fatigue. One way I am reducing choices is to cull my wardrobe more savagely. I’ve discovered I love jumpsuits – one item of clothing and I’m dressed! (Dresses don’t quite hit the mark in the same way for me because my glorious thunder-and-lightning thighs mean if I wear a dress, I also need to choose a second garment to wear underneath so it really is as many decisions as wearing a top and pants.) Anyway with this in mind, over the course of the year I plan to strip my wardrobe down to as few pieces as I can manage. And not just my wardrobe: anywhere I can reduce choices, especially by reducing ‘stuff’, I’m going to make those changes. (Except guitars.)
Over the past year I’ve found myself imposing little routines in several places and it makes my life so much easier. For example I pack almost exactly the same thing to eat at work every day. They’re pre-packed food items but they’re not unhealthy: instant porridge, ready-to-eat lentil curries and rice. I don’t think, I just stash them in a bag and go. My scrubs live on a separate rack in the study, so everything I need to get dressed early in the morning is right there. And I wear the same pair of boots pretty much everywhere, work and play. It gives me room to think about things that matter.
6. Graduate! This is the big one, this year I’m finally going to graduate and be registered with AHPRA as a registered nurse. Part of this goal is to secure a graduate placement. I’m in a very strong position, if I perform well as a student nurse this year, to obtain a grad position in a big tertiary hospital. I have three more units that will contribute to my final GPA this year, so I’m aiming for at least a 6 in each of those units. They’re third-year subjects so it’s going to be a challenge but I am up for it. If I can keep my GPA high I’ll also be awarded my degree ‘with honours’ which has been a consistent goal over the past four years.