My Blog intro!

Starting blog post (3/1/22)

Hi there! Welcome to my blog! This is something I’ve been thinking about doing for a long time but have been very anxious about starting up, I’m quite a private person but I’ve seen how useful a blog can be to track progress.

My main reason for starting this blog is I felt like I’ve been sitting stationary in a few areas of my life for a while now, and I’ve been having a hard time kicking some of the habits and anxiety brought on by Covid and isolating. So I thought this might be a nice place to start to track some goals that I’ve set myself for the year. My goals or 'New Years resolutions' (I don't normally set them but thought I would this year) are as follows, including

◦ Blogging! I have always been keen about doing something like this as it’s something that has helped me realise the tangibility of my progress in the past. But one of the main areas I’ve always struggled with when it comes to achieving this is my consistency. I’m doing this blog for me but thought I’d make it public to increase the likelihood of me sticking to it! I’ve been doing this for two weeks now and haven’t missed a day so far but I’ve been really enjoying it. If you are reading, thank you and I hope you enjoy it too!

◦ Work & Forest app resolutions

◦ My major work goal for this year is to set up an athlete mentoring business, this is something I’ve been very passionate about doing. I’m now a more senior swimmer who has been round for quite a few years, and I have built up quite a wealth of experience and learnt a lot from many lessons that I’ve experienced over my years in the sport. The main reason behind this is that I really want to be able to give back to the sport as a whole. Helping swimmers through the tough times, or improving areas in their knowledge through my experience is something I’m extremely passionate about.

◦ To plant 12 trees using the forest app. My main reason behind this is due to my screen time being between 7-10hrs per day virtually every week this year, and it’s dead time that I mainly use unproductively. On a side note My goal is to not let my screen time average above 5hrs per day for a week for this year.

To plant 12 real trees using the forest app involves getting 2500 coins in app per tree. You get roughly 10 coins per half an hour not using your phone. So 30,000 coins is needed to plant 12 trees (note I started the year with 730 coins from VERY intermittent use over the past 2 years) This app can be used for anything, but I’ll be mainly using it for time with friends, winding down in the evenings without using my phone and of course, being productive with projects.

◦ One other factor for all of these goals is that I am not going to be too hard on myself. I want this year to develop myself into a better organised person, as well as wanting to appreciate the small things more in life. So if I miss a blog day, fine! Either make it up another day, or accept it and move on. If my screen time is up, I must have needed a day to do nothing more than I thought.

⁃ I have some big goals in swimming this year (for myself only) and I believe that these goals outside the pool will really help my mood and overall focus during the year.

- In terms of swimming. I’ve logged 13,850m in the pool today, which is the biggest day I’ve had since my comeback. My shoulder is holding up surprisingly well, considering just 2 weeks ago 5k sessions of swim felt like agony. The pain at the moment doesn’t feel like injury pain which is good, it’s nice to feel fatigue again from lining sessions instead of soreness!

Most other days will be done in a much different fashion, however, today is about setting my goals and outlining my approach. Thank you for reading!