Well here we are again, another year is almost done!

I’ve written one of these posts almost every year since I started blogging, and looking back on them and this decade has been quite emotional! I’ve come so far.

2011 / 2012 / 2013 / 2014 / 2015 / 2016 / 2017 (not sure where this post has gone!) / 2018

I can’t believe how much I’ve shifted and grown over the years!

I started this year really needing a fresh start. My health hadn’t been great in 2018 and I had been experiencing increasing anxiety.

Unfortunately January was a bit rocky, I got tonsillitis and also needed antibiotics for a lump under my arm (which led me to go completely natural for my deodorant!). But I held a wonderful retreat with Jo from Happy Yoga Newcastle which was lovely and otherwise got settled into the year.

In February we started trying for a baby which was very exciting and I started to find more of a groove with my wellbeing. We also started doing a lot of things around the house, decorating Fin’s bedroom and trying to tidy the garden.

In March I spoke at Thrive Dublin which was definitely a highlight of the year, I loved it! I also went to the business event Atomicon which was fab!

In May we got our positive pregnancy test the day before my grandma passed away, just a few days before her 90th birthday.

Then it was all go for the pregnancy! I had more sickness this time round so the first few months were pretty low key. We had a lovely family summer including trip to the caravan on the Northumberland coast. We had lots of extra reassurance scans to make sure our baby was healthy after Finley’s heart defect and found out we were expecting a girl at the start of September! I’ve absolutely loved, loved, loved being pregnant too!

Finley started big school and that was quite a big shift for me in terms of my usual routines but it was so good seeing how much he enjoyed school and has thrived!

The rest of the year has been about decorating more rooms in the house, including the baby’s room, getting prepared for our new arrival and just taking care of myself as best as possible – walking, pregnancy yoga and early nights have been essential!

This year I’ve probably worked the least amount of hours in my business and had the most fun! I had to let go of a couple of things that I simply couldn’t hold space for with the baby coming. I created some new online programmes – including my signature Wholehearted Programme (more on this in a sec!)

Overall it feels like it’s been a settled and creative year, just what I’ve needed!

My word for 2019 was FLOW and I feel like I did a pretty good job at embodying it! I didn’t do all the things I planned for this year, but more or less, I’ve ended up in the place I wanted to end up – pregnant, content, with a thriving business, beautiful home and happy family. I don’t get anywhere near as anxious as I used to, but I am aware that with the baby coming this is something I need to keep a close eye on.

I’ve also really embraced a slower kind of living and I’m sure that has helped me manage the anxiety and really enjoy my pregnancy!

2020

With a new baby due any day now, 2020 really is going to be an epic change! I’m so excited about the fresh start energy we have available to us right now and while I’m not envisaging 2020 to be a year of big achievements (other than birthing and taking care of a baby!) I am really looking forward to how my intentions are going to take shape.

I’ve used my own Wholehearted Programme to help me think about my intentions for 2020 and identify a lot of things to shift and implement to make life feel simpler and easier. After I did the bulk of the programme I had a list of things to do to make life more organised and they have been life changing! I just needed to give myself the space and have the prompts the programme gave me to get those solutions out. Now I feel like I have a lot more headspace and bandwidth!

My word for the year is ENJOY – I really want to slow down and just enjoy all the things I’ve created in my life – my children, my home, my business. It doesn’t always have to be about striving for what comes next, and for me I hope 2020 can be about really taking some time to enjoy what we already have.

There are a couple of intentions on my list for 2020 though (I wouldn’t be me if there wasn’t!) but I’m choosing to hold these things lightly and be open to whatever comes along!

Honor the fourth trimester – I never really got any proper downtime when I had Finley due to him coming early and being in hospital so much. This time round I’d really like at least 6 weeks of proper rest. As a business owner, it’s not always realistic to completely stop – and because I love what I do it rarely feels like a ‘should’, but I am aware I want to find a good balance. I have a blog post coming on fourth trimester stuff if I get the time to write it before she comes so stay tuned!

My physical wellbeing – in all honesty I’ve not felt completely on top of this in the way I’d like for a good long while. I have been happy with the balance I found in pregnancy, but once I’m out of the fourth trimester I want to give this area of my wellbeing much more attention. Funnily enough, I actually found it easier to fit in exercise when Finley was little because he could come along to exercise classes and be happily asleep in the pushchair. I basically just need to ensure I’m getting movement I enjoy and eating well – doing the Wholehearted Programme helped me see what barriers have been getting in the way of making this consistent so I feel much more prepared to make a shift with this.

Money management – each year I feel like I’ve been making consistent steps to getting better around money management and this year, especially with maternity leave, I need to up things a notch! Last year I did well spending less by using more of what we have, selling things on Facebook Marketplace and buying things from there as well. I got lots and lots of things for the baby second hand too. This year I want that to continue, not just from a money point of view but from the environmental side of things too. This year I also started a savings account for a pension so that made me feel like a grown up!

A couple of specific things I’d like to do in 2020:

Redecorate our dining room / office / play space area in the house – I barely use my desk now and my big Mac computer is on its last legs. I’d like to invest in a new Macbook to replace that computer and my Mac Air. With that desk going I’d like a new dining table and to make better use of the space for the kids play things too.

Continue my quest for the perfect capsule wardrobe – I’ve been using a capsule wardrobe approach for the last couple of years and with pregnancy and the postpartum period coming up I feel like it will need a bit of a refresh. I want to try and focus on the items I already have but investing in a couple of key pieces to make sure I don’t feel frumpy and ‘mumsy’ and instead feel confident and put together!

Business wise I have a few key things I’d love to achieve but I am holding these goals very lightly. 2020 is probably not going to be a year of massive business growth for me, and I’m ok with that – but I do have some exciting and fun things I’d like to create! The main thing is reopening my Wholehearted Biz Club and creating a new programme all around creating your first online course (I’ve created a lot of online programmes and I love them!).

And speaking of online programmes – my Wholehearted Programme is currently available with 50% off until Thursday 2nd January! Check it out here.

Genuinely, I’ve used the Wholehearted Programme to help me get this clarity going forward – and I really feel like all these things are realistic, achievable and will get me to where I want to be. I’ve already cut out a lot of things that weren’t serving me and made tweaks and changes to help me feel more like I have my shit together! It’s a programme I’m hugely proud of!

So that’s my 2019 review and 2020 look ahead done! How was 2019 for you? What plans do you have for 2020? Do you have a word for the year?

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