On Your Marks, Get Set!

Starting 2026 off strong!

I truly cannot believe a year flew by so quickly. I know time has done nothing but speed by since I became an adult but this past year felt faster still.

They say time flies when you’re having fun and for once I do actually feel as though I had fun this past year. Maybe a little too much fun, if one can say such a thing. I personally think fun was precisely what I needed this past year. And after having indulged in it for the last 365 days, I am ready to moderate my fun again. (At least I hope I am.)

One such New Year’s resolution is to actually plan and stick to a budget once again. I think for so many years I felt like my financial situation was so precarious (helping to support family members) that I gave up on all semblance of saving. This year I want to actually do my utmost to reach the 10k savings goal I have had for the past 3 years. Well, maybe not Utmost. I still want to have some fun, after all.

Eventually I made the decision not to go back to school just yet. Financially, returning to school in 2026 seemed improbable and so the deadline to enroll came and went. I found I needed more time to battle it out with the financial aid office and organize my affairs (read: search for scholarships). And ultimately I decided I needed to experience another year of (moderate) enjoyment before jumping into the fire.

One large priority for the coming year is to finish rewriting my book, working on my book report and also start querying again. I think that 2025 was my year of making up for the previous 3 horrendous years and rebuilding my hope and my belief in myself. I think I am ready to hit the ground running once again. One idea that I got from my friend and fellow writer Ashleigh, is to not get my nails done because I write faster with short nails. I ordered my persons for the majority of 2026 already but I didn’t buy any designs that I would wear in January or February and I hope that 2 months of no nails would have these fingers flying across the keyboard in an effort to reclaim their state of glamour.

This months side quests include a French cooking class, a lesson on how to use a sewing machine, a speed dating event, an evening at the opera, and if I can swing the lottery or rush tickets: Mamma Mia! I want to make a grand list of all the fun things I want to do in 2026 and keep it posted in my bedroom to check off as the year progresses. I find that most times I start a year with so many ideas that are written in a journal and never revisited. Having the activities sheet posted will help me see to it that it actually gets done.

As mentioned last month, I will be taking stock of my Patreon content and learning the new features to figure out what would be best for my audience and how I can grow it. I have a meeting scheduled with my Patreon insider advisor. I also have to figure out my sign up sheet for Mental Health Tings. I think I might just get rid of mail chimp completely soon and just create a Google workspace. We shall see.

I’m going to be working with my business coach again in 2026. I have a meeting scheduled for next week, mainly because I am once again toying with the idea of giving up and quitting blogging. I only wrote and published three articles last year. I started writing a couple more but I never got around to finishing them. As someone who has always been technologically challenged, running a website was always a stretch for me and lately it feels like I’m being stretched too thin. At this point, I find making the video content to be more rewarding, if not easier, but I don’t want to fall victim to the anti-intellectualism era by solely sharing videos. I am hoping that just talking through with my coach can help me to process some of the feelings I have surrounding the blog entirely.

Thank you for still being here and part of my journey as I work through the ups, downs and kinks of trying to realise this dream of mine. I hope your new year is off to an energising start! May this be the year that our wildest dreams come true!