The last two years, instead of writing down my usual long list of new year's resolutions for the year ahead, I decided that I would have a Word of the Year which would replace my list and act as a guide and reminder throughout the year rather than feel the disappointment of not hitting every resolution I set for myself and then having to carry it over to the next year.

With that in mind, I set my 2017 guiding word of the year as:
I wanted to put some more focus back into my life, in more than one aspect, not just fitness. I set some basic goals that I wanted to achieve with this word as a guide and split them up into Fitness/Health and Life.

FITNESS/HEALTH
I wanted to focus on myself, to stop comparing myself to everyone else and just do me. My primary focus, as it has been every year is to lose the weight I gained post surgery. I wanted to focus on healthy eating, being mindful, getting more sleep and sticking to a structured workout schedule which I hoped would in turn help me achieve some PBs in running.

My secondary focus was on my training. I didn't want to make anymore excuses. I wanted to just get on with the training I had planned out, no skipping runs, implementing home workouts/kettlebell workouts in for some much needed cross training and get me closer to my running goals.

How did these go? In some aspects, quite well, in others, not so well. I would say I was most focused with my training and getting into a regular routine for sleep, especially now that we've moved and I have a long commute.

Surprisingly, weight loss has absolutely no effect on getting PBs(well.. it probably does but in this case it doesn't). Despite not losing any weight this year and actually weighing more than at the start of the year, I got 2 PBs this year and countless firsts.
I wanted a sub 1hr PB for 10KM and sub 2:15 for a Half Marathon and achieved both with a 57 min 10K and 2:15 HM time. I stuck to my training plans and didn't miss any of the major runs.

Like I mentioned, I also had some firsts this year too. I did my first Open Water Swimming event at Great North Swim AND completed my first triathlon! Neither of which were on my list of things I wanted to achieve this year and I did it anyway! I'm super proud of everything I've accomplished with regards to training and races this year.
Things that didn't go well? My focus kinda dwindled towards the end of the year. We were moving out of Phillips mums house and into a rented place over an hour away due to Phillip relocating for work. We had no races planned towards the end of the year and with the new longer commute and nothing to train for, I literally lost all motivation.

My weight is up from last year which I'm really not happy about. I literally feel like I'm going backwards and have no excuses except for the fact that focus was not on my weightloss and that I love to eat. I've said it many times before but you can't out-exercise a bad diet and it's all about calories in vs calories out. The stress of the move and the struggle to get into a regular routine didn't help but this is where my focus should have switched from my training to my nutrition.

Home workouts also didn't happen. Everyone has good intentions at the beginning of the year, however they very quickly died out and I stopped doing them. I can probably count the amount of them that I did on my fingers and toes. Again, no real excuses here, they just weren't at the forefront of my mind and I was more focused on getting in the runs/cycles/swims for races and wasn't doing much of anything else.

LIFE
I wanted to put in some more focus into life outside of fitness, in particular, more focus on my career and my blog/youtube(it's a hobby so I figured it would be best to be here).

I had some exciting opportunities that opened up to me at the end of last year at work and wanted to really get stuck in and get some more experience and knowledge under my belt.

I did exactly that this year, I took on some new responsibilities(more than what I had originally expected) and whilst it was quite stressful to manage more than my usual during a working day, it worked out in my favour and I got a promotion and pay rise, which settled our money worries too. I've learnt alot this year and dipped my toes in a few different areas of work, I feel as though Im the jack of all trades. I'm looking forward to getting stuck into more new projects in the new year. There's been mention of some travel opportunities too which is exciting!

In terms of my blog and youtube(not exactly 'life' but it's a hobby and something I enjoy), it didn't exactly plan out the way I thought it would. I wanted to be more consistent with my content and whilst some parts were(my regular weekly/monthly blog posts), I never really settled into a blogging schedule and was often just posting twice a week, sometimes once or not at all.

My Youtube suffered too as I was struggling to get the motivation and the inspiration to sit down and film a video. The middle of the year was probably peak time as that was when I had my races and I really enjoyed filming those but outside of races, I was uninspired to pick up the camera.
I really need to plan ahead with both of these get some post and video ideas written down and when I have the spare time, it's worth sitting down and pre-writing blog posts that I can use for the times where I have no scheduled content or I've been really busy.

Overall thoughts for the year..
I think that overall, I've not had a bad year. My word of the year guided me in some ways and not so much in others but with what I've achieved this year with new PBs, completing in an open water swim event, a triathlon and getting a promotion, I'd say that my word has been a success and far outweighs the goals I didn't quite achieve this year.

I don't think any word would ever guide you to 100% success and I think this years word has done me well. I do think I might change my format slightly for next year. I think I'm still going to pick a guiding word for the year as it's nice to have a reminder of what you're working for but rather than set some overall goals for the year, I'm going to set a few small ones to get me going in the new year and then do a quarterly update here on the blog to review the goals I set and set new ones if required.

Now I just have to think of the word that I think will guide me most throughout 2018.. and I best get thinking fast as 2018 is literally just around the corner!

Question: Do you have set new year's resolutions, goals or something else? If you could pick a word for the year, what would it be?