New Year’s resolutions 2014 – a positive year

Last year I made the conscious decision to ditch the guilt-ridden New Year’s Resolutions of denial and focus on resolving to enhance my life in some way instead – namely by learning Italian.

So, one year on – how did I fair? Not too bad as it goes. I’m by no means fluent but my vocab and grammar comprehension has grown 10 fold. Country Bebe and I now know all our numbers, colours, animals and foods, plus I am reading Italian Vogue (okay, mainly looking at the pictures) and Chi – Italy’s OK magazine equivalent – purely because it’s trashy and easy to get the gist of. Weirdly, watching HOURS of Peppa Pig in Italian with Country Bebe has helped my comprehension no end and although I don’t think I could hold my own around the dinner table with my husband’s quick-fire Neapolitan family, I would certainly understand more than I did this time last year. Result.

So what’s this year’s plan?

Well, As per my last post about 2014 being a year for awesomeness – I have decided to keep a ‘gratitude diary’ as studies have proven that ‘the act of identifying and recording positive experiences and attributes actually increases your everyday feeling of happiness and diminishes your negativity and perception of problems and stress’. It’s all too easy to focus on the ‘to-do list’, or the crap going on in your life at any given moment. Giving over hours and hours to worry, anxiety and ‘fire fighting’ is our natural coping mechanism – however by taking 10 minutes a day to say ‘yep, those shitty things are still happening, but these cool, funny, brilliant, loving things are going on too’ has really helped shift my mind-set. I am one of life’s big worriers, not naturally prone to stop and smell the roses, so this is going to be a really good exercise for me.

I’m simply taking a page a day in a notepad and jotting down the smallest or largest thing that pops into my mind that I am thankful for. It might be a rare lie-in, a new pair of shoes, a delicious dinner prepared by my husband or a happy hour on the beach alone with my son. Some things I am grateful for are VERY shallow (hello slice of cake), but I am also taking stock of the ‘big’ things this year – the amazing friends that I love so fiercely, the beautiful corner of Devon I live in, my exciting new job and utterly ACE son. Go on, give it a go – I promise it will make 2014 a happier year.