Firstly Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a good holiday period and as I look forwards to heading back to work this coming week, I am looking back to what I have done over the past year in 2018. I was fortunate this Christmas in that I managed to take 2 weeks off as holiday over the festive period this year, which was the first time I actually wasn’t working on Christmas for about 3 years! And I had a lovely time switching off my brain from work over the past couple of weeks, with nice food and fantastic company.
So as part of my reflection I have realised I am doing a lot better with my mental health now than I was 6 months back at the start of the summer. As a way to cope with the anxiety I was feeling, I spent a lot of time out in the area at the back of the garage making the most of the warm weather and creating projects out of wood to give me something on which to focus. It took me quite a while to get better this time, but I know that I am a lot better now than I have been for a couple of years in fact. A number of things have changed since the summer, most significantly of which being a new job with less stress (but new areas for worry!). That has definitely been a positive change, although starting anywhere new is always a bit overwhelming and I am constantly reminding myself that I do not need to know everything or to be perfect immediately! I also need to not compare myself to colleagues who have been doing the role for years and therefore know how everything works. So I need to continue to be patient with myself but also be proud that although I fell back down the slope, with the immense help of family and friends I have managed to climb back out again.
I know Christmas can often be a stressful time for some people but for me it has always been about the people that you spend the time with. I have three siblings, all of whom have partners, and we all live pretty spread out across the country. With my potential house move hopefully happening in the next few months, that should mean I am closer to everyone (I’m sort of the outlier from the rest of the family!). So it was really lovely to see everyone for a big family get together a few days after Christmas and to exchange both presents and stories of what life has thrown our respective ways over the past few months. And I got to spend New Year with my two favourite people in the world – my wife Jenny and my best friend Tanya, both of whom I really enjoyed spending the evening with playing board games and having delicious food!
It is with a positive and optimistic mindset that I start 2019 I think, looking ahead to potential changes and beginning the next chapter of my life in a new house, becoming more confident in my still relatively new job role, and considering the next steps in terms of my fitness. I am signed up to run a 10K in February (sponsorship in aid of Cancer Research here) and have been training for that up to Christmas, although I will have to work hard to get back into the training over the next few weeks. Before the Christmas break I was up to 7K at a reasonable speed so I am feeling confident that I will be able to complete the 10K in February with no problems (aside from wearing a penguin onesie!).
So with the change of job role and the start of basically an entirely new career, my “life plan” has been somewhat drastically altered. But that’s fine, I can just make a new plan! But I remind myself that there is no pressure to have a new plan immediately and right now, I am simply setting short term targets for myself that are achievable and realistic, and focus on the three main aspects of my life I want to improve or develop over the coming months – career, fitness, and my mental health.
- Career – I am aiming to become more confident in the role and I have specific objectives identified in my Personal Development review which will be re-assessed towards the end of January
- Fitness – I am aiming to be able to comfortably run the 10K in February and then I will be switching to a more intensive workout routine to increase my general levels of fitness, specifically focusing on increasing functional strength and muscle mass through the four key lifts (deadlift, bench press, squats and military press)
- Mental health – I am aiming to continue to develop my resilience and to carry on with the various coping mechanisms I have identified to help me de-stress and successful relax. I am really not good at relaxing, so it is something I definitely need to work on
So I will continue to write here over the coming months to record the various projects I create – I have a few to share that I made before Christmas – as well as to document my fitness experiences and progress too.
Happy 2019 everyone! 🔨
The Woodworking Scientist 