Looking forward. Looking back

I am not big on New Year's Resolutions. Most of the time they are abandoned faster than they are written and they come with so much self-inflicted pressure that we often end up not making changes that we would otherwise have achieved, just because they supposedly began on 1 January.

I read something once which, quite rightly, suggested that you hold not put off making a change until Monday, or the first of next month, as it's just a delaying tactic. Start early and start now - there is less pressure.

As Huff Post Life Editor Amy Packham put it in a 2016 blog: If you are waiting and putting off your change, how much do you really want to make it?

So this year, I have abandoned New Year's Resolutions completely and instead taken a look back at 2022 once more with some Retrospective Resolutions.

This is a short list of things that I have done over the last year, each of which would have made a good resolution in their own right.

Had this been my list on 1 January 2022, it would have seemed like there was a big year ahead. So putting it together as a Retrospective Resolutions list basically lets me pat myself on the back for what I did manage last year.

Propose

S and I were sat on a harbour wall in Fremantle, Western Australia, at sunset when I asked her to marry me. It was something I had planned for a while, but it was the high spot of my year.

Buy a house

Not content with impending wedding planning, S and I have taken the plunge and are getting our first home together. It has been as slow a process as usual and we are very nearly there.

Build a working freelance business

I went freelance in 2019, but with the pandemic kicking in less than 12 months later, this was the first full year I had. A lot of my work is not what I was first expecting when I set out to work for myself, but every day is interesting and exciting.

Go to the gym regularly

I know, this is a cliché, but for the first time in my life I actually went to the gym regularly for a whole year. This is an example of starting when you think of it, as I joined the gym and started training in September last year, but this was the year I finally made a change into a habit.

So what are your Retrospective Resolutions? What were your high spots of last year?

Or what are your plans for 2023?