Wow! It feels like forever since I had time to strike the keys in anger, fear, angst joy or to express any other emotion for that matter.

Tis indeed the same old story, too many commitments, work days, a never ending 'to do' list and a lady that keeps on catching the old 'rona', yup, she caught it again.

As it is for most people she felt a bit lousy, like the typical head-cold one would expect this time of year in the UK, so no real concerns to be honest.

This happened and of course triggered an isolation right at the time we were intending to drive my daughter back to drama school in Manchester which is 120ish miles away with all of her Christmas acquisitions that she would like at hand in her student accommodation.

So our January plans which were actually pretty much mapped out on the calendar were thrown in to disarray... I'm sure there's a moral about not trying to plan anything in there somewhere, but hey!

So here I am exactly 2 weeks in to January, rueing my false start and falling short of where I was supposed to be. Ah, but that's life isn't it? The real test is getting down to business when things rapidly head South, isn't it?

I have one over-riding goal this year, one that has lived in my head for quite some time and 2022 is the year. Come to think about it, if not this year, the goal would be entirely unattainable as it is anchored to me hitting an age milestone, that I have mentioned a few times before.

Before I launch headlong in to the topic at hand though, let me encourage you to share your goals, plans and aspirations for 2022 in the The Self Improvement Community The community was created with YOU in mind. The community was founded as a repository for people to share their successes and failures to inspire, help, guide others. I dearly love reading about the journey people are about to embark on towards a better life!

First up let me tell you something that I believe regarding new year's resolutions.

For me they are utterly pointless!

Don't get me wrong, like many people I used to always have those things I wanted to achieve anchored to that date too. With the 'alleged' wisdom of age though I had a realisation.

It feels a little foolish to make healthy plans to come in to play on that date when the house is still full of treats and drinks from the Christmas/New year festivities. I always think there is just too much temptation on every shelf and in every cupboard in my kitchen to hold my resolve.

Like many people who work a job for a living and have too much month at the end of the money, the period immediately after Christmas is a little hazy financially. What I mean by that is that it is difficult to get a grasp on exactly where you stand after the inevitable excesses and over spending that accompany the festive season.

For this reason I also find January 1st a poor time to make any major financial plans. Yes I know I should spend less, budget better and keep a closer eye on the purse-strings but Christmas is Christmas, right?

When it comes to getting the house in order, January 1st is definitely NOT the time. It takes several days to take down the decorations (we go completely over the top when it comes to Christmas decorations) and to get them all back in to the loft takes a long, long time too. After that there is the gifts to sort, arrange, sometimes assemble and find homes for.

This year we were even further behind as I worked right across Christmas and also new years eve and New years day nightshifts so was extremely tired from all the 12 hour shifts as well as trying to engage as fully with the pre Christmas shopping and family festivities as I could.

Health and wealth always feature in any goals and ambitions I make so for all the reasons I mentioned, timing would have made this almost impossible.

So as far as trying be be a 'brand new me' for the brand new year, it simply wasn't happening, I'm afraid.

That's ok though as I already knew I was going to really start making changes to life a week or so in to 2022.

I'VE GOT TO GET BETTER AT THIS WHOLE DESIGNING THING, HAVEN'T I?

If you are familiar with my blog, you will likely be aware that the last couple of years have brought a raft of health problems my way, each time I adapt something else is thrown in to the mix, this has made me incredibly low and quite emotional at times but I always have a firm eye on the future and how I want things to be, so this was always to be my focus at the earliest practical moment in the new year.

So 2 weeks in to the year I have finally found a little time to set my stall out and write down what I want, how I am most likely to achieve it and list the small steps that will hopefully compound and help me move further along the line to make subsequent bigger changes.

I'm not interested in building Rome in 1 day, things that are built shoddily and in a slap-dash, haphazard fashion have a habit of collapsing as quickly as they were built.

So I mentioned that I have one key goal... That's not strictly true as it is a multi-faceted plan for what I might call 'total life transformation', nope, I'm not having wings grafted on to my back or being genetically reprogrammed in to a tyrannosaurus rex, that's not what I mean at all.

I have targeted all the key areas of my life in which I want to make improvements and there is a time sensitive element built in anchored to one very important date, you may have heard me mention this before.

If the goal had a succinct mission statement, it would be the following;

I WILL be healthier, wealthier, wiser and happier at 50 than I was at 40!

This goal has existed in my head for quite some time and it is only recently I have refined the parameters of each of those aspects of life I mentioned, so that I know exactly what I am aiming for.

I have written many times about the trap that people find themselves in where they see what seems like a legitimate list of excuses reasons that will surely act as a barrier to success in any area of life.

We've all heard them a million times before. Hell! Many of us have made them before!

I'm too old... young... tall... short... fat... thin... dumb... smart... poor... uneducated... blahblahblahblahblah...

Except for a very small number of legitimate reasons such as a 62 year old trying to make it in to the England under 21 football team I challenge anyone to check their thinking and change the words 'I can't' to 'How can I?'

I realise as much as anyone else that it can appear genuinely daunting to make a big change or achieve a goal that currently seems insurmountable, the easiest way that I have found is to ask this simple question;

What one thing could I do do today that would take me, even the tiniest step closer to my goal?

For instance I wanted to drop a little weight over the last week or so to help with my diabetes and C.O.P.D and had little motivation to start eating a clean, perfect diet packed with just the right balance of nutrients so I bought a bag of fresh rocket, a bag of spinach and a bag of lambs lettuce and made the commitment to replace one bad item from my diet that day with a healthy handful of mixed leaves...

I actually made a lot more progress than that and it resulted in me dropping around 10 pounds in just over a week and I feel much, much better BUT if I had put myself under pressure to make wholesale changes at a time I felt demotivated I would likely have failed massively OR not even have started.

I do not want to find myself as a 50 year old, blaming being 50 for the decline in my health over the last couple of years, so I am going to reverse the damage done or at-least stabilise it. I do not want to be the guy saying that I am 'over the hill' and on the scrapheap as far as getting another job or pursuing other ways of making money is concerned as that is BS!

I aim to be far more at 50 than I was at 40!

Far healthier, far more valuable as a team-member or project leader, I want counting pennies to be a thing of the past, I am way too smart and far too informed to accept this sorry state of affairs as I head in to a new decade of my life.

I have been a lifelong learner, I have a genuine love of learning, of knowledge but I have not been as structured in this as I should have been if I am completely honest. I am going to choose some skills that will benefit me in some of the endeavours I have planned...

Confession time!

When I wrote the last sentence or 2 I had some very firm ideas in mind.

I'm finally going to learn to punctuate my writing correctly as it has long been a source of embarrassment for me, I only say that because as somebody who clearly enjoys writing one would think I would have learned the rules by now, right?

I also was thinking of the way I always describe myself as a technophobe, you see I can learn how to cure a chemical or nutritional imbalance or learn the markers for identifying societal collapse (all true thing I have focussed on in recent history), BUT when it comes to learning how to use my camera, a new computer programme a spreadsheet or something I deem 'techie' I have an appalling mental block and the words on the page become jumbled and incoherent (rather like reading one of my posts!!!), I simply so not take it in.

Yet in 2022 I am finally going to spread my wings further afield and try my hand at making a supplementary income online, writing will play a sizeable part of this.

As I mentioned I have been making notes on how to move forward in each area of my life in order to be better at 50 than 40 and the changes I have begun to make have left me feeling good.

I am looking forward to the coming year like never before!

I am realistic that some of my health conditions may not be 'reversible' as such but I shall certainly be doing my utmost to be as equipped as I can to make the desired improvements.

The idea for this post came in to my head last night, so I decided to check the countdown for my turning 50... There was a ripple of electricity and a feeling of synchronicity ran through me when I realised that it is exactly 250 days till I turn 50... That's gave me the idea of breaking my milestone down in to 5 batches of 50 days each. At the end of each 50 day segment I will review where I am, where I thought I would be and 'hopefully' be on track or make the course corrections necessary to achieve this epic goal.

This all stemmed from my take on people dreading milestone birthdays and the big 5 - 0 especially.

How much more empowering to use such dates as the motivation to be better.

Did you make any new year resolutions?

Remember you can set out on a journey to self improvement just as well on the 4th March or the 12th September as you can on January 1st, it's simply a matter of deciding and acting.

One of the major hopes I had when starting the The Self Improvement Community was that users would perhaps drop an encouraging word to those taking that first step toward something they truly wish to become, that is when we are at our very best after all, right?

My health battles of late have resulted in my Hive journey being a stuttering one full of false starts and periods of absence and I must confess the community has not grown or progressed in the way I had hoped but as you may well learn over time, I'm not one to lay down and die easily.

Where there's life there's hope, right?

I will be back to lay out my key goals shortly but spoiler alert:

I have never had a six pack in my life!

As a young man I was in the British army and was fit but as I was young and scrawny my six pack was pretty unremarkable and virtually non existent I want a six pack at 50!!!

Yup! I know that's not traditionally the time people choose to develop a six pack for the first time but, hey... I never claimed to be normal, did I?

Thank YOU for taking the time to read my post and if you're one of those amazing people who like to hit the comments section... Then I doubly thank YOU!

Either way I want you to know that you are appreciated!

Keep taking the time to connect with each-other both here and in the 'so-called' real world and try and look after each-other, because as you already know...

I am an incredibly proud member of #TeamUK I love the global community immensely, but it is nice to have a home-team banner to add to my posts. The banner was made by the inimitable RoastMaster General himself @c0ff33a If you are an active UK member and would like to be added to the teamUK community on Discord, just let me know 😎