It's become increasingly unfashionable to make New Year’s resolutions with the thought that they provide another element of pressure at an already fever pitch moment.

I guess choosing to make a change on the very first day of the year does rather build in a heavy mandate, thus a likelihood of failure, but for me, I still like to use the time to make positive changes.

It feels fresh and new and as good a time as any and while I don’t tend to do anything until after the kids go back to school (any date can mark the start) the moment normality resumes is when I pounce, to begin the new year, new me!

A couple of years ago I decided I was going to lose weight.

I’d dithered around wanting to get back in shape after my third baby for too long and as January rolled around it was the perfect moment.

I’d tried and failed on many a Monday morning to begin a newer, healthier regime (always a Monday) but it had proven the beginning of the week wasn’t enough motivation, I needed something bigger and 2020 was my year.

I wasn’t drastically overweight but I needed to be fitter, trimmer and healthier for my own good state of mind - I went hell for leather.

By the time we went into lockdown in March of that year I had got down to the weight I wanted to be and I headed into the first, of what proved to be many isolation periods, with a really positive mental attitude. It served me well.

Last year, pregnant with our fourth baby and still on top of keeping myself looking and feeling how I wanted, my New Year’s resolution was to forge on with my career and make things work professionally, even with a new baby in tow.

Or more rather, look after my baby but not abandon my work goals.

My working after having children has always been about a balance of my needing to financially but creating work which means the priority is them.

I’m fortunate that my line is incredibly flexible, and I absolutely can make the children my priority, but for 2021 I still wanted to explore my career more. To write more, be more and contribute substantially not only to the family pot but to my creativity as well.

In a way having my baby gave me the time to focus on what was most important workwise.

I only did the creative things which served my passions and the bread and butter stuff took a back burner.

Funnily enough it was while nourishing my heart with jobs which gave me joy, which has eventually led to earning more money by the end of the year.

This year, with Posie in tow, my business has gone from strength to strength and is thriving by result of the soul I was able to administer to it while earning wasn’t the be all. Now, I’m setting my sights a little bit higher!

Why not go for our goals full throttle? It kind of feels taboo when we say we want to achieve but I don’t believe it should.

We can be ambitious without being big headed and I thoroughly believe it’s these leaps forward in self-belief, that in the past we have been indoctrinated to ignore, which mean we do get places, travel further and win. A little mind power in the right direction instead of accepting that putting one’s self down is easier to believe.

Shoving imposter syndrome aside and stepping up to know we can do it is the way forward! It is for me and it should be for us all!

So, we could look at 2022 and say well, we’re a few days in now and I haven’t started yet so why bother? Or we can say this is just the very beginning, put aside the things we have told ourselves we will always fail at and go for gold instead. Backing me is something I can do, so I’m doing it!

I have a few things I want to change for the better but the biggest one is that I am going to finish writing my book.

It’s been in the making, with dalliances on a word doc, for a few months now, a book about how I literally created a career from nothing at all simply by writing about the thing which fills me with most happiness, motherhood. Working title, Money For Nothing and Chips For Tea is a little bit of a how to, a smidge of an expose behind the scenes (ooh there’s some good gossip) and some fantastic stories of not just my successes as a blogger but those of close friends I’ve made whilst working too.

Celebrities, financials, hints, tips and tricks. I’ve got more than this book in me I know, but this is the one which is igniting passion right now so by hook or by crook I’ll have it written this year and I know nothing about getting published, but I’ll be getting that done too.

Because I can. And you can too.

Book writing, weight loss, changing anything you need to, the power is at your own finger tips so just start, and put your heart into it, then it will come. But hey, maybe wait until Monday because we’re not animals, and Mondays are good days to begin.

Then again, so are Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Whatever works for you – do it, good luck to you and Happy New Year!