At the end of every year, I like to write some goals for the year ahead. I usually write them all in a notebook and then put that notebook away till the end of the next year but now I need to be a bit more proactive about these goals as some of them are quite important. SO , lets get to it.

Goal 1: ~Moving out~

In February this year I moved out of my parents house and am currently living my lovely new roommate 😊but, because the beginning of this year were almost completely focused on the move, it’s taken me a little while to actually sit down and write these goals. But nonetheless, this was still a goal at the end of last year that I just happened to accomplish right at the start of this year. (Yay me!)

Goal 2 : ~Big Boy Job~

This year I will be graduating from university and will of course need a ~big boy job~ to stay living ,in general but also, in my new place.(If anyone knows someone who would be willing to hire someone with (almost) a computer science degree and lot of experience as a costume character… Let a girl know ✌️😌). That will probably be the biggest goal for this year cos as soon as my student finance runs out, I’ll need a new way to pay rent.

Goal 3 : ~Drink water more consistently~

Honestly, drink more water has been on my 30 goals list every year but I think my main issue is consistency. There will be some days where I drink a lot and other days where I haven’t drank anything and I don’t even think to relate the headaches, dry/patchy skin or acne to my lack of water. So that’s got to change. I saw on TikTok that some girl put her Tamagotchi on her water bottle and uses it as a way to remind herself to drink when it chimes. So far this month, it’s actually been alright and me and Floop the fourth (My Tamagotchi) are feeling great. He’s died 3 times already because I keep forgetting him at home but I keep reviving him and its the thought that counts.

Goal 4 : ~Respect your sleep needs~

I’ve always struggled with my sleep, sleeping too much or not giving myself enough time to get the right amount of sleep before a busy day. Last year I had to actively try to not to go to sleep past midnight and now I realise, it was a good start but no where near enough. This year I’m going to start really understanding and respecting my sleep needs and taking it very seriously.

Goal 5 : ~Nurture inner child~

Too much of my school days were focused on my future and growing up too quickly, I now feel like I definitely neglected my inner child and didn’t stop to fully enjoy my childhood. I would get waves of sadness when I would hear about how friends or colleagues used to spend their childhood being children, enjoying the moment and not constantly thinking “how will this thing effect my future?” I’ve decided that instead of avoiding these conversations or sitting in sadness, I would make a conscious effort to heal my inner child and pick up things that trigger me.

Goal 6 : ~Finish university~

As of May 9th, I have officially finished university. It has been way, way too long and I’m so happy it’s over. After a foundation year, the first 2 years of university, 2 gap years and then my final year, I have been “in university” for 6 YEARS and I’m over it. I don’t even know if I want to go into computer science, I feel like as well as doing my degree and learning everything I needed to know about it, I also learned it might not be the route for me. Maybe I still need to do some searching but I want a job where I can be creative as well as use all my programming skills but I’m having trouble finding opportunities.

Goal 7 : ~Update my personal website~

My website has been a big part of my university experience, both while I was in university and while I was on my many gap years. It only makes sense to use my time now to update the website using what I’ve learnt from university. I’m not yet sure what I want the new update to be exactly but… it’s gonna be big. If you would like to see what I’ve done so far, check out my CallMeNoor updates category and http://www.callmenoor.com

Goal 8 : ~Add university projects to portfolio~

With the update of my personal website comes opportunity to show what I can do. I have been doing project work throughout university and for a bit part of it, I hated the lack creative freedom I had IN MY OWN WORK. As a computer science student, there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to come up with my own ideas or even choose the subject for application projects. They were mostly focused on cars, football and other things the male majority of my course would like/know and they were all very easily adaptable to another subject except I wasn’t allowed. So now I have all these half-assed applications I made just to get the mark and not much to show for my time at university because I hate looking at them.

Goal 9 : ~Take every opportunity to go on holiday (but, be responsible)~

2020 is going to be a big year that I will probably reference throughout this blog and anything else write about but I’m sure we can all agree the impact 2020 had on our want to travel and get out of the house. Before 2020, I had only travelled a couple times in my life and it had never got to the point where I actually wanted to “travel the world” or anything like that but something definitely changed during lockdown. So this is the first year where I will make the effort to travel and experience different cultures and cuisines and spend money on experiences and not material items.

Goal 10 : ~Declutter your life~

I have a lot of shit and I have been using every single time I’ve had something to do as an excuse and I need to stop. This goal is a little bit vague but its appropriate for a lot of things. I need to declutter my wardrobe, my arts and crafts supplies and a lot of my social stuff. There are so many areas of my life that need decluttering and I no longer have any excuse to not do it.

Goal 11: ~Keep IBS under control~

I was diagnosed with IBS last year and was told I could either take control of my diet or go to counselling. Unfortunately I am only able to do counselling with the NHS for 6 weeks at a time and I am very limited to what I can afford. I have been able to see how my mood and general mental health effects my sleep, my physical health and my digestive system. However, I am able to afford to take charge of my diet and explore what my body reacts to without affecting other peoples eating habits, now that I’m no longer living with my family.

Goal 12: ~Enjoy the music~

Before 2020, I had only been to 1 concert and that was One Direction when 5 seconds of summer opened for them in Wembley on my birthday and as someone who used to perform on stage regularly, having only experienced 1 concert was embarrassing. I’ve been to a few more since and every single time I am reminded about how much I used to love performing and how amazing it is to experience music live. So I will be making an extra effort to enjoy live music and go out and find more places and artists to watch.

Goal 13: ~Reconnect to your musical self~

With the previous goal, I will be trying to reconnect to my love for music. I used to perform all the time when i was younger and essentially made myself choose between music and computer science instead of looking for other ways to make them both work. I miss making and performing music and hopefully with the live music and the now declaration of intention to reconnect, I will get more comfortable with my musical self.

Goal 14: ~Do a pull up~

I have a fear of falling and I feel like being able to do a pull up will make it less of a possibility. Of course it completely depends on the situation but being able to pull myself up is a life skill I feel like I need to have that I don’t.

Goal 15: ~Use every opportunity to celebrate you~

Something that really stuck with me when I was in counselling was “How do you celebrate yourself and your achievements?” and I remember being stuck for an answer. How do you tell you’re self that now is a time to celebrate yourself and it’s become this big question for the last couple months as I am still looking for ways to do that and to make it abundantly clear that now is a time to celebrate you. Something I’ve done every year for the last couple years is buy myself a present on my birthday because there have been years where I would put the responsibility of appropriately celebrating my birthday on to those around me and when they don’t deliver, I get disappointed. Now it is solely my responsibility to celebrate me and make sure regardless of if anyone does anything or not, I will make the effort to celebrate me, my birthdays/anniversaries and my successes.

Goal 16: ~Make a conscious effort to “Reduce, reuse and recycle”~

Now that I have more time and space to be conscious about my impact on myself, my house and then the world, i have been actively looking for ways to reduce the waste that comes out of my house. Using glass jars and bottles for flowers or drinks on the go, the plastic fruit containers for my mini kitchen garden and buying the refillable for products I know I will use again.

Goal 17: ~Help the planet~

Taking my time to find solutions that don’t make me choose “good for myself” or “good for the world” and only choosing the options that fit both (or any other important variables) or using this time to make a solution. An example I accomplished a few years ago is taking the time to research hair care and what I should look for when I’m buying my haircare products and then looking into ways to also be ecological about it. Finding more ways to upgrade little areas of my life to better my self-care/lifestyle whilst also being kind to the planet.

Goal 18: ~Strengthen your core~

Fun fact: I was born with an umbilical hernia which means I essentially have a hole in my stomach muscle and all my life I have been terrified of working out my core too much to the point where it snaps and I die or something. With that said, I have also been told the best way to heal it is to strengthen your core. Honestly, I feel like if i strengthen my core, all of my physical issues will be solved and I love that for future strengthened core Noor. So yeah, please do that.

Goal 19: ~Buy a Piano~

I’ve always said, the first thing I buy when I earn a big cheque is a piano. I want this year to be the year I do that. I used to play when I was younger and ended up neglecting the skill when I went into singing but… loads of people can sing… how many people can play the piano AND sing. Yeah. I want to be Grayson Chance singing Paparazzi level amazing at that and I NEED a piano to do that.

Goal 20: ~Explore new content platforms~

I love social media and making content but haven’t been very experimental with the content I make and where it goes. This is the first of a series of blogs I hope to write this year and I want to make content for Pinterest but mainly I just want to create more content in general and it’s more fun to experiment.

Goal 21: ~Re-align life values with personal interests~

This is another heavy one so watch out. I know I’m not the only one who could say this but I’m not entirely sure I fully agree with everything I was told to believe as a kid and there was a lot. Actually I feel like there were things I had to believe that are things I don’t think any child should even be thinking about. For example, Marriage and all of it’s variables. No child should be seriously thinking about their future marriages. Fine, explain what it is and how it works but no kid should be looking at a person they like at the age of 11 and break down why or why not this marriage will work. Anyways, there’s a lot I need to mentally break down and rebuild my own opinion for because there’s a lot of contradictions that I need to fix.

Goal 22: ~”I can buy myself flowers”~

With the Miley Cyrus song of a similar name, why tf not? Buy yourself flowers. With all this grocery shopping I’ve been doing recently, I’ve been eyeing up all of these super pretty bouquets and thinking “just buy it, what’s stopping you?” I want to be in a place where I see these flowers and think the thing stopping me is that I already have one. I want pretty flower in my house and if no one else is going to buy them, I will.

Goal 23: ~USE YOUR SEWING MACHINE!!!!~

Noor, you did not spend £200 pound on the thing to not use it at all. You cant use the excuse of no space or time. I know it’s scary when you’ve got no one to check on you but you can do it. You’re more than capable of using the machine and making something really cool.

Goal 24: ~Go to gym once a week, every week~

I don’t do enough physical activity and even though it’s not my top priority, it is still important to give your body the time to stretch and move in way you don’t on a day to day. Use one of the machines, go bouldering, take a spin class. Just don’t be upset that you don’t feel healthy if you’re not actively trying to be.

Goal 25: ~Restart your house savings~

I had a lifetime ISA for a couple years before the pandemic and ended up closing it during lockdown when I lost my job. I’m now in a place where I can start thinking about my future and getting a lifetime ISA again isn’t the worst idea. Whether it’s for buying my first house or saving for my pension, it’s better to have something than nothing at all.

Goal 26: ~Experiment with your hair~

I have always wanted a full fringe and blue hair and was never allowed. Don’t be shocked when I suddenly have either or both. I actually got a full fringe in the end of April but it’s mid-may and it’s already grown out so we’ll see what happens with that.

Goal 27: ~Work with the Bratz~

My final year project at university was to make a Bratz website which I thought would perfectly encapsulate the Bratz brand and everything the fans want from an official Bratz website. I managed to get most of it done but it not online yet and it’s not ready for everyone to see yet. I’ll get there and it’s be great. What I would also love is to work with Bratz/MGA themselves in some kind of capacity and collaborate or even be a part of their development team. Big dreams there but I’ll just put it out there.

Goal 28: ~Revive NoobDoesIt~

Its a tale as old as time. I made a YouTube channel, made one video and then never touched it again. I was so proud of that video too but I didn’t prepare well enough to be able to keep it going. I lost momentum as soon as I started the next project. This time I will plan ahead and make sure there is enough gas in the tank before driving.

Goal 29: ~Enjoy the mornings~

I almost always sleep in when I don’t have to get up. It’s not been so bad recently but there’s just something about waking up early, doing 5/6 things you’ve been putting off and then seeing that it’s only 9am. It’s like ♪ time moves slow ♪ and life just feel better. I’m not a morning person though so I don’t think it’ll stick but just try a few mornings every month and you’ll just feel a smidgen happier.

Goal 30: ~Find a career that makes you happy~

This is the biggest goal of this year and honestly my Everest at the minute. What do I want to do? Do I want it to be computer science related? Creative is a must. Social media? Music? Online? Do I want to work from home or travel as part of the job? Work the weekends? 9-5? What makes me happy and how can I find a job that doesn’t make me sad?

Yes, I understand a lot of these goals are heavy and will probably take a few years to fully achieve but taking the time to reflect and make the effort to acknowledge areas of improvement means I have made progress already. If simply writing down the goal gets me 1% closer to the end goal, then I can say today I have achieved 1% of 30 goals by simply writing this. Some of the goals on this list are already complete due to the point in the year I decided to write this but they were still goals and this is a mini way to celebrate (that’s another!).

This year I will be writing more blogs so if you did enjoy this one, follow me on Instagram (@NoorieJBK) and let me know what you thought. If you read all the way to here, leave a 5 letter name for my Tamagotchi in the comments of my Instagram post about this blog (has the same image).