Happy New Year!!!

I am a huge fan of new year hype. I love that whole ‘starting fresh’ feeling and I love celebrating the new year, we always have a mini party at ours for our friends to watch the fireworks (thank you BBC for featuring CRAIG DAVID this year!) and I also love setting new goals.

I should point out as much as I love setting resolutions and have all the best will and intention to keep them, they very rarely come into fruition.

HOWEVER

That being said, I still feel it’s good practice to at least start the year off with the intention to achieve something by the end of it. I suppose the key is to make sure you don’t beat yourself up if it all goes skew whiff and you haven’t got there by the end.
In the early days of blogging… many, many… many, many years ago… I wrote a list with my family of things to achieve when I was 21. The list is actually here on my site, and I did write a few others following on from the success of this one.

Now success for this, was not completing it – the success was that it pushed me to at least try to! Others got involved, and it became a team thing and something that motivated all of us. Even though back when I dragged Mo up Ben Nevis and when we climbed down, the pain set in and he cursed my lists and asked me not to do one ever again… I have in fact created a NEW CHALLENGE for 2020.

Thanks to my dear sister, I’d like to introduce you to…

the 2020 20 Challenge.

This 12 month challenge will see me challenge four key areas I want to improve in:

• Health
• Wellbeing
• Environment
• Experience

 

 

Health

This is quite a personal challenge. My name is Asma Younus and I am addicted to soft drinks. It’s something I am not proud of, because it really does feel like an addiction. I have one a day, and pretty much have done for as long as I can remember. In the past I’ve always celebrated the days when I DON’T have one, because quite frankly those days were pretty few and far between.

But enough is enough and the impact it could, actually not could, IS having on my health is not how I want to continue my life so I have pledged that for this year, 2020, I will only allow myself to have 20 soft drinks in the entire year. This will average one a month, and the odd one for special occasions. Each time I have one I will be tracking it.

A few people have asked if I’ll be substituting it with something else and that is definitely not what I’ll be doing! This will apply to all soft drinks – the only thing I will rule out is if we are at a restaurant and there is maybe like a non-alcoholic cocktail or something, then those will be allowed – for the simple reason that’s not what I’m addicted to!

This may seem really silly to some people, but I assure you this will be no easy feat. But I am ready, really ready to embrace this change.

Wellbeing

Committing to something like a 10k or a half marathon… I don’t want to just do the one event a year that I’ll put off and put off and then subsequently try and fluke at the last minute. So instead I’ve challenged myself to carry out 20 runs – they have to be a minimum of 5km.

Putting this in perspective – I can’t remember the last time I ran!?!? I need to dust off the trainers and throw myself back in.

Environment

The constant imagery appearing on social of oceans, beaches, countryside strewn with litter. It’s all I can think about these days and it’s about time I started taking it seriously in my life. We do our best to recycle, however having the best of intentions doesn’t necessarily mean we are successful all the time.

So in an attempt to make our lives eco-friendly, I am setting Mo and I the challenge to record our plastic bottle purchases and to not go over 20 a month as a household.

At first I thought, there’s no way we do that! However we’ll be keeping tallies and when you think about cleaning products, milk, yoghurts, toiletries etc… it soon adds up! 20 seems like a lot to buy, so our attention will be to keep our intake as low as possible, but we are pledging to not pass the 20 line every month.

Of course any plastic we do buy, we will be making sure it is recyclable – some people have said, well if it’s recyclable then surely it’s ok? However, I think it’s important we eradicate it from our habits. I can’t bear to look at another sea animal with a bottle lodged in its system!

Experience (aka Manctivities)

Ok so by far my favourite one out of the four!! Over the last year I feel like I have neglected my beautiful city of Manchester and it’s high time I get myself back out there to experience all the amazing new things it has to offer.

So this one is simple – Over the next 12 months I will looking for 20 new manc-tivities to try out.

Best thing about this one – you can join in too!! Based in Manchester? Want to check out a new activity with me?
Let’s do it! I’m open to suggestions and definitely up for giving most things a go – so drop me a comment with ideas and let’s get stuck in!

 

 

The pic above is a poster I made to help me keep track of it all –

• Each time I do a run, I’ll write the distance in the medal and colour it in
• Each time I have a soft drink I need to cross out a can, so it’s clear how many I have left
• Each time I do a manctivity (try something new in Greater Manchester) I will take a polaroid snap and stick it in the box
• And finally, each time we buy a plastic bottle, we put a tally in the relevant month, so we can see how many we have

So there you have it – my 2020 20 challenge.

It’s not going to be easy, I can’t guarantee I’ll achieve it, but I tell you what – I will sure as heck be doing everything I can to power through!!

Setting yourself any challenges this year?

Fancy joining mine? (or a version of it)