My 2025 Intentions
I’m not in the mood for goals right now
Happy New Year! I’m going to keep it quick for you because I know I appreciate a short(ish) newsletter. (Enjoy a slightly more unhinged audio version this month as I’m ill 😅)
One thing I didn’t do in all the vlognukah videos I posted at the end of last year was take a look back and see how I did on my goals overall last year including those homestretch goals. I’m tempted to do a quick check in now but honestly that feels a bit tedious and I’m ready to put 2024 behind and crack on with whatever 2025 has in store! (The only important thing to note is that I did not figure out a way of managing the huge amount of newsletters coming into my inbox on my TBR, nor did I get round to reading them all so I just deleted them and we’ve started afresh!)
So 2025… what the fuck have you got in store for me? I’m writing this on New Years’ Day while Dan has taken Rowan out (my one half day of my paying job over the “break”) Do you like my out of office?
I don’t particularly want to use the word “goals” this year (even though I love me some goals and that’s basically what they are), this year I'm going to call them intentions (folks in The Common Room discord server have been sharing their 2025 intentions and I was inspired).
My 2025 Intentions
Pursue fertility help without it ruining my mental health and relationship (a fun one to start)
Professional business development in the form of:
a business course I’ve signed up for to help me gain clarity over what it is I’m actually doing 😅
coaching certification course
Travel (I need a fucking holiday, somewhere hot, without kids)
Community and friendship (the quest continues!)
And honestly on top of parenting and the work I do that pays the bills (YouTube, social media, consulting etc.) I think that’s quite enough for me to be focusing on.
What are your intentions for 2025? Big or small. Would love to hear in the comments!
P.S. The splash image of the lego people on the stool context: this was part of a game my dad was playing with Rowan over the holidays and he took lots of pictures of them and any time we show Rowan the pictures he bursts out laughing and talking about the “the people on the edge!” “they fall down!” There’s a whole story involved. It’s adorable. Enjoy their funny faces. (if you’ve no idea what I’m talking about because you’re reading in your email app, it’s the splash image on the substack page).
🕎 Vlognukah Patreon Membership Giveaway! If you’ve been watching the Vlognukah videos over the break then you’ll know I’m running a giveaway over on my Patreon. 8 winners of a free month of Patreon membership per night of Chanukah so 64 winners total. There’s still a chance to enter - you just become a free member of my Patreon and comment on the posts about each Vlognukah video and winners will be selected randomly this week now I’m back to work!
(To be honest, with my career change and having been doing this for so long and feeling very much like an “irrelevant” person online these days I was a bit nervous that not enough people would enter to even be able to pick 8 per night! Turns out I need not have been worried…)
📺 Gavin and Stacey - I’ll be honest, I’ve never properly watched Gavin and Stacey. I dipped in now and then and of course watched the Christmas Special in 2019 and the Christmas Special and Finale this Christmas Day along with millions of others in the UK. And so Dan and I have of course decided to go back and watch the whole series from the beginning. It ended so well and the characters are so brilliant and it is a genuinely hilarious and heartwarmingly silly show we just had to. Little did I know that it’s only 3 seasons and each season has only 6/7 episodes and the episodes themselves are 30 minutes long. I fucking love British TV.
🕎 Vlognukah! 🕎 There’s no video this week (Team Witton needs a break!) so perfect time to catch up on Vlognukah (8 videos over the 8 days of Chanukah!)
Next week we’re starting… The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan* (affiliate link) for the Doing It Book Club over on my Patreon. We have weekly check-ins in the discord server and the date for our book club discussion is Wednesday 26th February 8pm GMT. Please join us to chat all about the book and what you thought of it!
My word/theme of the year is Bloom! I’ll be starting a new job in a few weeks and moving later this spring, and after being in survival mode for a while, I’m invested in intentionally building spaces to help myself thrive.
Sounds like you have lots of plans for the coming year, no surprise there! As my children were growing up, I made it a policy that I would take a trip somewhere exciting with each of them, when they got old enough to remember the trip. The eldest, I took to Maryland to tour and visit relatives, touring Apalachia on a rented motorcycle. The next went with me to a conference I presented at in Hawaii, the next went with me to Regina Saskatchewan to buy an antique car and drive it back home (Seattle area), and for the last, we flew down to San Diego, visit the zoo and Sea World and then took the train home, reading the (then) latest Harry Potter book together along the way. My husband did similar trips and things with them, too. I have always loved these memories and I recommend this to you also.