Hey, hey, it’s Friday again! The 2nd one of the year!

This week we are talking about five things we want to achieve this year. This can be anything mental or physical health related and an addition to big hairy goals you’ve set for yourself, OR just be your goals for this year. I would say, for me, these are my goals but I reserve the right to be inspired later to add other goals as they come to me.

WELOME to Fit Five Friday with with your FIVE amazing hosts – me, My First 5K and More, Running With Attitude, Runs with Pugs, and The Running Teacher !

Five Desired Achievements for 2024

25 parkruns this year

To be honest, this is a fairly aggressive goal I want to achieve this year, due to the fact that I very often need to be at my own parkrun to help. However, the volunteer pool has grown over the last two years, giving us not only more opportunity to run at home, but also the opportunity to visit other parkruns.

To achieve 25 parkruns I need at least 2 a month + an extra somewhere… So far I’ve done one (yay!) and have another one planned tomorrow (yay!) and will just keep my fingers crossed that our well-oiled machine stays that way this year.

Get Control over Stress

2023 was not a good year for me and stress. Most of it is coming from being in a bad situation at work. I’m currently working on moving forward, hopefully somewhere else but if not then I’m going to nip the stress in the bud myself. If there is anything I’ve learned in my 55 years, it’s that, mostly, whatever you are going through, the only person who can control the outcome is you, yourself. Some of the things that I believe will help me :

1 – Breathing: sometimes just taking deep, meaningful breaths can calm me down almost immediately!

2 – Positive Affirmations: this one will be more of a challenge because, while I support others who do this, for myself I find it a little hokey. But if it works for others why not try it??

3 – Joy “snacking”: throughout the day, no matter what, find something that gives me a feeling of joy. A friend of mine did this last year and I found it such a great idea! I do have a feeling that a lot of my joy snacking will have something to do with neighbourhood cats on my daily walks – haha!

4 – Respond (or don’t at all) rather than react: I think the events of the last year at work have really left me in a react mode rather than a respond (or don’t at all) mode and I want to flip that switch.

Continue my walk streak

I hadn’t made a decision if I was going to fully commit to another year of walking every day, but now I believe it can only have a positive impact on me. So, the first goal is 500 days, and the second is to finish out the year, which would bring me to 731 days.

Continue pursuing better mental and physical health

Since December I finally am under the care of a neurologist and an internist who will hopefully be able to help me figure out why I don’t feel well, don’t sleep well and am unable to lose weight. Not feeling good for quite a while now has had a major impact on my mental health. I am not against crying and letting things out but it’s getting really old and boring now. I want to feel good and “normal” (my definition, because what is normal anyway haha1 ) again. Like, for more than 48 hours…

Register and participate in at least 5 races

Last year I finally felt well and strong enough to do a couple of races and I had SO MUCH FUN! I would love to do at least 5 races this year. I am already registered for one in a couple of weeks (yikes, not really ready for it) so maybe I’ll even manage more than five this year!

Join the Fit Five Friday Link-up!

Here are the guidelines:

• Your link should center around some kind of fitness (exercise, wellness, mental health, nutrition… the possibilities are endless!)
• Please link back to your hosts! It’s the right thing to do! 
• Share the link-up love by visiting and commenting on your hosts and at least two other Fit Five Friday bloggers!
• Feel free to share about Fit Five Friday on your social media! Tag #FitFiveFriday to get the word out!

What is something you would like to achieve this year?

Here’s our list of Fit Five Friday topics, by the way. Please join us in any of these topics or go freestyle!