Well… So far, so good. But I seem to have hit a few 21 day challenges at once. I have taken on eating one piece of fruit a day and so far so good. The Positive aspects challenges of: people, places, things and me. I am also doing the three positive things a day challenge. I am really enjoying that bit of new life homework. I do it when I go to bed each night. The more I have been working on the positive aspects the more I have been feeling an increased the benefit of purposefully looking for the best in each day. It is a pleasure. That is not to say that everyday it is an easy task, but purposefully looking for good in each day is having a knock on effect.

I think I am going to add a dream journal to my hopes to achieve in 2017, but so far no dreams to journal. Somewhat for research purposes I have been trying to learn tarot, so I try to try a draw each night to familiarize myself with my cards. I am very familiar to certain cards already, so hopefully I can learn some more… Perhaps I might put my results on here… Not sure if anyone is interested? I am hoping my notebook that I am using will help me to learn some more.

I still haven’t had a day where I haven’t been apologizing for myself, but that is ok, one step at a time. Maybe other things have to fall into place first?

So I think I can say I completed a few of the 21 day challenges, I am going to keep them up as unfinished for the moment for the 21 day challenge to keep me working on them at the moment. I like that happiness homework so I hope I can keep it going, so far so good.

I am making progress on a couple of the 24-7 goals. In particular numbers 1, 10, 12, 17, 22 for the moment. I will let you know if I achieve them I promise.

The 24-7 goals:

1- Write The Diary of Elliot Parker Part 2

2- Do NANOWRIMO

3- Write The Diary of Elliot Parker Part 3?

4- Write the first book of the big project

5- Finish spine tattoo

6- Finish magpie tattoo

7- Finish musical rib tattoo

8- Look for an agent/publisher for the “big” project

9- Learn to drive

10- Learn guitar

11- Finish knitting the cable knit jumper

12- Finish knitting the blankets

13- Improve views on here

14- See a west end show

15- Try and succeed at least three times on the 21 day habit swap

16- Win the lotto jackpot

17- Look for the positives more often

18- Meditate regularly

19- Keep making emotional progress

20- Keep hope and loose more doubt

21- Make posts for here in advanced, consider adding pictures, try to avoid leaving it to the last minute

22- Try to grow my hair long- aim for below the shoulder this year.

23- Become even more open-minded

24- Discover my own special brand of writers magic,

Habit swapping:

Break- Stop apologizing for myself so often. I do it a lot, it is something that really bothers me, mainly because I apologise for things that are completely not my fault and nothing to do with me. I am sick of apologizing for my own existence.

Make- Eat at least one piece of fruit a day. It is supposed to be healthy right?

Make- Write/plot at least an hour each day even on rest days. I have to start getting stricter on myself.

Make- Create and stick to a writing schedule. I have to start being more organised.

Break- Stop being hard on myself, speak kinder words to myself instead. That pretty much explains itself.

Make- A daily list of 3 positive things that I like about my day. Because sometimes it is easy to forget that there were brief sunshine moments.

Make- A daily list of 3 things that I like about myself, physical, non-physical. Because, it can be hard to show yourself some love.

Make- A little notebook of positive aspects, a once a day entry of 10 things that are positive. Literally a list of positive aspects about people, places, things; maybe one day I will post it on here.

That’s all I have for now, it might change or grow.

Yep that is right, I have a 2017 project. I hope that on the first Monday of each month, I will be posting about what I achieved on my list, my road map of 2017. 2017 has the new 24-7 theory and my 21 day challenge, 12 times this year… although, even if I have to keep restarting the 21 day challenge repeatedly I hope I will be able to complete at least 3 changes.

I want to keep a record, and this is it. I want to see what I achieved on my goals this year. I want to see specific results. This will be separated from my monthly author updates. I really just want to see how much I can change this year for the better. Plus this way, I am accountable for keeping up my resolutions so I might be able to achieve that age old cliche of “New Year new me”, mainly because I have already been changing.

So here is a quick reminder of my project: me.

The 24-7 goals:

1- Write The Diary of Elliot Parker Part 2

2- Do NANOWRIMO

3- Write The Diary of Elliot Parker Part 3?

4- Write the first book of the big project

5- Finish spine tattoo

6- Finish magpie tattoo

7- Finish musical rib tattoo

8- Look for an agent/publisher for the “big” project

9- Learn to drive

10- Learn guitar

11- Finish knitting the cable knit jumper

12- Finish knitting the blankets

13- Improve views on here

14- See a west end show

15- Try and succeed at least three times on the 21 day habit swap

16- Win the lotto jackpot

17- Look for the positives more often

18- Meditate regularly

19- Keep making emotional progress

20- Keep hope and loose more doubt

21- Make posts for here in advanced, consider adding pictures, try to avoid leaving it to the last minute

22- Try to grow my hair long- aim for below the shoulder this year.

23- Become even more open-minded

24- Discover my own special brand of writers magic,

Habit swapping:

Break- Stop apologizing for myself so often. I do it a lot, it is something that really bothers me, mainly because I apologise for things that are completely not my fault and nothing to do with me. I am sick of apologizing for my own existence.

Make- Eat at least one piece of fruit a day. It is supposed to be healthy right?

Make- Write/plot at least an hour each day even on rest days. I have to start getting stricter on myself.

Make- Create and stick to a writing schedule. I have to start being more organised.

Break- Stop being hard on myself, speak kinder words to myself instead. That pretty much explains itself.

Make- A daily list of 3 positive things that I like about my day. Because sometimes it is easy to forget that there were brief sunshine moments.

Make- A daily list of 3 things that I like about myself, physical, non-physical. Because, it can be hard to show yourself some love.

Make- A little notebook of positive aspects, a once a day entry of 10 things that are positive. Literally a list of positive aspects about people, places, things; maybe one day I will post it on here.

That’s all I have for now, it might change or grow.

The first habit in my habit swap is going to be… Stop apologizing so often. It has been really bugging me lately so hopefully I can eradicate this learned behavior. I am ready to keep pursuing happiness and fun and freedom and joy.

This is the “Now Me” train, and I am jumping on board to the rest of my life, just the only difference is I will be trying to not beat myself up for slip ups but just embrace them and learn from them. I am tired of trying to live my life in other times, the past or the future, because when I allow myself to just enjoy a now moment, watching the birds and how they fly or move or looking at pretty flowers… Or even, just embracing a moment or feeling or desire or writing without planning or writing without a motive. To just enjoy the now-ness and become the person I want to be.

I am so grateful for The Diary of Elliot Parker, it has taught me what I want, what I want to be my priorities.

I haven’t dreamed in a while. Its a black whole of darkness from one day to another, and I want that back. I loved the bizarre stories as much as I felt consumed by them. I’ve not been writing much lately, this time, this year, I won’t be beating myself up for slacking off. I am ready to write and to change my world, again.