HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! My resolutions and goals for 2017

I'm starting to write this post many weeks in advance of 2017 as I want 2017 to be my year of self-improvement, both as a person and also in my hobbies. 2016 was a not a huge year for me but it did hit me with several realisations. Not that 2016 was all bad personally, I graduated university, celebrated 4 years with my girlfriend, got a lot closer with my family and in these last few months have made a good start to losing weight. Whilst in 2016 my hobbing got more out of hand than it already was (not that this is a bad thing).

Personal Resolutions

Lose weight, become healthy

The Elephant in the room... is me. Over the last 4 years of university, I have gained a stupid amount of weight. Regrettably, from induction to graduation I had doubled my body weight and I'm horribly ashamed of it. My family have been very concerned about my health for quite some time while I just shrugged it off as nothing. I know now this was an awful decision on my part. Those that know me probably know I am a very obsessive person and get horribly addicted to things (hence the huge hobby backlog). This is the main reason for my weight gain, I enjoy drinking fizzy drinks a little too much. Throughout the past 4 years at university with the freedom to live and eat as I wanted I consumed far too much of the stuff, in conjunction with not being very active led to rapid weight gain. The past few months of drinking it in moderation and being more active through work have been wonders, losing almost 2 stone in a very short amount of time and I can only hope that continuing with this will do wonders for my health.

Find fulfilling work

Working in retail does not work for me. I have left university with a degree, I want to do something more than just stack shelves and serve on a till. 2017 has to be the year I get off my arse and find a job that I will enjoy doing. (I also want more money for hobby).

Travel Europe
Something I would love to do not only for myself but because it is something I know my girlfriend would absolutely love is to travel around Europe visiting several countries. We have talked about this many times and have agreed that it would be quite the experience.

Hobby Goals

Complete existing projects before starting any new ones

As you can see from this blog I'm constantly flitting around different projects making small amounts of progress in each but never anything substantial. I think in all honesty I need to downsize the to-do pile and sell off some things I know I'm never going to get around to doing. In 2017 I would like to finish a few of the ongoing things I'm working on such as; the boxful of LotR mini's required to play through the journey book scenarios, my half painted Age of Sigmar armies and the crazy amount of half finished scenery sitting in my closet to name a few.

Finish writing my own wargame

Back in 2014, I began writing a set of rules that I intended to be a jack of all trades rule set for fighting fantasy skirmish battles. Over the next 2 years, this would evolve to become Gods of Mana, a small skirmish wargame I have written enabling me to play one of my all time favourite PC games, Populous 3: The Beginning on the tabletop. I feel this game has a lot of potential and the few times I have taken it be tested by my friends it has been rather well received (apart from the OP swamp spell, which I refuse to nerf). A friend of my is currently designing some models to use to play this game that we can 3D print which I think is really cool.

I'll post more about Gods of Mana soon when I have more than just a poorly edited rules document. But watch this space as I think it's a game a lot of people will potentially like.

Start my own YouTube channel

Last, of all I would like to create hobby related YouTube content. After a long day at work, my favourite thing to do is lay in bed and watch a battle report of a game I don't play, an army I don't play or hobby advice. These people on these channels life is wargaming and they appear to get tonnes done so starting 2017 I am going to start by slowly creating some kind of videos to keep me on track. Very similar to how this blog functions.

I hope you all had a good 2016, and an even better 2017
WargamerEthan