A beautiful island, many hop over to enjoy sandy beaches, stunning views and an array of water sports to keep the whole family entertained. But rather than taking the car (supposedly taking a ferry across the Solent is one of the most expensive crossings per mile in the world!), if you opt for your bike it’s considerably cheaper and offers a great opportunity to explore the island in a different way to most visitors.

When we think about coming up with a traditional New Years resolution it’s because we want to make a change. The issue is we’re assuming we know what the solution should be to that particular problem. We often come up with a big grand plan to solve it, with no mechanism for looking at whether this new approach is actually working for us. We’ve either kept at it, or we’ve failed.

I challenge you to make 2017 your year of little failures and little learnings and have a go at iterating your way to something new.

At this time of year, as everyone starts talking about Christmas decorations going up in November, “did you see the latest Christmas advert?!” and the need to get something sorted for New Years Eve, I find myself wanting to escape.

Completing a wild challenge renews in me a faith in myself. It shows me what I can accomplish, if only I’m silly enough to dream up some random challenge and then boldly follow it to the end, no matter how I feel along the way.

Lots of people tell you to quite your job and follow your dreams, to find your calling or do work you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.

But wow, that’s a lot of pressure. What if you choose the wrong thing? What if you have no idea what your “calling” is? What if you don’t know, out of all the things you love doing, which you should pick to start a business with?

Whether its adventurers or digital nomads, increasing numbers of people seem to be living out of little more than 2 bags, and getting by on AirBnB and charm alone. They’ve condensed their stuff so they can maximise their experiences - awesome!

But could I live like this? Do I want to live like this?

This year has been pretty different to any of the previous 28. For the first time in my adult life I spent a whole year without a ‘proper’ job and focused on getting my own business off the ground.

Walking home is a romantic idea and up until recently I’d never though anyone would actually do it. It’s just one of those things where you’d automatically say - “why?!” - particularly when it’s cold outside. But I’m starting to find that those things which on the face of them seem like silly ideas that no one in their right mind usually considers, are the best.

Microadventures are awesome - the 9–5 daily grind, not so much - but helpfully Al Humphreys has suggested a range of ways to get out and do something different on a micro scale and the 5–9 is a common choice.

It was August 2014 and I was enjoying the summer off. Well, I say ‘off’, I’d been made redundant 3 months prior and was using the lure of summer sun to put off figuring out what I’d do next. But I knew I wanted a complete change. This was the perfect fresh start and I felt liberated by having the decision to move on made for me. Now, the world was at my feet and I wanted to start exploring it, experiencing life outside of my current day-to-day.