Ah, yes. I’d almost forgotten it was New Year’s. There’s something horribly depressing about looking back on the past year, and saying “Man, I didn’t do anything.” Which is why I’m not doing that. I may not have done my resolutions, but I did a lot of things last year.
Things like:
- Got Married (twice! The legal paperwork, and then a nice ceremony later)
- Decided not to stay in grad school (link)
- Got a new job (link)
- Bought a car
- Started saving for retirement and paying off student loans (thanks to aforementioned job)
- Continued learning about Real Food
- Started working out regularly again
- Attempted a garden again (and learned from it, even if I didn’t get much out of it)
- Blogged regularly for a whole month!
- Chipping away at the reading, recipe, and craft project lists.
That’s a lot for only one year.
This coming year, now that I’m settled into my job a little better, should be good for a lot of the goals that I didn’t finish. (It’s amazing how many little pockets of time you find when you don’t have homework or papers to write or research!) As before, I’m going to have a few yearlong goals, and then some goals that will be spread out throughout the year. This is healthier in the long run because it keeps you from trying to change 12 things at once and then failing.
Yearlong Goals
- Zazen for at least 15 minutes every day. I’ve been trying to get a meditation habit going, but I’ve been afraid that it will make me fall asleep in the morning or late at night, and on my previous schedule, when I came home from work. Now I get home from work a bit earlier, and so not as tired.
- Lose weight. Previous years, I’ve said I want to lose 50 pounds. That would bring me back to about high school weight. I’m still going to try for that, so I’m really going to focus on cleaning up my diet and adding in more exercise. My workplace has bonuses for things like this, so that’s an added incentive.
- Real Food lessons. I’m still subscribed to my online class, so I’d like to focus on finishing it out, and making more real changes. A tentative idea is to do one big real food project once per week.
Sectioned Goals
- Socialize with Friends. I’m a bit of a lurker on Facebook and other media, and I haven’t done a lot of in person get-togethers with people. I’ve been a hermit in grad school, and I’m an introvert, so socializing takes active effort on my part. So I’d like to really try to make that effort. Ideas: tea parties, google hangouts, and game nights. My birthday is in January, so that makes for lots of great excuses for getting together. Also, think of ways to hang out with friends that don’t have to involve food. You can’t use going out for dinner as your only way of hanging out.
- Crafting projects. I’ve got an ever growing pile of ideas and projects I’d like to do, but I haven’t gotten to them. I’d like to carve out at least an hour per week to work on a side project like this. I plan to devote most of the warm weather months to this (in Oklahoma that means about April to October).
- Piano. I have an electric piano that’s just collecting dust. I took lessons once upon a time. But I haven’t devoted serious practice time since I graduated undergrad. In the late fall, I’ll start practicing for the Christmas season, since I have several books of Christmas carols in varying difficulties.
Of course, there are lots of little goals too. I’ve realized that a lot of my projects aren’t things that I’m excited to do, they’re just things that I thought would be neat to do. I can Craigslist those and pass them on to someone else. I’ve really been focusing on decluttering the house, as I grew up in a house of packrats. These days I’m more inclined to throw something I’m not using out than keep it. Little things that one would think are no-brainers, except they’re the first things to go when you’re in grad school and feeling like you’re rushed all the time.
What did you accomplish last year? What did you learn? How are you going to apply that to this year’s goals?
Cafe Le Shay 