English: Two New Year’s Resolutions postcards (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The time for New Year’s resolutions has come around again, and I can’t resist jumping in, like I always do. However, I’ve made so many goals over the past years that instead of making all new goals, I’m just going to revisit some old ones and push forward for more progress.
- Publishing 100 blog posts in a year: I published 80 blog posts in 2012, close but not quite to my goal of 100, so I’m renewing this one for 2013 with no changes
- sending out at least two poems and two nonfiction essays: braving the beast of submissions is an ever-present challenge for me as a writer; last year I published two poems and one nonfiction essay, so I’m keeping it constant for poems and stepping it up for essays
- restarting my gratitude journal habit and attempting to write in it daily: I made an entry almost every day in 2011 and kept it going for a good portion of early 2012; this is a habit that made a serious different in my life and should be relatively easy to pick back up again
- finishing three needlework projects-in-progress: I’ve made various goals before about creativity, but also nested inside this goal is the hope that tackling these projects again will also reduce my screen time usage, another continual goal of mine
- freezer cooking one day a month: another recurring goal has been the desire to eat better, with less frenzy at the end of the day. Using Pinterest for meal planning has kept me trying new recipes this year, but I would love to stock my freezer with meals once a month and be able to rely on them during the busiest days and weeks. I have a cookbook specifically designed for this purpose, and Pinterest is full of recipes and tips; I just need to commit to doing it once a month.
- doing some kind of exercise once a week: I know, I know. All you marathoners and yoga beasts are laughing right now, but this is a weak area for me and always has been, so I’m trying to set a feasible goal, one that isn’t a huge leap but would cause some tangible good if I come anywhere close to meeting it
All of these goals have a common thread: taking better care of myself, and treating myself better, which sounds like the perfect theme for the new year. None of them have anything to do with my husband, my children, or my job, which also strikes me as a healthy move towards better balance in my life, and better attention focused on myself as a person, apart from these enormous and wonderful roles that consume so much of my life.
Related articles
- 2012 in Review (jackieregales.com)
- Goal Setting 101 (into-mind.com)
- Goals for 2013 (shinecycle.wordpress.com)
- You: Top 10 Strategies for Making Your New Year’s Resolution Stick (lifehacker.com)
- 2013 Success: Setting SMART Resolutions (enlightenedlotuswellness.com)
Happy New Year! Sounds like good goals. I’m interested in your freezer cooking recipes — I freeze soups a lot, but find that a lot of the “once a month cooking” type recipes are not as healthy as I’d like. On the exercise front, I find that once a week really doesn’t work for me — it’s not enough that it gets easier over time. You might try more often and see how it feels for you, accepting that you won’t always hit the goal.
Elizabeth, I have a cookbook called “Don’t Panic–Dinner’s in the Freezer” that is going to be a big part of how I tackle this–the recipes are for things like soups, enchiladas, pasta dishes, etc, that are healthy, but also include easy directions for scaling up alongside “cooking day” and “serving day” directions and a few slow cooker picks. I’ve tried a few recipes already and they are good–no cans of condensed soup or anything like that. I’m also including stuff like DIY frozen pizzas, roasting a chicken or turkey and then using the leftovers to make freezer meals right away.
These are great goals. And exercising even just once a week is a challenge for most of us, so don’t beat yourself up. It’s a great goal, and one that’s reasonable.
Have a great 2013!
Thanks, Anjali–I’m trying to keep it reasonable, and hoping that if I can rolling on the once-a-week thing, I’ll find it easier to squeeze in another.
Excellent goals! Wishing you a wonderful 2013!
You too, WN, and luck and prosperity for our lovely partners in their job searches!
Pingback: Foodie Resolutions « A Patchwork Life