The first step: accountability. If I say my resolutions out loud, or post them on the World Wide Web for everyone to read, people will EXPECT me to keep them, or EXPECT me to fail (and if you know me, you know how I love a good challenge like people telling me I can't do something!). Also, I'm hoping along the way, someone will try to help me to keep my goals by either encouraging me along, or joining me in my goals.
The second step: Planning! Instead of just saying what I want to do, I came up with ways to make this work. For example, resolution number 1 is to quit smoking. But I know, from experience, that this is a REALLY HARD CHALLENGE, and that the side effects that will make me want to give up on that resolution will kick in almost IMMEDIATELY (heck, it's not even 4pm on day one yet, and I'm already going a bit nuts). So when the urge to smoke comes up, I have come up with ways to deal with them, that will not only help me forget about the urges, but should help me to meet several other goals along the way.
So here we go: These are the resolutions that I have set for the year 2011. I do not expect most of them to occur overnight, and I have come up with ways to work to make these resolutions a reality, and I am posting them to be held accountable:
- QUIT SMOKING! I have been smoking now for over a decade, and it is time to stop. Instead of smoking, I will be saving money, drinking extra water when the urge to smoke comes on, or using the urge to smoke energy to work out and clean more often.
- LOSE WEIGHT! I have been adding extra pounds here and there for too long now, and I have to get up, get moving and eat healthier. By the end of the year, I would like to have lost somewhere between 20 and 30 pounds. I hope to start running (even if it's in place in my living room), using the new Xbox Kinect to dance more often, and hoping to get a treadmill as well.
- Be more financially responsible. I need to keep a closer eye on our spending, keep better track of the bills, so that if something financially devastating were to happen (like the loss of my income we had this past summer) we can be more prepared, have a better leg to stand on, and not have to work quite so hard to get back to where we need to be. As a side bonus, we'll already have more money, since we won't be tossing hundreds of dollars a month into cigarettes!
- RELAX!!! I have spent way too many hours and sleepless nights stressed out in 2010. Instead of dealing with issues head on, I tried to hide my head in the sand, which accomplished nothing. The problems didn't go away, and I certainly didn't become any less stressed out. So I will deal with things as they come instead of trying to sweep them under the rug, I will talk about things that are bothering me instead of letting them fester inside my head until I explode, I will find more things that I enjoy and do them, and I will try to meditate on a regular basis, just trying to BE in the moment, instead of trying to control the moment.
- READ MORE BOOKS! I really enjoy reading, and as the stress of everyday life gets to me, I have found that I have taken the things I enjoy the most and thrown them out the window. Working six days a week doesn't necessarily give me a lot of time to just sit down and flip the pages, but I plan to enjoy a minimum of TWO new stories every month, and hopefully more. Because there won't be a lot of time to sit and flip pages, I will also be enjoying the wonders of audio books, that I can download onto my MP3 player and enjoy while I'm working, doing housework, or exercising. I'm staring with Full Dark, No Stars by Steven King. Maybe I'll even post book reviews online!
- STAY ON TOP OF THE HOUSEWORK! When I'm in the mood, my house looks really great...and when I'm not, the clutter and mess piles up and takes over. I plan to spend a little time each day getting the house in order, and then spending a little time everyday keeping it in order, so that I won't have to do insane cleans along the way. According to an interesting and motivating website I have found: "I can do anything for 15 minutes", and since the house didn't get messy in one day, I shouldn't expect it to get clean in one day either. I plan to follow the daily missions of http://www.flylady.net to get my house in order again, and keep up with them to make the experience of coming home a nice one, instead of a review of all the crap that hasn't gotten done. I will do this for MYSELF and no one else... because I enjoy coming home to a nice, clean, welcoming house, and I am the one that wants it...so I should be the one to do it.
I have a feeling that 2011 is going to be the best year yet, because I want it to be!
