I cannot stomach New Year's resolutions. Aside from the fact that they're usually too vague and broad to be accomplished ("Lose weight" -- oh, ok), the idea that you have to wait until a somewhat arbitrary dividing line to make changes about your life is ridiculous. Now, don't get me wrong: I love using that arbitrary dividing line as a time of retrospective and thinking about the future, but resolutions should be something that happens spontaneously, and by constantly being aware of what you say and do. It's the Benjamin Franklin approach to life, but that's for another time.
That being said, I have no New Year's resolutions. I haven't since high school. But what I have been doing for probably 5 years now is a list of New Year's goals. Every December 31st, I make a list of goals I'd like to accomplish before the next year. I also reference the previous list of goals and see what I accomplished and what didn't get accomplished.
And while that list is fairly personal and I don't ever post it publicly, here are a few of those goals.
I hope to finish my yoga teacher classes and become a 200-hour RYT. Training to become a yoga teacher is a lot more than doing a ton of sun salutations and talking about how we all need to be peaceful creatures (actually, one of the yogic philosophy textbooks I have talks about the absurdity of trying to pretend we can repress the aggressive side of us and suggests embracing that "dark" side of us without judgment, which I believe I actually ranted about a while back). There's a huge emphasis on anatomy and physiology. And, from what I've been doing in the pre-class homework, I really don't know the first thing about anatomy and physiology (including the painfully simple cells -> tissues -> organs chain of command/complexity). But I have learning a ton about parts of the spine (and further confirming that my spine is completely farked) and I'm excited to learn more. It's going to be an intense 8 or so months, but I'm ready for it. This is something I've wanted to do ever since I started doing yoga. I want to walk away from this ready (and legally able to) teach my own yoga classes.
I hope to continue my Spanish learning. It's a painfully slow process (even slower when you accidentally go a week or more without doing a few Rosetta Stone lessons =X but I'm getting there. It helps that my husband has a working knowledge of basic Spanish, so I can always reference him when I'm stuck on something. The goal is to finish the entire Rosetta Stone classes by the end of the year, but I'll be happy if I can just keep up the pace of 2-3 lessons a week.
I hope to finally run that marathon. I woke up with a lingering pain still in my left foot, which let me know that I'm not running for yet another day. It's incredibly, undeniably frustrating that injury is just the name of the game after the age of 25, and it only becomes more prevalent in said game the older I get. But it's the Chicago Marathon or bust. Or, if that is not possible the New York Marathon. In a perfect world, I'd get up to 20 miles by June and sign up for both (since they are about 3 weeks apart from each other) but, in a perfect world, I would've worked my way up to 16 miles in November. Regardless, I don't want to close out 2014 without that marathon.
I hope to finally finish that third manuscript. It's 2/3rds of the way complete and it drives me a little crazy that I haven't touched it since NaNoWriMo. I planned on taking a break from it, but I didn't plan on having the break take this long.
I hope to finally do something with my first manuscript. Be it submitting it to novel-writing contests or just self-publishing it, I'm tired of my first born (so to speak) collecting dust. I've been slowly revising the book, its pitch, and its query, and my fingers are crossed that I luck out with one particular avenue.
I hope to continue doing what I'm doing. While trying, 2013 turned out to be a pretty incredible year. And one of those reasons was because I was willing to step out of my comfort zone. Recognize when a job wasn't for me and try something completely new. Stick my neck out and try the modeling thing again. Submit my work even when I was getting rejected across the board. Continue submitting my work, even when people were reacting to my essays negatively (because the joys of going viral means that you're totally going to attract people who just don't like it/you). Put my nose to the grindstone and write like a madwoman for NaNoWriMo. Decide I'm going to run a half-marathon and then do it. Decide I'm going to finally do a pull-up/more than 2 push-ups and then do it. I just want to continue doing what I do, because, so far, it's been working out for me.
So we'll see what 2014 brings. If 2011, 2012, and 2013 were an indication, I'm in for a very interesting year. Things never stay stagnant with me for too long, and I pride myself on my adventures, so let's see where this year takes me.
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