Fresh Start

Last year, I had some goals for myself for the year, and though it wasn't perfect, I did OK with them.  I'm hoping that I can improve on that this year.

I think I mentioned here in previous posts, that I finally realized that making New Year's resolutions just didn't work for me.  Once I started to think of goals and intentions, I took a different approach, and even when I didn't exactly reach them, I didn't have the same feeling of failure as I did with failed New Year's resolutions.  On the one hand, it's the terminology, but on the other hand, my goals and intentions were things that were more or less baby steps, not all-encompassing.

This year, I am going to work on the following:

1.  Fitness.  I didn't do as well as I'd hoped, partly because of a few illnesses that knocked me out for weeks at a time, and partly because I got lazy.  I'm still more fit than I was in previous years, but this year, I'd like to be more active.  So I'm hoping to ride my bicycle more (though not in the snow!), and I want to try some low-key running through a Couch to 5K program.  My goal with that would be to run a 5K this year.  I'd also like to do some hiking, and am hoping to get The Tim involved in that as well.  (We'll see.)

2.  Food.  I eat pretty healthily, so there are no major changes for me here.  But I would like to put more effort into cooking things that will serve more than one meal.  It's nice during the week to come home and be able to have a nice meal without it taking hours to fix.  So I'm going to try and expand my repertoire of soups, casseroles, and other dishes that by their nature make more than just two servings.

3.  Clothing.  I'm going to try and make my wardrobe more cohesive, and wearable.  I want to go through my closet and only keep the things that I really like, will actually wear/still fit, and work with more than one other item that I own.  It's not like I have a vast wardrobe, but it's become a mishmash of stuff over the past couple of years, and I want to pare it down.  I may try to save some money and invest in a new winter coat or some other big item, but will try to keep my spending under control otherwise.

4.  Beauty products/habits.  I already have this pretty well under control, so I'll try to stay with my good habits here.

5.  Attitude.  For the past couple of years, I've tried the One Little Word for the year idea.  My word for both of those years was "kindness" and though I'm not through working on that, I can say that I have been successful in being conscious of the word and changing my behavior.  I hope that now it will be a habit, so I'm choosing another word for 2014, which is grace.  As in a quote I saw here: "I will hold myself to a standard of grace, not perfection."  Which basically means to remember that perfect should never get in the way of good.  I tend to be an obsessive perfectionist, and though I'm better at letting perfection go than I used to be, I need to work on it more.  Plus, I would really like to live my life with more grace and graciousness, in the hope to make grace work with kindness.  Life doesn't have to be as complicated as I often make it, and I also need to realize how great my life is and can be.  I'm hoping that grace will be my inspiration and my result.

Onward!  :-)