New year: New take on resolutions
New year’s resolutions are great in theory but only 7% of people keep all of their resolutions. There is an argument for setting hard measurable and achievable goals. I do this in my work life and it serves me quite well there. However we’ve been living through two years of a pandemic and surviving feels like achievement enough for most of this these days.
There is a trend encouraging people not to set resolutions this year. I understand the urge not to because not hitting goals can be demoralizing. For me though I’m taking a bit of a hybrid approach. I’m going to set some light goals for this year to expand on things I’m doing already to challenge myself to keep heading in the direction I want to be heading. I’m not focusing on any numbers or dates to hit goals which is something I would have done in the past. In fact it feels wrong to even call what I’m working towards goals, they are focuses. So my focuses for 2022 are:
Health: I'm not setting a goal on the scale, a dress size to fit into, or working our X times a week. Instead, I’m focusing on things like not putting off a non-emergency wellness checkup because I’m “too busy”, eating more fruits and vegetables if I feel like I’ve been overindulging during holidays or celebrations, making sure that I am getting some fresh air and moving even if it’s just for a few minutes each day.
Cooking: I love to cook and in 2020 I did a lot of it. In 2021 I started a new job and life got busier so cooking was something that fell to the wayside. I did some cooking each week but we did a lot more take out and ate out much more than we did the previous year. I love going to restaurants but I’d like to be less frequent so it’s more special. My wallet will thank me too. I have a huge collection of cookbooks that were collecting a lot of dust this past year. It’s time to break them out and get back in the kitchen. I don’t have a goal of how many nights a week I want to cook and I’m not setting a challenge to try 365 different recipes in a year (that was my 2017). This year I have a routine for grocery shopping with my partner and will try to plan our meals out each week as best I can’. I will share and post what I’m cooking up.
I have so many cookbooks!
Writing: I didn’t post to this blog for six months. Life got busy and writing for pleasure was the last thing I wanted to do. I almost didn’t renew my website and domain, but my partner encouraged me to. He reminded me that writing brought me joy in the past and that it would again. I’m not setting metrics around how often I need to post here, I’m not going to force myself to journal every day, and I’m not going to make myself work on a certain number of pieces to submit this year. Instead, I’m simply going to make myself a promise that if I want to write on any given day I will give myself the time and the space to do that.
Whether you are setting resolutions or not I hope you have a wonderful 2022 full of health and happiness.
