It’s easy to make New Year’s resolutions: you decide on them, maybe write them down, perhaps even publish them in a blog for the world (or, in my case, tens of people) to see. And then starts the gradual memory loss that’s required so that once December 31st comes around again, you aren’t gun shy to do another round of New Year’s resolutions. It’s like the circle of life — the old resolutions must die so new ones can be born.
Well, I’m all about disrupting stuff (didn’t you know that about me?), so I thought that maybe I’d dust off my 2016 resolutions (it’s the year of HUSTLE, remember?) and see how I’m doing. Just for fun. Because how else am I going to get my kicks during a busy, chaotic work week that has me barely hanging on until Friday?
So here are the targets I set my sights on for the fantastic year of 2016:
Race every race. I signed up for 5 races as of the start of the year, and then the $5 half marathon that I added in February against my better judgment. I’ve completed 3 of the races (NY Day 5k, Winter Trail Frosty and the Chicago Quarter Marathon), have two more that I’m definitely doing (Cinco de Miler and the Tinley Park Duathlon) and then the half marathon which I’m going to bow out of. For the record, I don’t count the half marathon as a black mark against my resolution — really, I signed up because for $5 I figured I might be able to train for it, but if nothing else, I’d get a cool shirt out of it. And, I’m kind of planning on a fall half marathon to take its place. I miss the half marathon distance, but don’t want to do it if I’m going to be stupid and injure myself in the process. TL;DR I’m right on track. Oh, and I owe you two race reports.
Train for every race. I’ll give myself only half credit for this one. I certainly haven’t completely NOT trained, but I don’t know that I’ve followed an actual training plan that would achieve consistent results. I’ve been kind of feeling my way through this, first setting weekly mileage goals, now switching to running certain number of days, and I think I’m getting better. Or at least I’m figuring out how to train in a way that doesn’t leave me so sore from one workout that I can’t do the next. Baby steps, people.
Work through the freecodecamp.com curriculum. Well, they completely overhauled the curriculum at the end of January and so I took a break while they were doing that and then kind of abandoned the project. I need to start back at the beginning, both because I’ve forgotten some of what I’ve learned and also because they added some cool stuff that I want to go back and do. It’s still on my radar, though.
Read less than last year. I’m holding steady with my one book a week average. I’m currently working through a glut of just-arrived requested library books, but after these, I think I’ll slow down again. Not too much, not too little … like Goldilocks, I want it juuuuust right.
Give 100% to Living Brave course. Brene Brown’s course has been all sorts of awesome. I’m learning new things and really taking the time to really examine some of the concepts and how they pertain to me and how they pertain to the rest of the world at large. It’s been eye-opening and sometimes gut-wrenching, but I’m so glad that I’m taking advantage of this opportunity.
SLEEP. I still go in cycles with this — some weeks are gold star sleep weeks and other weeks, perhaps not so much. But I’m very aware of it, to be sure. My biggest problem? Playing a little bit of Candy Crush before bed. It hadn’t been a problem and then the game started giving me this “infinite lives” thing and instead of having to be done after losing 5 lives, I can play for hours. Which is decidedly NOT GOOD. So, I’ve started not even turning it on. Do I miss it? A little, maybe, but I’m guessing that my brain cells aren’t at all bothered by not moving little colored candy pieces around.
Turn off the TV. I am SO moving on this goal! I have an appointment in two weeks for someone to come in and install an antenna in my attic and then cable will be gone! Yay! I’m really looking forward to this, to be honest. I need fewer mindless distractions in my life (see above: Candy Crush) and while I might subscribe to Netflix and Sling TV (maybe perhaps I’m not sure), otherwise I’m thrilled to not even have the option of anything more than OTA stations.
Bring more creativity into my life. I’m definitely writing more than I used to — my January of posting every day was a new record for me, I think — and I’m making more of an effort to seek out and listen to more types of music. I subscribe to a (free) service that’s called “A Song A Day” and it sends me a song recommendation to my Inbox (one song a day, if you didn’t pick that up from the title).
All in all? I think I’m doing pretty damn well. I need to get on the techy geeky learning to code thing, but that’ll take a little doing. I also have some work-related classes and exams that are going to be on the table in another month or so, which will eat up a lot of time and a lot of brain cells (and leave me not wanting to be in front of a computer ever again).
How are your resolutions going? Still making progress? Or are they already forgotten?