The Year of BUILDING MUSCLES
Building COGNITIVE muscles to learn how to face life head-on without resorting to all the different sorts of ways that I numb and avoid.
Building MENTAL and EMOTIONAL muscles to be present during the day, even when it starts to resemble Groundhog Day, waking up to the same thing every day.
Building RESILIENCE and FORWARD–THINKING muscles to allow me to make decisions in the moment that future Laura will thank me for.
Building SOCIAL muscles to reach out and connect, both with old friends and making new ones.
Building, you know, ACTUAL MUSCLES because at my age it’s so important and I’d like nothing better than to be strong and active and injury-free.
- Intentional movement every day. The minimum is a mile walk. The reward is a sparkly, star smiley face sticker on a big two-foot by three-foot calendar hanging on my wall.
- No reading/TV until 6pm/5pm CST or until I’ve either worked out or gotten something ticked off my to-do list. The goal here is to not get off of work and immediately sit down on the couch after taking care of the dogs and scroll, watch TV or read (honestly, reading is my greatest vice at the moment) instead of doing something that will make me feel good about myself. Riding on the coattails of this habit is that I need to write down a quick review of every book that I read or listen to. I stopped using Goodreads so much because I was a little embarrassed both by the genre of what I was reading (because it’s so very unserious and has no nutritional value, metaphorically speaker) and by the sheer amount of it that I was reading. Stopping to at least write a short entry about what I felt about it will both help me keep track and be mindful about what I’m putting in my head.
- Learn new shit
- Woodworking. This will be pushed out until better weather arrives. Because of the sawdust, I like doing most of the work out on my driveway and I don’t care to do it while it’s in the 30’s or colder.
- Website design. Doing it! And enjoying it, so far. I really do like learning new things; reminds me that there are few things that I can’t do if I put my mind to it.
- Keep spending under control. Because I’m still furnishing/outfitting a new house, this is hard, but what I’m going to do to keep myself accountable is to keep a spreadsheet of all the things that I buy (especially online). Somehow I think this will work for me – just having to detail all the things should make me more mindful.
- Wean off ultra-processed foods. This is something I really want to do. All the studies I’ve read seem to point to the fact that you can eat the same calories/same macros and if it’s made up of ultra-processed foods, it does bad things to you (“bad things” is an RFK scientific term, I’m sure). Those same sugary, fatty foods, if not ultra-processed, don’t have as bad of an effect. So, the goal is to eat more whole foods, especially day to day. And for my treats? Get the good stuff. Go to bakeries. Go out for pizza (no frozen pizza!). But also make room for veggies and fruits and other whole foods as well. I don’t know of a way to quantify this goal, but I think I’ll know it when I start doing it really well.
- Be better at staying connected with friends. Every week I need to reach out to at least 2 friends that I don’t normally see or talk to. Also, go to the Lewisburg Run Club weekly run (after checking to make sure that I can walk and not actually run) to meet some like-minded, motivating peeps. This is more a social thing than an exercise thing.
- Get 100% on the Peloton 100 day New Year’s Challenge. Pretty self-explanatory – need a Peloton class or workout every day for the first 100 days of the year. Last year I messed up the summer challenge by missing the first day. That kept me from getting gold. I really like getting gold stars. I’m such a positive-reinforcement baby.
- Meditate at least 5 minutes every day. I started out last year doing pretty well at least, and then it fell off later in the year and I’m not even sure that I can articulate why that happened, but my day gets started in a better way when I do this.
- Find a planner/journal that works for me. I’ve gone deep on planners and journals this year. I intend to sit down every morning before work and do a little writing, a little planning, a little thinking about what needs to be done. I have 3 different planners in my hot little hands and will use all three until I come to a decision as to which works the best for me. My goal is to have at least one of those books be completely filled. Note: last week I ordered YET ANOTHER planner. See #4.
- Memoir Nation JanYourStory Challenge (500 words per day). I stumbled on this site – memoirnation.com – and decided to hop into their free challenge. Five days in and I’ve hit the mark every day. I used the prompts once and the other times, just wrote a story from my past. I didn’t overthink it, I didn’t edit, I didn’t write with an eye of publishing. Just got words down on virtual paper with the goal of simply writing more, and writing more stories.
Sidenote: ran across this in The Daily Skimm (a newsletter that I adore! Written by women and geared towards them as well) and I think this is what I’m striving for this year:
In 2026, Bring Back Mild Inconvenience
What’s going on: One of life’s cruel little jokes is that many of the things that help us most require effort. Reading. Writing. Running. Leaving the house to talk to actual people. All of it creates friction. But New York Magazine has dubbed 2026 the year of “friction-maxxing.” The idea pushes back on our growing habit of outsourcing minor annoyances to tech and AI, from drafting emails and texts to planning grocery runs. Friction-maxxing means ditching shortcuts and choosing tasks your brain finds mildly irritating. It fits neatly with New Year’s resolution season — especially since a recent survey found that 33% of people want to reduce screen time. Sounds like as good a time as any to choose inconvenience.