"The notion that such persons are gay of heart and carefree is curiously untrue. They lead, as a matter of fact, an existence of jumpiness and apprehension. They sit on the edge of the chair of Literature. In the house of Life they have the feeling that they have never taken off their overcoats."
- James Thurber, My Life and Hard Times

Monday, January 2, 2012

Goals! Get 'em while they're hot!

I really do think New Year's resolutions are silly. People make and break them right and left. Seriously, I'll bet half of you are barely hanging onto half of the promises you made on January 1st.

Still, I love to see the new year and think that I will do great things with these 365 days. And this year I get an extra day! Whatever will I do with all those hours?

Usually, I make my NYR's in a rather darkened room, or at least a shady one, where they never see the light of day. In other words, I keep them to myself. This way, if I break a resolution, there is no one to point at me and say, "Hey, didn't you resolve to do x instead of y?"

Except for me, and I'm quite taunting enough.

This year, I decided to make my resolutions a little louder. As in, I'm putting them in this blog post. I could just write them in my own private journal, but no, I'm going to shout them at the world. Okay, at my 74 followers.

Without further ado, here are my resolutions, nay - my goals, for 2012:

1. Health: I am a little overweight, but more importantly, my blood pressure is higher than it should be. Not hypertensive high, just uppity. So I've already implemented a three-part plan. One, I'm reading and following the DASH Diet, learning how to make smarter choices when I eat. Two, I'm walking Duffy once a day, for anywhere between 30 minutes and an hour. Three, I downloaded a cool app for my phone called MyFitnessPal (it's also a website). I can record what I eat, how much I exercise, weigh, etc.

Probability of success: I've already been doing this since December 2 and have lost 7 pounds. The last week has been difficult with all the Christmas/New Year's excesses, but I think I've emerged intact and still working toward my goal (17 total pounds lost). I consider my blood pressure non-negotiable, so I have to make this work.

2. Writing: I'm going to write every day, even if it's only one sentence and I'm too drunk to use a verb. I downloaded this stupid little "calendar" from The Writer's Store - it's just a bunch of boxes with 1-365 written in them and "Don't Break the Chain" at the top. Before you think I've lost my mind, it was free and downloadable. I figure, I like to make lists and cross things off, right? So I should love making red X's to cross of each day that I write.

Probability of success: It's January 2nd and I've written for two days. Not bad, eh?

3. General: I'm going to plan my week better. When I was younger, I kept my schedule in my head. As I got more involved at work and with my son's school, I started keeping a calendar of where I had to be and when. Then, when Marcus went off to college, my calendar dipped to just showing appointments, concerts, and meetings. This is why some days I get a lot done and some days I sit and spin my wheels. I need to list my tasks for the week and plan my work, including my writing.

Probability of success: Pray for me.

Oh, yeah, just to properly usher in the new year, I freshened up my website. How do I look?

What are your resolutions? Anything fun?

1 comment:

Tameri Etherton said...

Your goals sound a lot like mine, except I need to lose way more than 17 pounds. Jealous!

I love myfitnesspal. It's on my phone, so there really is no excuse. I'm going to check out that writer's store calendar because I'm a list freak and seeing little red X's would make my heart smile.

I think the one thing I'm going to focus on this year that I let slip last year, is make the WIP come first and everything else second. Including my blog. Yes, blogging is writing and I love it, but if I don't give time to my WIP, then chances of publication are zero.

I'm a big proponent of daily lists ~ just small things that I hope to accomplish each day. Like today, for instance, I want to clean out the fridge. Not too glamourous, but hey, it will look all sparkly and new and those sugar laden yummy things will be gone. Which helps with the weight loss goal. After I clean out the fridge, I'm going to reward myself with a nice cup of tea and two hours of uninterrupted writing on the WIP. Yay! I love setting goals.

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