2013 Resolutions: The Hits and Misses

 

Despite saying I wouldn’t, (I should change the name of this blog to “despite saying I would/wouldn’t…” ) I made 10 goals at the beginning of 2013 and I haven’t told you how that all turned out and well…I know you have all been sleepless and waiting with bated breath to find out…so let’s see, shall we?

The Big One: Living life more fearlessly. Letting go of the fear of making mistakes.  I’d say that one was a hit. Many, many days, I would take a deep breath when I was wavering and ask myself, “what would I do if fear wasn’t a factor here?” or I would tell myself, “be fearless” when I was avoiding doing something (even if it was silly) because I was scared or intimidated. It was a very, very helpful mantra. I have so far to go still but that goal stayed with me throughout the year and will continue to be by my side going forward. It has been a good friend to me.

The Others:

1. Daily photo on instagram. I think I did pretty well with this. I stopped dating them after a couple of months,  it was just too cumbersome so I probably missed more days then I think, but I think I got pretty solid coverage all the same. Not exactly the most challenging goal for me…Score: 8/10 but if you are going to weight it for challenge..I’d go with a 2 ;)

2.Reading from the Book of Mormon every day.  I went through a stage of doing this really, really well. And it was life changing. I started listening to my scriptures on my phone on my daily morning drive and it set such a great tone for my day and really strengthened my faith. I stopped doing that when the wheels fell off of my life and I lost my routine toward the end of the year but I’m glad I reflected on this because I had forgotten how good it was for me and I need to start doing that again for sure. Tomorrow begins that routine for me again. Score 5/10 .

3. Entertain in my own home at least once a month. I didn’t do this faithfully each month but I had some months when we had people over several times. My main motivation for doing this was to have my kids’ friends over more. I want them to have those memories. I think I made some major breakthroughs this year by having kids over when I was feeling up to it rather than when circumstances were perfect and the house was clean and the fridge was stocked. Kids don’t really care about a clean house and they are happy to give you orders to take with you to the grocery store.  I have really enjoyed having more socializing in our house. Letting go of my perfectionism regarding entertaining has been such a blessing. As an introvert and being easily over-stimulated, I often just don’t feel like I can handle stuffing any more noise and activity into this house and being “on” but taking the strain of my unrealistic expectations out of the equation has made for much more fun with friends here. Score: 7/10

4. Cooking. Ugh. We went through some excellent phases but they were mitigated by some lengthy terrible phases too….shuddering.) This year has not been much better than last, apart from in the last week actually, when we made a menu and actually stuck to it every night. (And I made most of the meals for the record…hooray CROCK POT). I’m really serious about making this happen this year.  I’m going with a  Sore: 4/10 and that’s only for the few good jags we were on.  I know this is for the No DUH files but a menu is so critical. Got to make those a priority.

5. De-cluttering the house. I did this consistently throughout the year in that I was constantly getting rid of tons of stuff.  It didn’t really all come together until this year but I did a lot of groundwork and am slowly but surely conquering my sentimental hoarding tendencies. Going with another 8/10.

6. Read one non-rubbishing book a month. This was a dismal failure but I don’t want to be too hard on myself. There was an awful lot of reading for school to make up for my rubbish reading earlier in the year. And I read a lot of what I would consider to be informative and good writing online.  Still I wouldn’t call this one a raging success. Call it a 7/10 but 3/10 if you are going to be technical about it. Going forward…I don’t know.  Getting a Masters degree when you have 5 kids at home is not conducive to getting a bunch of recreational reading done so I’m not going to make any major goals for this. I think when you factor in my assigned reading, I’m good.

7. No I did not write 52 thank you notes this year. I failed. But I wrote some and tried to express my gratitude every day in other ways. I would like to amend the goal going forward…at least one paper thank you note a month. If I can’t manage that, I am a pitiful person indeed. Score: 5/10

8. The 52 week saving plan. Nope. The wheels fell off of that sometime in like…April. Lame. Last year was a pretty miserable one financially. Rather a mess.  Lots of unforeseen and unfortunate situations. We were always taken great care of though…things may have been stressful but things worked out.  Lots of kindness was shown which we are always mindful of paying forward whenever possible.  Hoping that the coming year is an opportunity to give more and enjoy stability. It’s too late to start the 52 day challenge now but hey…why the heck not. We’ll start now.  Going to give this one a 4/10.

9. Getting my personal training business back on track. This has been a good one. I have added health coaching to the mix and it has been the real highlight of my year. I’ve enjoyed every moment of it.  As I mentioned in yesterday’s post. I have found such great fulfillment and inspiration in watching people throw out the excuses -there will ALWAYS be good excuses and EVERYONE has GOOD excuses to fail, but these people decided they wanted to succeed more than they wanted to have a good excuse to fail. It has been so incredibly exhilarating to watch as they gritted their teeth, put their shoulders into it pushed the walls down, and then climbed on top of the pile of rubble and got to look at the beautiful view that lay ahead of them. Not just because they achieved their immediate goal, and gained health, energy and vitality but because now they know that there is nothing they can’t do. The confidence they have given themselves is the greatest gift. I have felt utterly blessed to be a part of it. An unmitigated joy and privilege.  (More on that in the Fabulous Friday? still looking for a good name…series.)  Score: going with a 10/10 not because I made a fortune and opened my own gym and health spa (because I didn’t..just to clarify ;) but because the purpose of goals is to find joy, to grow and to learn. Mission thoroughly accomplished.

10. Blog 3x a week. Um no.  See yesterday’s post for my plan to improve upon that this year. Score: bleh..4/10? Sure let’s go with that.

Well there ya go. More misses than hits or more hits than misses. Hard to say.  But I don’t regret making the goals and reviewing them has been a good exercise. I’m glad I did it. I need to put some goals for 2014 on paper/screen soon.  And tell you what my word/phrase/motto for 2014 is.

Do you care to share any of your goals for 2014? How’s that working out for you?

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