New Year, New Goals
The end of the year typically puts myself, as well as many other people, in a reflective state of mind. We sit around, pondering over what resolutions to make for the new year (and of course one of them is always to lose weight). At the end of 2016, my older brother started a new job at one of those fitness boutiques. He posted a video on his work’s Facebook page questioning why people wait until January to become physically healthy and strive to lose weight. Even though the year was almost over, it should not have stopped anyone from going to the gym and getting a head start on their resolutions. I am not quite sure why, but that really stuck with me.
In 2017, I set a few goals for myself; four goals I knew that I could reach by the end of the year as long as I put my mind to them. Yes, half of them involved getting into shape. By the end of the year, I was able to check off three of the four as completed.
This post is going to reflect on my goals for 2017 as well as begin to approach the ones I set for 2018.
First of all, I only set a small number of goals for myself to reach because I wanted to focus in on them instead of getting overwhelmed by having too many to reach by the end of the year. This is something I highly recommend to other people if they usually get overwhelmed with the number of resolutions they have set.
The first goal I had on my list was the only one I did not complete. I wanted to be able to run a 5k (3.1 miles) by the end of the year. When I was a sophomore in highschool, I signed up for a pumpkin themed 5k. Let me tell you, it was atrocious. I found one of those couch to 5k plans that I was going to follow in anticipation for the race. It was eight weeks long and I made it to about week three. The plan consisted of workouts on the treadmill that I was supposed to do three times a week along with working out in some other way, whether it be riding a bike or lifting weights.
Part of the reason I did not complete the eight weeks of training, along with my laziness and procrastination, was that I spent majority of my time after school in the school’s theatre because I was a part of one of the strangest plays I have ever been a part of. I wouldn’t get home until later in the evening most days and still had to complete my homework. By the time I finished that, I didn’t feel like going on the treadmill.
Come race day, I knew I was not at all prepared. I just wanted to complete the race under an hour. My time was somewhere around forty five minutes. It was close, but I was still able to reach that goal. A few days prior to the race, it rained nonstop. This race was set in a corn maze, so of course it was extremely muddy and just absolutely awful. I almost fell multiple times, and almost lost my shoes multiple times. Nevertheless, I finished the race.
Ever since then, I wanted to complete the eight week plan from start to finish because I know that I am fully capable of doing so. The workouts were not extremely difficult. They helped build my endurance so that I could run faster for longer amounts of time. Despite what I have said in the past and what many other people say, I don’t mind running. Sometimes I actually enjoy it. Scary stuff, I know.
By the end of 2017, I just wanted to prove to myself that I can run a 5k without stopping to walk or catch my breath. Even though that did not happen, I am not upset with myself. I know that I’ll keep trying to get my butt off the couch and onto a treadmill or something so that I can eventually build up the endurance to run a 5k, even if it isn’t by the end of this year. Running the 5k was fun, and I want to do it again. I keep telling myself that I’ll sign up for another race, but we all know how that goes.
The second goal I had on my list was to make new friends when I went off to college. I knew that it wasn’t impossible to do, but I knew it is challenging for some people. Throughout high school, I made friends pretty easily. I just wasn’t sure how it would be, considering how much people shove down your throat that college is drastically different than high school. It is, don’t get me wrong. College is definitely different than high school.
Making friends was pretty easy for me to do. I can’t go around boasting about how I’ve made so many new friends in college. In no way is it entirely because of me that I have met so many wonderful people over the past semester. I am fortunate enough to be a part of a residential college at the university I am attending. This means that I live and learn in the same building with the same people. One of the my classes was one floor below my dorm. For my roommate, her class was down the hall from our room. As a part of this residential college (this is definitely one of my favorite parts about it), we get to eat lunch together on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We’re forced to spend so much time together, and we live together. I couldn’t help but meet all of these people and make new friends.
My hesitance with the idea of making new friends came from the assumption that there are people who attend a university, live on campus, and barely know any of the people on their floor. I’m not saying this is everyone else. I’m just saying that I assume this happens to a small fraction of college students, and I was afraid of becoming one of them. However, thankfully, I had no trouble making new friends.
The third goal I had was, to no surprise to anyone, to get into a healthy habit. I didn’t explicitly say to lose weight or to eat healthier. At the beginning of the year, I had no idea what I meant by it, but knew that I would know by the time I reached that goal.
In the spring of 2017, I was taking a strength and conditioning class in the mornings. I took the class seriously instead of trying to float by doing the bare minimum. There was time built into my day so that I could work out, and I decided to take advantage of it because I knew I probably wouldn’t if it wasn’t built into my schedule for me.
Once summer hit, you guessed it, I stopped working out. That was somewhat of a roadblock I hit. I kept telling myself I would look into a gym membership or run around the block or something. The end of the summer came up quickly, and I did not make it to the gym once.
However, that was not what I had in mind when it came to developing a healthy habit. What did I mean? I still didn’t know. I didn’t figure that out until part way through my first semester of college.
The beginning of the semester consisted of me staying up later than I was used to, and then waking up with just enough time to get ready before I went to class. More often than I was used to in the past, I was in a sour mood during the day. I wanted to get up early and try to be productive before I went to class (keyword try), especially when my first class of the day was at 11. The few days that I woke up early enough to do something prior to going to class, my mood was drastically improved compared to when I didn’t.
After that strike of realization, I decided to start getting up at the same time just about every day. I would even wake up early on Saturdays. Even if I just watched an episode of something on Netflix, I was happy. To me, this is the healthy habit I developed.
Waking up early every day (I know, it’s scary. I never thought I would be a morning person) put me in a good mood and I was able to establish a sleep schedule. It took me until almost the end of the year, but I learned what I meant by establishing a healthy habit and reached that goal. The healthy habit I developed made sure that I kept a consistent sleep schedule as well as mentally happy and healthy. I plan on continuing this in 2018.
The last goal I had set for myself was to read more. In 2016, I started to read more for fun because I wasn’t bombarded (or felt like I was bombarded) with a large amount of reading for my classes. I downloaded an app to help me keep track of how much, as well as what, I was reading. It was entertaining to see how far along in a book I was by typing in a page number and seeing a percentage pop up. When 2017 came along and I logged into the app, it questioned me with how many books I wanted to read for the year. I typed in 15, thinking it wouldn’t be difficult to read a book a month, but too much to read two books a month.
As the year went on, I read books. I would spend time sitting on the couch in the spring, finishing a book after school. There were days over the summer that I would spend sitting outside, reading. However, when I started college in the fall, I once again felt bombarded with reading. I still added them to the app I was using because it still counted as reading towards my goal.
I was able to reach my goal within the last week of the year. I anxiously awaited the new year so that I could set my goal for 2018. Since I was able to reach my goal from 2017, I decided to increase the number of books I want to read in 2018. It was only by one, but it is still progress to me.
As for 2018, I decided to establish four resolutions that I want to complete by the end of the year. Half of them go off of what I had for 2017.
The first goal I set, goes off of the last one I mentioned. Along with wanting to continue to read more in 2018, I found a list of different types of books to read this year. It is a list of twelve different criteria to fit, so it goes along with a book a month. I figure that should be manageable to do along with whatever reading I have to do for class. I was able to manage my time well at the end of the semester, so I should be able to carry that into this upcoming semester.
The second goal I set, goes off of my first goal from 2017. In general, I want to get myself to run more. Scary stuff, I know. I enjoy running and it will help keep me in shape. It does not matter as much to me if I get myself to be able to run 3.1 miles (a 5k) by the end of the year or not. I just want to run more, even if that means getting on an elliptical instead of a treadmill. That might not be considered the same as running, but I’ll fool myself into building up a similar endurance as if I were actually running. Plus, come summer when I (hopefully) run outside, it won’t be as hard as it would be with my current state.
The third goal I set for myself is to write more. It does not matter if it is a twenty five page research paper or a poem I’m writing for fun, I enjoy writing. During my senior year of highschool, I was required to take two English class credits: one writing and one reading. My writing course was based off of learning to write fiction and poetry. One of the first prompts we were given in that class was “Why write?” We watched a Ted Talk for it and everything. At the end of the semester, I looked up a prompt online (with the help of friends) and found something I could use to help me brainstorm ideas for a short story. The short story I wrote from that is one of the proudest I’ve been of my writing (up until that point).
I tried to start a blog multiple times, and most times I’ve failed. I tried to write fan fiction when I was younger and obsessed with various local bands. I thought my writing was good. However, I’m a little frightened to go back and read it. I’ve always had a dream of writing a novel or becoming a famous blogger.
To be specific about this goal I have for 2018, I want to have a new blog post up every month. To help myself with this, if I don’t have an idea on what to write, I want to write a reflection or review or whatever you want to call it on the book I choose to read for the month (reference my goal for this year on reading more). Since I am going to be reading a different type of book each month, it’ll help me generate ideas on writing. Even if all of my posts for the year are on the books I’ve read, at least I post something for each month.
The fourth and final goal I had set for this year is to take part in a research project for myself. For this, I mean finding something I am interested in and researching the heck out of it. I have been wanting to do this for a long time now, and my best friend and I were going to do this for Shakespeare because we developed an idea on a novel involving Shakespeare.
I have always been a fan of Shakespeare’s works. The Shakespeare unit in my English classes was always my favorite. I loved diving into his plays and learning about his life. I have always been a fan of Vincent Van Gogh as well. The texture he creates in his painting mesmerizes me. I don’t want to be someone who just scratches the surface and is like “Oh yeah, I’m a huge fan.” I want to be able to dive deeper into something whether it be Shakespeare or Van Gogh. I haven’t decided who I want to research this year, and I don’t know that I have the motivation to do both. Also, I have not decided if I want to write a research paper on whatever I decide to research. It would definitely give more purpose to my research.
Overall, I want to be more organized this year. I used my planner a lot during the fall semester. I definitely saw improvements in myself when I used it the most. I plan on (no pun intended) continuing to use my planner. Along with that, I want to set daily, weekly, and monthly goals for myself to complete. My daily goals will be things like homework that is due later in the week (because I got really good at not procrastinating so much at the end of the semester) or some housekeeping thing like laundry or taking the garbage out. My weekly goals will be for bigger assignments, like completing a paper or just something I want to get done within the week but don’t have a certain day to do it. For my monthly goals, I honestly don’t know. It’ll probably just be something like eating healthier or going and looking at mountains on some weekend (because I go to school in the mountains, it’s pretty cool).
I am pleasantly surprised with myself that I was able to complete three out of the four goals I had for 2017. Obviously, I hope to complete all of the ones I have set for 2018. When I was younger, I would list as many things I could think of that I wanted to accomplish within the year, barely accomplishing any of them.
Creating resolutions for the new year isn’t necessarily about how many you can think of. It is more about what you genuinely think you can accomplish, and then striving as hard as you can to accomplish it. It is kind of funny to see all of the shows on the Food Network at this time of year being about eating healthier. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about making any of the recipes they showed. (I tried one out the other day and it was deliciously amazing as well as scary how guilt-free it was.)
Granted, this is getting posted later than I wanted it to, but at least it is still January! To whoever reads this, I hope you are able to stick with all of your new year’s resolutions. Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself in this new year. I did it last year when I said I wanted to read more, and I am glad I did. Don’t be afraid to put something simple on your list either. Just go out there and tackle the world, one day at a time. Happy 2018.
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