I'll admit it, I'm one of those people. You know the ones. The people who always make New Year's resolutions and then proceed to break them and forget all about them until December 31st rolls around and they throw it back on the list because they didn't get around to doing it this year. Yeah, that's me. I will say, I did actually make a video for the New Year last year, in which I asked questions to my future self (feel free to watch it I'm actually really proud of it). I had planned on making a sappy sentimental video answering the questions and making new ones, but then I was just too tired and too depressed with 2016 so I ditched the entire idea and opted to stay in bed.
Does this mean that I was finally free from the New Year's resolution cycle? Can I now live my life free from the never ending disappointment of another failed resolution?
No, of course not. Instead, I have opted to set some slightly more reasonable goals for the year, one of them being 'continue setting goals'. What I mean by that is to stop trying to change my whole life all at once, to have these fantastic goals to integrate (and continually do) for my whole year, which just isn't realistic. Instead, I'm opting to make one of my resolutions to set goals each month, goals that are accomplishable within a month, and can help me work toward bigger goals. It's almost like I'm slowly figuring out how to be an independent adult (I hope this gives me some serious brownie points...and that I don't have to make the brownies....or do the brownie dishes).
I've also realised that it's not enough to set a goal and try to achieve that goal. I have tried and tried and tried again, and at some point, you will always fail. Something will inevitably happen that causes you to have setbacks in a goal you were shooting for, or to miss the goal entirely. And in the past, it always made me want to give up, it made me depressed and angry at myself. But as I move into 2017, I've decided for myself that there is too much hate in the world right now for me to add to it by hating myself. So, at the advice of a beautifully written blog post by Jesse Cale about weight loss, I've started to tell myself 'it's okay, I love you' every time I mess up or do something that's not helping toward my goals.
It's actually been quite liberating, and it's allowed me to recognise the accomplishments I have made and stop trying to mico-mange every aspect of my life to the extent that I stop enjoying living it. I've found that some days I have really high motivation while others it's hard to even get out of bed. It's been almost a month and I have a new appreciation for those days when I accomplish so much, and a new understanding with myself that it's okay on the days that I don't accomplish anything.
While I'm on the subject of failed resolutions, one that I have had for years is keeping up a daily planner. Something about the beautiful pages and all of your responsibilities spread out nice and neat in front of you in colourful pen has always appealed to me for some reason. And every year, inevitably, I buy a way too expensive daily planner convincing myself I will actually do it this year, I fill in the first three weeks, and then I don't find it again until July when I'm cleaning my closet.
And this year, was going to be no different. I marched to the Westfield right before Christmas, I walked into the fanciest Swedish print shop I've ever seen, and I bought the beautiful fancy daily planner. This year (I'm telling myself) is going to be different. You see, in past years I just left it up to my daily tasks, which arguably I didn't have stuff to do every day and forgot. This year, my daily planner is so much more, it is an amalgamation of all my thoughts, dreams, successes, failures, and goals. I am doubling my planner as a private diary as well, documenting each day of my 2017.
So far, I've filled in every day, and I've been excited to work on it and put it together. I hope I continue to document my year and work toward these hopefully more reasonable goals, but even if I don't it's okay; because there's too much hate already going around and I'm not going to add to it by hating myself any longer.
*We will not be talking about how procrasination has been on my resolution list for years and I am only just writing this almost a month into 2017. It's off the list because it's one of those 'unreasonable goals' I mentioned.
