I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions.
In 2020, I actually did make a New Year’s resolution to journal every day, and I ended up doing it. (What a year to decide to journal every day, amirite?) In 2021, I didn’t journal every single day, but I did at least once or twice a week, and coming from my daily journaling the year before I think journaling daily is actually more helpful. There were a lot of days in 2020 where I didn’t feel like I had anything to journal about (and let’s be real, it was 2020, there were only so many ways to rewrite, “I’m trapped in the house and have depression”) but I think the days that felt like there was nothing to write ended up being the most useful journaling sessions for me because it forced me to dig deeper, if that makes sense.
Anyway, all of that is a long way of saying, I’m not calling it a resolution because in my head “resolution” implies some surface level task to better fit society’s mold of what you should be doing (like all the resolution-ers who give up on the gym by the end of February because it’s not what they actually want to be doing), but I do want to journal every day again in 2022 (and I have so far.)
Here are other goals I want to work on this year:
- Finishing projects. If you saw my Blogmas posts, you know this is something I struggle with. Leftover from 2021, I have a fair amount of editing work, cross stitch projects, a paint by number, a fiction piece I started to write, decorating my apartment, and I’m sure many more. Just to keep tracker easier here are some specifics:
- Edit / publish Josh’s novella
- Edit / publish my fiction piece
- Finish paint by number
- Finish cross stitch bookmarks
- Finish decorating my apartment (primarily the living room/storage for books)
- I may add to this later…
- Organize the pictures on my laptop. I guess this is technically an unfinished project, but I have hundreds of thousands of Disney pictures from 2010 to now, and for a generally pretty organized person I guess this is my downfall and it needs to be done.
- Create and stick to a workout routine. I don’t want this goal to come across at all like I’m dieting because 🖕 diet culture, but just that I workout very sporadically right now and I know for a fact that it’s better when I have a routine, both mentally and physically.
- Read more. I’m not sure how much and I’m hesitant to set a more specific goal because I don’t want to stress over not reading enough during times when work is really busy, but more than I do now.
- Take more pictures. I used to take a ton of pictures (hence the need to organize them) but I’ve hardly taken any the past two years. I think the pandemic and being stuck at home got me out of the habit, but even if I’m home I like having pictures to look back on, so I really want to do more of that this year.
- Go on more hikes. I like hiking and probably only do it maybe three or four times a year. More of that. I need some solid hiking boots though because just having sneakers is making me feel limited in where I can hike. Maybe I should have added a “buy hiking boots” goal.
- A series of undecided tasks… I think those are the big things I want to accomplish this year. It may not sound like much, but those editing projects are pretty big, especially if I end up self publishing them just because I’ve never actually self published anything before. I also don’t want to overwhelm myself because that’s how ̶r̶e̶s̶o̶l̶u̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s goals ultimately fail. But, in the event that I feel comfortable adding to this list, I’m also thinking about…
- Writing/publishing a second edition of “Red, White, and Disney.” The parks have changed so much since it was published that some of it simply needs to be updated. I’m also quite honestly not happy with how it was edited, or with my arrangement with my publisher, so a mental block for me with this is that I want the rights to the book back so I can either self publish or get it out somewhere else. It seems like a huge process and I just can’t add it to the list now, but it’s definitely a thought.
- Get Maui’s diabetes into remission. This is so low on the list because I really am trying to be realistic in that it might not happen, but if we could get it to happen that would be pretty cool. He seems to be feeling so much better since his diagnosis, but his numbers are still high, and selfishly I don’t feel comfortable planning any travel and not being here to take care of him myself.
- Miscellaneous financial/travel goals. I hesitate to put concrete plans under this section because so much of it is dependent on Maui. Financially I could be in a pretty good spot if things stay how they are, but again, I don’t want to risk getting my hopes up and an increase in insulin or diet change could certainly change that. Same thing with travel plans. Some day trips/overnights I would feel comfortable taking that I’d like to get into 2022 include Vermont (never been!), New York City (preferably before March to see the Disney exhibit at the Met), Canobie Lake Park, Lake Compounce, Newport Mansions, Portsmouth, maybe even the Cape where I haven’t been in years.
- Some random mindfulness stuff I know I should work on. You know, the usual…Actually setting boundaries, not letting guilt trippers get to me, etc…I guess this could go in the main section of the post, but I don’t know about that…
I’m hoping to check back in on this post with updates throughout the year, so wish me luck and we’ll see how I do!