New Year’s Resolutions

I don’t really do New Year’s Resolutions… I know that seems abnormal with today’s society of fad diet crazes, cheaper gym plans, cleanses, and post after post of organization tips and meal plans in January. I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions because I think they give you an excuse to not take an action that you know you should because your start will be a later date. I prefer to make a goal for myself and start it whenever it needs to be started, preferably sooner rather than later. I started one of my goals about 3 weeks ago for instance. This year I will make an exception, a week late, and make my current goals into ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ that I will share with all of you. Some of these goals are ones I have had for a while but updated to start as of Jan. 1. I have spent the last month or so doing an evaluation on my life and priorities and this is the outcome. 

Religious:

1. Complete a Bible-in-a-Year plan. I chose “Eat this Book: One Year Bible with Daily Psalm” which is available on YouVersion (app or website) if you want to join me! My username is songbirdheather. I’ve decided to do a lot of study this week in order to be ‘caught up’ as if this were a New Year’s Resolution.
2. Make more Wednesday Bible studies. Depending on work I don’t always get to church on Wednesdays if the traffic is bad. My goal is to decrease the number of times I miss services and studies this year in general.
3. Invigorate my prayer life. I have started a 30 Day Prayer Challenge study on my YouVersion app a few days ago to be a new year push on this goal.

Health/Medical:

1. No soda… I started this a few weeks back and so far so good. I had started drinking it again when my headaches were getting really bad to help with them (caffeine can help and it’s just a quick stop at a fast food restaurant verses going home and brewing tea or the like).
2. Prep more and try new things! I got off track a month or so ago when I moved and need to get back on the meal prepping bandwagon something major so that I don’t resort to bad options. This goes with my current goal of sticking to Paleo 90% of the time and Real Food even more than that. I might allow myself a small portion of grains once a month if we’re eating out but I know that I regret it within hours so I want to add ‘try new things when dining out’ to this year’s goals so that if I am faced with a social situation where grains is the main staple on the list of things I know I like the taste of I am less stressed about giving something new a try that looks more gut-friendly.
3. To go with the above, and due to the crazy amount of fluids I now need post flare it seems, I have a higher water consumption goal than before. To help with this goal I downloaded an app: WaterMinder which was on sale over the holidays for $0.99. So far this is my favorite water tracker app… and I have tried quite a few.
4. Meds… take them daily. I downloaded Medisafe over the holidays to remind me and keep track of when I need to have my vitamins, minerals, and medications refilled. I like this app better than any of the ones I have had in the past but it isn’t perfect so if there is a better one out there let me know!
5. Exercise! I need to make sure I am putting in the time for reconditioning as I should be, with finals and the holidays I was letting myself slide more than I am comfortable with. Not everything can go with my Zombies, Run app as not everything I need to do is walking/running/cardio related but I signed up for a 5k nevertheless as an incentive to stick with this goal.
6. Lose 50 pounds. This is less than 1 pound per week, I would ideally like to lose 2 pounds per week but I know that I need to be realistic and account for my illness when it comes to this goal as a flare will set me back. This is one of those goals that isn’t new, just updated for 2016 numbers wise.  So far I am a couple pounds in as I’ve had an awesome week weight loss wise (so if next week isn’t as awesome then I’m ok with that, baby steps!).

Financial:

1. Budget, budget, budget! I am continuing my budgeting campaign to help with the purchase of a home later this year *fingers crossed*. I was going to do a review on YNAB early this year as I had used it for about 5 months and felt I was ready to do so... but they have upgraded. I'm liking the new version quite a bit actually but I want to give it a few months before I review it to find more of those little fixes that I'm already loving.
2. Pay off debt... this goes with my budgeting one from above. I had paid off 2 bills I ended up with according to the divorce as well as the majority of my moving costs last year so this year I would like to finish those and the rest of my credit card (there isn't too much compared to the average person it would seem but it includes the remainder of my moving expenses from California to Texas). Next year I'll move on to tackling my student loans and car note with enthusiasm more than likely (or if I finish my credit card/moving expenses early!). 
3. I'm also saving for a house as I would like to have my own place again late this year or early next year at the latest.

Personal:

1. Get back into the dating world. I was not looking forward to this to be perfectly honest (the annoying messages from people who haven’t even read your profile, the rejection, the mean retorts to rejections… I don’t remember dating particularly fondly) but it was time to give it a try as I would like to find someone to spend my life with… so I signed up for several online dating sites for 3 months to dip my toe into the current dating world. So far I haven’t found anyone with whom I would consider marriage a real possibility so I am not ‘dating’ anyone but I have been on a couple of dates with various people. One of them might even end up being a potential friend, which I am in short supply of, so I would give this a ‘going well’ categorization. *fingers crossed*
2. Complete at least 50 blog posts this year. I need to get back into writing more as it is something I really want to do but had put on the back burner due to finals and the holidays. 50 isn’t an unmanageable goal as it gives me two weeks off with one post per week. I would like to say I will do more than that though so this might get revised later to a higher number but I want to see what my new schedule will allow.

This may be a lot of goals… but I don’t do Resolutions so this is a first for me. Perhaps next year I can chose one or two to highlight and call Resolutions for the year but I doubt it. 

[Edited on 1/11/16 to add financial goals which I had forgotten to put on here as they were continuations and just part of my habit 100% by the original date of this posting.]