New Year's Resolutions
2017
I know there's a lot of bad hype around "new year's resolutions", but I'm a firm believer in them. Maybe it's the wording that's off, but in the end, it is what it is. Goals, resolutions, whatever... we're making a plan to better ourselves this year. I've been thinking a lot about 2017 and what I want to accomplish. I always have the usual "lose weight", "save money", "pay off debt", and while I still have those goals, I have two other major things I really need to work on this year that I've been struggling with.
Get a handle on my anxiety. I've been dealing with anxiety for about three years now, and I want to figure out how to get a better grasp on it. I have what's called "panic disorder". I will suddenly have feelings of complete fear (specifically, I feel I'm going to die in that exact moment they strike) and I get chest pains, almost can't breathe, and I've even gone to the ER before because I thought I was having a heart attack. I usually get them when I'm alone too, which is the worst, and need to learn how to calm myself down somehow. I almost had one a couple of weeks ago when Eric was out of town, and I put in earbuds, put on a few of my favorite songs, and looked through a few photo albums, which helped immensely. I want to continue to figure out ways like this to help deal with these episodes, and set new habits in my life to help eliminate them completely like relaxing, taking more time off, etc.
Eliminate my new chronic tension headaches. For the last two months, I've been dealing with daily tension headaches. It started at the end of October, then I got vertigo in Nashville, and when we got home, they never went away. I wake up with a headache, I go to sleep with a headache. I've never had headaches like this before, so to be honest, it's terrifying. You immediately think you have something else terribly wrong with you, and it's all you can think about (leading to more anxiety...) I've tried everything so far. Essential oils, ibuprofen, Tylenol, switching my pillow, lavender spray, a new bite splint, adjusting my contact strength at the eye doctor, getting my neck cracked by a physical therapist, turning off lights, reducing my monitor brightness, and nothing has helped so far. So my goal this year is to really figure out what's causing these headaches, and fix it. If you have any advice, please let me know!
Lose 25 pounds. I know you're supposed to focus on eating healthier, or exercising more, instead of focusing on the scale, but the number really does help keep me in line. I've gained back all 35 of the pounds I lost back in 2009, and maybe 60% of my wardrobe fits right now. That's where I'm struggling. I'm technically considered overweight, and I'm crazily out of shape after not going to the gym for months. I'm all about body positivity, but I felt so much happier about my body image when I was in the ideal BMI range. I just want to feel good again, and I know the number where I felt good in the past, and I'm just looking to get back there. For action steps, I'm following Weight Watchers again and training for another 10K. I also plan to do yoga once a week.
Save three months worth of living expenses for an emergency fund. At first, I was like, I'm going to finish saving for a down payment on a house, and we'll buy a house, and live happily ever after! And then I got really into Dave Ramsey last November, and learned... we should probably make sure we have three months worth of living expenses saved before we get ourselves into a mortgage. So that's this year's goal... me being financially responsible finally. It only took 30 years. To reach this goal... I have the amount we need to save automatically taken from my paycheck and put into a savings account, and then I don't touch it or budget for it. It's going to take a year to hit this goal, but we're on our way!
Pay off all credit card debt. This is an easy goal, because we're SO CLOSE. I've been working really hard at this since our wedding and we're a few months away from paying off all of our credit card debt. We're on track to hit goal by April. I've been doing this by budgeting. I make a monthly budget, make sure all of our bills are accounted for, we've allotted for events or things to happen during that month, and all the rest is paid down on credit cards. Plus, any additional income we make from the blog, or bonuses, or freelance work I do... goes immediately on credit card debt. SO close. I can't wait.
Do you guys set goals or resolutions for the new year? I do every single year, and while some years I've totally tanked, other years, I've killed it. So we'll see what happens, and I've decided it's amazing to set goals, but my life isn't a failure if I don't reach all of them. All I really want is to feel PROUD this year. Feel proud that I worked hard toward those goals, and maybe even made it halfway. I don't want another year to pass by (as quickly as they do) and feel guilty that I didn't even try. So here's to setting goals, and working toward them, and (hopefully) accomplishing them. If not, that's okay too. But any chance or fresh start we can take toward bettering ourselves, why not, right? Here's to 2017!