Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Resolutions 2008

When Michelle gave me a journal with a cover made from a Scrabble board, I decided to retire my old, uninspired blank book in favor of my new one. It seemed like a worthy start to the new year. I've been keeping an abundance journal, which may sound hokey, but doing it has made me appreciate my life. Sure, some days the best I can muster is "I didn't have a migraine," but there's a lot of good stuff going on in my career and my personal life. So I think a pretty journal is a fitting way to keep track of my progress toward my goals and resolutions. Incidentally, I have mixed feelings about resolutions: on one hand, I'm better able to meet the ones that I tell people about. Something about accountability makes me more likely to do stuff. (This is also why I like having a job with many deadlines.) On the other hand, I don't like to make grand pronouncements about what my goals are.

There's a feature on 43 Things where you can challenge yourself to meet a goal within a given timeframe and set up consequences if you don't. I'm pondering that. If I do it, I need to choose carefully. There's nothing worse than committing to something you don't really want.

So here are a few of my resolutions, in no particular order:

1. Eat fruit every day (if you knew what I ate, you'd see why this is a resolution).
2. Develop a turnaround jumper. (Bonch has been helping me with this, but I am not a natural when it comes to basketball.)
3. Write a second book. Maybe I won't complete it in 2008, but I'd like to at least have gotten the proposal passed.
4. Reconnect with my Greek friends. (Aren't you curious what your college pals are up to?)

This time next year, I'll either be blogging about the power of resolutions or providing an elaborate rationalization about how my priorities changed. How about you: have you made any resolutions? Are they big or small? One-offs or ongoing processes? I wish you luck with your goals. And thanks for supporting me by reading this.

4 comments:

Jean Katherine Baldridge said...

I want to write too. I also want to pray in some personal sort of fashion which is very private, and involves meditation. I am surprised I even wrote it here. I haven't discussed this anywhere.

I can't think of anything else off the bat, but those two have been on my mind very powerfully since the New Year.

jean! xox

Naomi said...

Jean, maybe you should write your memoir: Write, Pray, Love?

michelle said...

I decided to leave the usual resolutions (losing weight, exercising more, etc.) behind this year. I'm going with a theme of just being a better person than I was the year before. I think that can be accomplished with action items like exercising more, eating more fruit (love that, by the way), etc., but I want to also be kinder to myself and do something that feels "right." Good times. Hope it all works out. :)

I like your title for Jean's book, too. You're such a good editor. ;)

Naomi said...

Michelle, fruit and rightness sound like great goals for '08. And also some bookshelves from Bergie. :)