The End or the Beginning of a Year

     The end of the world or the beginning of a new year.  I choose the beginning of a new year.  There is far too much to accomplish before the end of the world, like completing just seven more classes for my Bachelors of Arts, and starting out in my new career, and searching for the right training to become a certified yoga instructor, and to play and laugh and love.  See, far too many things to accomplish before the next two days.  

     This is the time of year where several of us are beginning to think of our New Year's Resolutions.  It has been almost a decade where I have not participated in this yearly tradition; don't get me wrong, I set goals and I set paths into achieving my goals, but I refuse to use one day each year to declare them.  That said, my goals are clarified daily, weekly, with each semester, for the next year, for the next five years, for the next ten years (okay, I really haven't gone ten years out yet).  And I try to be creative with my goals, not to just say "I want to lose 15 pounds." or "I will eat healthier."  In truth, it has been about a decade when I quit using those as my goals because it seemed to fail for me, instead I reproach this by stating, "I will practice yoga two times a week and run two times this week."  Four days out of seven makes it easier to accomplish instead of looking at it as one week down but 360 more days to go.  Basically, look at each day or each week as it comes and not focus on an entire year.  If you focus too far out, stress creeps in quickly if you skip a day, then 20 more days go by because of guilt, it builds and compiles.  You see where I am going with this, you have most likely been down this path a time or two.

                                                                                    by Pithless Thoughts: Annotated...

     Here is my proposal to you, why not this be the year for your New Year's Resolution stating you will not make big, lofty goals for a year out when you can accomplish much more each week.  Besides, it is more satisfying when you complete goals weekly and to look back a year from now to feel, see and touch all your accomplished goals.

     A few ideas I have been kicking around in my head are to take photos daily, yet in my reality, I ought to declare one photo a week, this way I can be sure to obtain it; choose a buzz word for me and use it within my circles weekly, weekly sounds easy but I do not want to put extra stress on myself so I will declare to choose a buzz word monthly; since I enjoy writing, I will write about a color weekly, but with my class schedule I am sure to miss quite a few, so I declare to write about a color monthly.  By creating goals outside the overly used, "I will lose weight," "I will exercise," I will eat better."yada yada yada, you are motivating your mind and body to paint outside the box, pink looks so much better on the left of the line anyway.

     How will I remember all of my goals floating in my noggin?  First I will write them in my nifty notebook I carry pretty much everywhere...collects my thoughts, ideas, phrases, music, stories I saw happen or stories I have conjured in my head.  Also, I have recently found StickK.com, it is a genius of a website where you write down what your goals are, you choose a time period to accomplish your goal or goals, and they hold you accountable by 1) reminding you to report your success or not, each week, and 2) having you put money on the line - if you fail to accomplish your weekly goal, you send $X to a friend or charity.  Say I want to exercise more, I choose the program or the desired weight, the time period and the person who gets my said choice of money each week I fail.  Why should you fail a week if you are going to pay someone $X?  Again, just looking at the days ahead, not adding unhealthy stress for the months and year ahead.  As Bob Wiley says, "Baby Steps, baby steps." (What About Bob).  And if you forget about an idea before writing it down or performing it out, no worries, you have plenty of other ideas swimming around waiting to be noticed.              

     So to this I say, here is an terrific end to a new beginning!  Släinte!