Let’s face it…New Year’s resolutions suck. You make a haphazard list telling yourself you’ll be a better human if you read more books, lose weight, eat better, be more outgoing, or travel more. Somehow, writing it all down or at least making a mental note is supposed to help make you accountable throughout the next year.
January 1st rolls around and, while you’re working off your hangover, you eat your weight in black-eyed peas and cornbread (maybe that’s just me…) and tell yourself you’ll start tomorrow. January 2nd rolls around and you’re back to work; up early, home late, you’ll start tomorrow. See a theme?
Statistically speaking, even if you’re one of the few who start the new year off right, 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail by February. I’m typically not a glass-half-empty type but I’ve been privy to my own failures over the last 30-something years and that statistic rings true in my life. Hell, I consider myself lucky to make it to February.
So, this year I’m trying something different.
Instead of making a list of things I am bound to fail at, 2018 will be the year of commitment. For the last year, I feel like I’ve been living life with one foot out the door, waiting for the next shoe to drop. I take on projects that I love but end up half assing my way through some because I simply don’t have enough time. I don’t focus time on other things I love because I’m busy trying to juggle everything else.
Here’s what I like (in no particular order):
- My horse
- My dogs
- My person
- Writing
- Being outside
- Making things
When you boil things down to the bare essentials of what makes you happy, you come to find out you’re actually pretty darn simple. So why aren’t you focusing on those things?
In 2018, I will.
I have not ridden near as much as I’d like to in the past 2 years and there are very few things in this world that make me happier than sitting on my horse in the mountains. I will commit to making that happen in 2018.
My dogs are awesome little creatures that also love being outside and doing whatever it is that I do. In 2018, I will commit to making sure they have as awesome of a time as I do.
My person is actually a super cool human and, while we’ve had our ups and downs over the last year, our foundation is still strong. I commit to building on that foundation in 2018 and rediscovering us.
I absolutely love writing and, for whatever reason, I simply haven’t done it much in the past few years. In 2018, I commit to writing about anything and everything that’s on my mind (and I promise to try and make it interesting…or at least entertaining).
I am and have always been happier outdoors than in and have so many things I want to do and see. I was lucky enough to develop some very strong friendships in 2017 and, together, we developed a “Carpe Diem List” for 2018 (sort of a bucket list with a better ring to it). I commit fully to the Carpe Diem List…get ready girls.
I have always been an anywhere-but-here personality and that translates to many areas of my life, including crafts. I love creating in all forms and have managed to find some crazy people who actually want to buy my stuff on occasion, but I haven’t given that business the attention it deserves. Who knows, it could be my ticket to mountain hermitism. In 2018, I commit to making a legitimate business out of making things.
So, yes, I suppose this could still be considered a New Year’s Resolution List of sorts, but at its core, it is so much more. Rather than resolving to change a million things about myself or my life, I’m choosing to commit to the life I already have. To rediscover my love of things I already love. To be a conscious participant in the world that exists around me and give back to it, foster it, appreciate it.
I’m not sure how much I’ve believe in the “you get out of it what you put into it” idea that so many people thrive on. Historically, it hasn’t rang true for me. But, in keeping with the theme for 2018, I will commit fully to life and see what it gives back.
And, if this theory fails, in 2019 I will read more books.