2011 Resolutions: How'd I do?

I went searching to find my 2011 resolution list. Let’s see how I did:

• eat breakfast every day: I did this for six months, and just couldn’t keep it up. I get up really early and just can’t eat breakfast in the 6 o’clock hour. But I do actually eat in the mornings more often than not nowadays, and I am happy with that progress.

 

• be more open to new ideas: I’m definitely more open minded and more open to new learning opportunities. I’m thinking of ways to expand my horizons.
  

 

• be more positive: This is definitely an area where I have improved greatly. I have framed my outlook in terms of thinking of how lucky I am, how many things I have, rather than focusing on what I don’t have.
  

 

• let mean comments roll off my back: I would call this a partial win. There are some people who can still say mean things and get me upset, but my guess is that’s how it’ll always be. For the most part, though, I don’t spend time with people who say mean things.
  

 

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  learn how to cook meat: Partial win, too. I am significantly more comfortable with meat, and I can only think of one time where the thing I made went from the table to the trash, and I think it’s just that I’m not a huge fan of ribs. I learned to cut up a whole chicken, I can cook pork tenderloin, I’m an expert with sticking something in the slow cooker, and I can even cook steak. The fact that my diet has become more meat centric forced me to get better at this, since let’s be honest, there’s only so much ground beef a person can eat.
  

 

• run a 15k with emily and dave: Well, this was probably cheating, since I think at the time of writing my 2011 resolutions, Emily’s plane ticket had already been purchased. I ran it, and had a blast. I ran a half marathon, too, and then I stopped running. I think I put on jogging shoes and went jogging six or seven times since April.
  

 

• travel for work: A win, I suppose, but a silly goal, in retrospect. I went to Colorado and New York in the early part of the year and Park City, Utah in the summer.

 

• travel for fun: Yes, definitely. However, I think that some of the travel was to make my relationship more fun. And I realized something really important: if you have to travel every month (or more!) to keep your relationship fun, you’re doing it wrong and it won’t last.

 

• love more: Yep. Win.

 

• be less skeptical: Hmmm. Some of these (like this one!) make me wonder what I was referring to, exactly. Skepticism is good, and exists for a reason. The opposite of skepticism is blind faith and that’s not something I’m good at. I’m more open to new ideas, but I’ll forever be skeptical. I’m not as apt to listen to my critical inner voice as I once was, so let’s call this a partial win. And a reminder to make my 2012 resolutions decidedly less vague.

 

• believe in myself: YES! Much more than I was. I’m going to include listening to my gut, because I finally got around to that in the summer and haven’t looked back since.

 

• give the benefit of the doubt: This one is kind of hard, actually. I definitely don’t think the absolute worst every time someone says something, but I still need to be a bit more generous and assume that people mean the best when things are unclear.

All in all, not bad. For next year, my goals need to be SMART (I can hear the teacher voice of my sister coming through here):

• specific
• measurable
• attainable
• realistic
• timely

2012 goals to come!

Related articles

• How to Stick to your 2012 Resolution – Beauty from Within (modealanix.com)

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