Now Year’s Resolutions: Do 3 Things Differently

I can't say it enough: this is my favorite time of the year.

There's my birthday, the hustle and bustle of the holidays, seeing family, decorating, Christmas shopping – and then to top it all off, a fresh, shiny New Year.

 

It's so much awesome in one damn place that I can hardly stand it.

The theme I set back in October was this: 2016 is about simplifying my life drastically.  My five main categories of goals were E-S-L-S-G.  There’s something I’d like to accomplish in each category, so here’s how I plan to do it, starting today.

There’s no point in waiting for 2016 to start. 

 

From today on, I am challenging myself to change 3 things every day.   The idea is to make a conscious effort to improve in each area by examining what I'm currently doing, especially if it isn't getting the results I want.  The 3 things can come from different goal categories or they can all come from one.  But at the end of the day I want to reflect on what I did differently today. They can be as tiny as sitting up more or as large as a new car; but either way, they need to shake things up a bit.

Eat 

I absolutely loved the weight and size I have been for the past 5 years.  Most people would say I needed to lose anywhere from 15-30 pounds, but I felt perfect. I gained around 15 pounds at the beginning of the year, though – and being injured and not feeling well, I wasn’t able to get it all off.

I want to lose that 15 pounds.  Just to get back to feeling like ME. My previous weight was one where I felt comfortable in my skin, all my clothes fit and I was confident. I also had fewer sleep and asthma problems.

Ideas of 3 things to change: monitor hunger signals better, go meatless, skip wine with dinner (or have one less glass), think an extra couple of times before I have a snack, think harder about the number of veggies I'd had for the day, swap a large iced coffee for a medium, leave 25% of my food on my plate, get up and move instead of eating, etc.

 

Sleep

My sleep has really been terrible lately.  Part of this is my subclinical apnea.  Losing some weight actually helps me in this category too.

Ideas of 3 things to change: find a way to force myself to go to bed at the same time.  Try to get to bed early a few days a week to make up for the days that I feel really bad.  Diffuse essential oils. Try reading a magazine in bed.  Try sleep journaling to figure out what it is that triggers the sleep problems. Find a new way to re-litter-train and socialize the newest kitty, who wakes me up often. Re-arrange something about my schedule: maybe even try to wake up earlier and see if that helps.

Live

The hard part about changing this category is that a couple of the thinsg I REALLY love compete with some of the goals of ESLSG and fight really hard with my FOMO.

For example....
Racing.

Seeing friends.
Wine.
Cheese.

These things all either interfere with my sleep or my weight loss attempts.  But they're basics that I have to have in my life. So there's this whole thing of BALANCE.

Ideas of 3 things to change: weigh my schedule, how I've been feeling, what workouts I've already missed against what I'm being asked to do or what I want to do.  Say no more often. Really face what is triggering my FOMO when it happens and go to the root cause and work on that.  The FOMO isn't the culprit - something else is.  Be realistic with myself about how much I really can acocmplish in a day.

S&!*

This one is not 100% literal: it's about making sure bodily functions work normally.  Some of this is sleep.  Losing some weight/eating better helps me in this category too.  So does making sure I take my vitamins. I'm so deficient that I have to take OTC and RX supplements.  (Being D-deficient had to have contributed to the development of my stress fracture, especially since I missed my dose for October.) 

Ideas of 3 things to change: set up a better reminder for my over-the-counter vitamins.  Try to get more foods that are D- or B12-rich (ask myself if I am getting enough?) Get more fiber.  Take my probiotic.

Get Paid

I'm working on a ton of career development stuff.  The goal here is to be able to use my degree more and get paid more. 

Ideas of 3 things to change: browse through new jobs a couple times a week; find a different way to do some work processes; look for more networking and local events; ask someone in a job I like to shadow them. Maybe invest in a resume re-write.


So, there you have it.  My Now Year's Resolutions. The way I plan to ESLSG.  I may even be Better Than Me.

On WedThanksBirthMasEveVersary and Being an Introvert at Heart

Seems like 1000 things to do with WedThanksBirthMasEveVersary happening. 

 

That's the name I've given the next few months. It's one big holiday because the wedding I'm in, Thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas, New Year's and our 7-year anniversary sort of blend together in one big long string of travel and parties and dinners and meetings and gatherings.

 

I went across town to have a glass of wine with a friend and exchange back some clothing we'd borrowed from each other.  We ended up meeting this awesome couple who live in my area of town and know a lot of people I know. He was a wine blogger, and I love my wine, so it was a really cool experience. We went to dinner with them and chatted about their experiences doing wine tastings all over the world.

Then I got to the orthpod and got my follow-up x-rays.  They were very impressed with how I'm healing.  (I told them that's because I'm a good patient who does WTF I'm told.  I want to heal and NOT do this to myself again.)

As you probably recall, I made myself a promise that when I finished grad school, I would do All of The Things.  I promised myself that 2015 would be a Year of Yes. 

As you may also recall, it started out great.   I pretty much loved every minute of it. But after I started feeling like crap again, it became completely overwhelming.   

For years, I was convinced I got my energy from other people – and now I realize that’s not the case at all. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, which is consistent with true introversion. When I have lots of energy, I want to be with everyone; when I spend that energy, I have to be by myself to re-charge or I get so overwhelmed that I get downright ugly.

 

No matter how many times we have the “introvert/extrovert” argument, many of us cling to the belief that introverts are naturally shy. We’re not; lots of us love parties and being sociable . . . with the right people. Introversion has to do with whether you get your energy from yourself or other people.

 

I think it took me so long to see this because I had never really been around people who sapped my energy (or I was never receptive enough to their energy to absorb it). I now recognize how lucky (or naïve?) I was. 

 

I may test as an extrovert on personality assessments, but I'm an introvert at heart.   Which makes it hard to know which way to go to help myself feel better.

For example: I was supposed to attend an event last night, but knowing I started PT at 7 this morning and I’m battling a chest cold and never-ending sleep deprivation, I backed out.  I battled with myself for hours about whether I felt good enough to go. And I battled the familiar frustration of not being able to do everything I want to do.

I really have to work on this. I know that no one – not even those who aren’t chronically ill or long-distance commuters – can physically do All of The Things. But I keep letting myself get ultra-frustrated when I can’t.  There’s just so much of the world out there I want to experience.  And I want to be able to stay up past 10pm without needing 3-4 days to recover.  (This past week during Thankyougiving I had 5 straight days of bed before 10pm and sleeping until after 7, and I was still so sleep-deprived that I was destroyed by one day of my old work routine and sleeping in my own bed.)

So onceWedThanksBirthMasEveVersary is over, I’m going to keep it low-key – I’m only focusing on what I need to do to ESLSG.  I’m going to call it my Year of No. 

 

I realize how completely and utterly boring that sounds, but I am in need of some major recharge time. I need fewer agendas, fewer deadlines, fewer due dates.  I need more sleep, more successful workouts, and more open horizons.

 

And we're already down to MasEveVersary, so I'm almost there.