By Rachel Langston
I am not much for New Year’s resolutions. Mine are rarely realistic and quickly forgotten!
Sometime in the last 2 or 3 years, I started identifying PROJECTS for each new year. By definition, a project is “something intended or defined.” For me, that feels like a better option than vaguely worded resolutions.
In addition to identifying PROJECTS, I have started listing GOALS that compliment the tasks necessary to complete my projects. I have had sick children this week so I don’t have all this fleshed out completely, but here is my attempt at betterment for 2007:
PROJECTS:
1. Finish the interior home improvement projects (including punch lists) that we started in 2006. We are very close if we will just make one final push!
2. Rearrange and reorganize the closets in our house to make them more efficient. This will probably include getting rid of some STUFF and that is OK too.
3. Work through the boxes and piles of labeled pictures and mementos that I have been collecting since my children were born. I have start a baby book for my oldest (now 6), but my youngest (now 3 and a half) still has all her things stored in a box.
GOALS:
1. Lose 26 pounds before my 40th birthday (8/5/2007). This is the continuation of a goal I set in October of this year.
2. Prepare dinner AT HOME at least 4 nights each week. That doesn’t mean cooking from scratch but it woud mean that we eat at home MORE than we eat out.
3. Read at least 15 books.
In reality, there are pages and pages of things that I would like to accomplish in the new year. This list does not include ANY of my career projects and goals! I know, however, that my time does not always get allocated in the way that I think it will so this list is deliberately short. If and when I get through with these things, I’ll revise my list and keep going.
By way of update…
I have stayed even on my weight through the holidays. That is always an accomplishment! Counting today, there have been 50 days in the year since I started tracking my exercise on November 12, 2006. Of those 50 days, I have exercised on 33 different days. That exercise has consisted of 971 minutes of walking for an average of 29.4 minutes per day. Ultimately, I would like to average 35-40 minutes of walking MOST days of the week. Increasing that average and concentrating more on my weight LOSS is all part of goal #1!
