My Goals for 2014: The Three R’s

Happy New Year everyone!!  Here we are on January 2nd, and it’s time to start making some goals for 2014!  I was going to post this yesterday, but opted to go spend the afternoon/evening with this guy (and his parent!) before he left town.  

I’m sure you understand 😉

I’ve been trying to decide on a single word that would sum up my goals for 2014 and went back and forth between a few different ones before I decided to go with a trio of words…

Why the trifecta of words?  Because I felt that one simply didn’t encompass all of what I wanted to do.  Originally I was going to go with “reduce” all on it’s own, but I felt like as a single word it had negative connotations that I didn’t want, but at a trio I feel like it makes more sense.  Does that make sense?  Probably not, but that’s okay 😉

So lets take a closer look at the goals that go along with each word:

Reduce:

• Reduce clutter.  This is one I’ve actively been working on for years, but I think it is an ongoing frame of mind.  Get rid of the items you don’t use or need to make room for those which you do.  Plus having less really is more, because you can see what you have and will actually use everything you have!
• Reduce spending.  It’s easy to lost track of how much you are buying when getting groceries.  This is my biggest downfall, I need to go back to trying to keep our weekly grocery bill down below a certain number instead of just buying the things on my list.  I know this is one area where we can save a bunch of money if I’m smarter about shopping.
• Reduce consumption.  Do I mean I’m going to be eating less?  Heck no.  I mean reducing consumption as far as the earth and energy is concerned.  Continuing to recycle and compost as much as possible, purchasing items that come in little (or at the very lease recyclable) packaging, having more showers and less baths, etc.
• Reduce debt. This goes right along with reducing spending, if I spend less we will have more to put towards debt (i.e. student loans, car loans etc.) and frees up more money for fun things like vacations and buying new cameras 😉

Relax:

• Get a Monthly Massage.  I was diagnosed with FIbromyalgia in around 2003 (a syndrome causing chronic widespread body pain).  I’ve been teaching fitness classes as my primary source of income since 2007.  Right now I teach 12 classes/week, but for a while I taught as many as 19.  I haven’t had a therapeutic massage since 2006. <–True story.  My upper back, calves and hamstrings hurt all. the. time.  We have medical coverage that covers massages, I just need to get a referral from my doctor and always forget to ask for one when I go to see him.  This is nothing more than stupidity on my side.  I’m going to make an appointment to go JUST for a referral.  
• Chilling Out Time.  I work weird hours, which means I often end up working all the waking hours!  I feel like when I’m off during the day, I need to be working on admin and social media tasks and not giving myself time to relax during the day.  But then day turns to night and I’m out teaching classes and by the time I get home and cleaned up I’m back to doing work until I go to bed.  I don’t mean to make is sound like I’m being worked to death, because I know there are times in each day when I’m doing unimportant things (like looking at cat gifs…) but I would benefit a lot more from having more structure to my days that include chilling out time.  That’s one thing I miss from a 9-5 job.  When I was done, I was done.  I didn’t matter what was left undone, I would do it the next day.  I need to start to implement those types of rules again.  

Recharge:

• Write. write. write.  Did I mention write?  There is only one way for someone to get better at what they do, and that is practise.  I love writing, in particular I love writing stories, but I don’t allow myself time to do that.  These days if it isn’t for a specific purpose it doesn’t get written.  I need to give myself a morning or an afternoon/week where all I do is write, or brainstorm, whatever.  It’ll be good for me creatively, and I think professionally.  Whether or not anyone will ever look at what I’ve written is not the point, the point is to do something I enjoy, and something I really want to do regardless of the outcome.
• Run. run. run.  Running helps me clear my head.  It helps me to increase and improve the strength of my weak left lung.  And it recharges my in a way nothing else ever has.  There is something very magical about running a race, and while I don’t intend to run as many races as I did last year I do plan to run 5 or 6
• Yoga. yoga. yoga.  This could really go under relax too as yoga really helps to relax both my body and mind, but I find it recharges me as well.  When you take the time to clear your mind when the world comes back into focus I sometimes find my mind has shifted ever so slightly altering the way I think or perceive something, and that, is something we could all use a little more of I think.
• Breakfast.  I’ll admit it, I’m terrible at eating my breakfast. I know how super important it is, and yet I am lazy about it.  This year I’m going to make a real effort to eat my breakfast more consistently.  And let’s face it, eating your breakfast after sleeping all night is a great way to recharge your body!
• Speaking of sleep… let’s try to get more of it this year.  And not only more sleep, but better sleep. I got a fitbit for Christmas.  Guess what?  I often wake up more than 20 times/night.  No wonder I’m always tired.  Note to self, if you are better at taking your vitamins and going to bed earlier you’ll probably sleep better.  So that’s the plan!

So there are my goals!  It seems like a long list when it’s written out here, but so many of them are interrelated that I think I can safely say I have three goals for 2014: to Reduce, relax and recharge.

What about you?  Do you, or have you set goals for the new year?