New Year, New You...

Not quite!

I love my life, I love my friends, I love who I am... but there can always be improvement. I saw this picture on Facebook that said it all:

The reason I like this poster? Because it acknowledges that our lives are books and we break up the chapters how we choose. For some, each chapter might be about an individual person, for others it might be broken up by years. Because I believe every person impacts our lives, I prefer to philosophize about this and I would break up by book by a year or years because we everything we do carries into the next 'whatever' and we need to keep building on what we have learned and go from there.

I was having a conversation with someone recently who threw out a hypothetical question about life and self discovery based on a conversation about people being closed up. Basically, the question was, what if you weren't ready to accept yourself until an older age? What I would say to that? Well, aren't you luck to have done that, now go live it!!! 

All that to say I have some goals for next year. I have accepted some unattractive things about myself that are unlikely to change, but I have discovered things that can be changed and so I am going to take responsibility for them. I don't expect miracles and I am impacted by this thing called life, and if you are living it in the manner that I live my life, things change, and so I won't beat myself up if my goals fall short; especially because I know there will have been a good reason.

My 2014 goals:

New Class - I will be trying something new this year, a fitness class of sorts. My goal is to stick with it for the first series and then hopefully incorporate it for one year. That is all I am asking of myself. If it improves my life then I will continue. If not, or if it hurts me, I will walk away.

Run 3-4 days a week - I already do this for the most part, so I just need to continue. I have the best friends to run with and that makes it even more awesome than running solo.

Bike 2,000 miles in 2014 - This may sound lofty BUT it is only 38 miles a week, so even if I take weeks off in the brutal winter, it is still doable because I easily ride 2 - 3 times that amount a week in the spring summer and fall.

Shed the weight - Yeah I say this every year. I did really well for awhile this year and then life happened and it took that back seat. It is going to take the ever crowded front seat. I don't think I eat terribly but I'm going to start adding things to my diet rather than punishing myself by taking things away. Just eat better is my real goal.

Quit my vices - I know I can do it!!! I have successful weeks this year with both of my vices so I'm going to take 2014 to expand on those successful weeks.

Feel heartily - I say feel because if I said laugh then I wouldn't acknowledge the fact that you need to have the lows to love the highs. I am going to continue to allow myself to go through everything and feel it. If it hurts, I'll cry; if it makes me happy, I will laugh. Both are very easy to do when you are surrounded by people who allow you to just be and love you for your laughter and your tears.

Improve my brain - Lumosty is my friend. I'm using it and doing daily brain workouts to help me with organization, memory and basic brain functions. I'm hoping that focusing on my brain a little bit, I will learn to put my keys in the same place when I come home, put my wallet in the same place, put crap away at work (aka. filing) and remember things. I'm told I remember everything, that is so false but I'm glad I've put on a good show.

Anyway, I think that is PLENTY to work on for the next year. You will see that did not expect to wake up this morning and change my life for the better instantly. Instead I am saying I am going to work on things and enjoy the process.

I love the song by Avicii because of its beat and it makes me move, I dislike it because of the message. I'll let you listen and have your own internal love/hate battle with the song, but what I do want to say is that you shouldn't be OK with life passing you by, after all, every day is part of the journey and experiencing it with your eyes wide open will only help you become wiser when you are older. Bop along, sing along (I do EVERY time I hear it), but also think about the lyrics. I know I did, and it made me realize that I truly need to embrace every moment of my journey!