Fresh Beginnings

I am filled with the hope that a new year brings.

This year I am taking steps to improve myself from the inside out and I am starting slow to increase the victories and keep my motivation strong. So many times I am tempted to improve every single area of my life and by February I am overwhelmed and discouraged. Instead of maintaining the insanity I have designed for myself I end up letting some things go and this makes me feel like failure. Before summer has a chance to arrive, I've usually beaten myself up about all the things I didn't do and am left depleted of all motivation. Not this year! This year I am going to set attainable goals that have flexibility.

Goal 1: I am training for my first half-marathon. I trained this Fall for the St. Jude Marathon in Memphis, but icy conditions caused the race to be cancelled and so I must continue this journey into Spring. I have found a wonderful training program which focuses on overall conditioning and includes cross training, weights, stretching, etc along with running. I am excited about this because last time I trained it was only running and I got burnt out. My knees are very excited that this program has some low impact training involved as well. I also have signed up for 2 races to keep my training fun. I am running the half on April 26th.

Goal 2: Relationships. Anyone that knows me knows how little I truly share about myself that is personal. I have a really hard time being vulnerable or opening up to people. I want great relationships and in order to attain that, I am going to have to put in the effort on my side. This goal is one that I am leaving wide open so that I keep with it. My goal is to simply make efforts to be honest with people about my feelings (yeah I have those sometimes lol), refrain from joking when a good conversation is occurring, and making new friendships. The last part of this goal leads into the next one.

Goal 3: Faith. I have a good faith and attend church regularly, but I miss the community that is so crucial to growth in faith. I make excuses of why I don't go to Sunday School, but they are all nothing more than an excuse. I am going to plug into my church in a meaningful way. This Sunday I am going to attend a couple different groups and see which group I fit into best and make a commitment to attend regularly. I firmly believe that surrounding myself with people growing in their faith will cause mine to grow.

Goal 4: Culture. I enjoy reading and cooking a lot, but I tend to let those fall by the wayside when I get busy. However, I have designed my half-marathon training schedule and have a couple days where I have time to set aside for those hobbies that make me happy. I am going to cook something new every Tuesday. It can be as simple as a new way to cook eggs or an entire meal. Since I am single, I often don't cook a whole meal b/c it's only me to eat it, but I deserve to eat well wether I have a family or not. Thursdays are going to be reserved for reading. I am starting off small and only challenging myself to an hour every Thursday.

These goals may seem like a lot, but in reality I am only building on things I already am doing. And the beauty of adding a little extra work in the forefront is that the rewards I reap will be exponential. Here's to goals/resolutions that build us up and make us feel good about ourselves. I am looking forward to a year of becoming an even better me instead of trying to change myself to fit someone else's mold.

"We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be."
           -May Sarton