2015 Goals

I'm a big fan of to-do lists, and I think it's important to write down your goals (big and small) throughout the year to remember them and to motivate yourself. I wanted to set down some of my goals for 2015 here and hopefully use this blog to track my progress a bit. As usual for my New Year goals in recent years most revolve around trying to relax more about everything! I have a whole long separate list for work goals, I'm just going to put some of them here, the rest are more general.

• Relax more about work. Take time to enjoy life when I’m not working instead of feeling guilty every second that I’m not being "productive".

• But also push myself more. Go out of my comfort zone and try new materials or techniques (even if I'm afraid it’ll look terrible at first). Set clear goals and a schedule and follow though.

• Take more time in general with doing and thinking. Often times I act in haste, either because I feel like I have to or other people make me feel like I have to, and this it usually leads to regret.

• Take a walk somewhere new every week. Either in a different area of the city or hikes slightly further afield, like in Washington.

• Run in at least one race. I'm already signed up for an 8k so I'm well on my way with this one. Also continue to run at least for days a week and work out. I want to be able to run 8 miles by the end of the summer.

• Watch less Netflix and make sure to slow down in the evenings. Usually after my evening run I'm so tired out that I just want to put on a show and zone out. But I feel guilty not being productive so I also sit with my computer "working" & watching a show, which makes me feel kind of frantic and stressed. My goal is mostly try and spend the evenings reading, or if I feel like watching a movie, fine, but I have to actually watch it and not have my computer. Same for if I feel like working. Stop multitasking basically and really focus on whatever I'm doing.

• Be more conscious with my buying in general. Question each purchase carefully. Simply, I'd to buy less and when I do want/need to buy something I'd rather invest in high quality things, even if they are more expensive and I have to save up for them. I'd also like to buy more from small companies or makers. This is something I've always told myself I can't do because I live on a small budget. However, my mind has kind of changed on that. I think saving up for something I really want that's that's more of an investment is going to be better for me and actually lead me to save more money in the long run.

• Stop using Facebook. This is something I've wanted to do for a while. There is nothing about FB that makes me feel happy or good about my life, and yet I waste a lot of time with it. I'm also sick of privacy issues. While I'm not deleting my account yet I had my boyfriend make a new password so I can only sign in if I ask him. I'm not being that drastic with Twitter, but I'm also taking steps to make it harder to sign in and I don't foresee using it too much in the future. Because of my work I don't want to delete these accounts, if I have important work related updates I want to promote I'd still like to post about them there. I will however be using Instagram more which is a social media platform that I like and works better for me.

• Cultivate creative hobbies not related to work. I need some down time hobbies that are not running, reading or cooking. I'd like to make a quilt, start crocheting again, and learn how to make some origami animals.

• Notice when I’m happy