New Year's Resolutions Check In

[ysabetwordsmith]

We have reached the end of January! \o/ By now, most New Year's resolutions that are going to hit roadblocks or fail completely have already done so. About 95% crash and burn before the end of January. If you're still going, you've passed the roughest part. If you're having trouble or you've given up, there are options.

These are the previous check in posts:
* January 8
* January 15
* January 22

These are some previous posts on other aspects of New Year's resolutions:
* New Year's Resolutions
* Fun New Year's Resolutions
* Monthly Resolutions
* One-Day Resolutions


Your Resolutions

How many New Year's resolutions did you make? How many succeeded? Failed? Ongoing because their timeframe is longer than one month? Did you make any changes? Add, drop, or modify goals? If so, how did that work out for you? How do you feel about your 2021 goals so far?

Remember that your goals belong to you. If they aren't working, you can fix them, or abandon one and replace it with something else. Don't beat up on yourself because the first thing you tried didn't work out perfectly. Just trying new things is a useful life experience that puts you ahead of where you were before you started. You can always try again another day. Even failure is useful information that helps you set better goals in the future. If you succeeded way beyond the goal, consider a more challenging one next time.

Here are some resources for New Year's resolutions and other goals at this time ...

6 Steps To Stick To Your New Year's Resolutions Past February

Embracing the Now: Checking in With Your New Year’s Goals

Reassessing your New Year’s resolutions

Remember those failed New Year’s resolutions? February is the best time to restart

RETHINK YOUR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE

Why You Should Start Your New Year in February


My Resolutions

Here are my goals for 2021. See last week's post for my earlier accomplishments.

Completed total (10)
Out of 37 goals, I completed 10, which is about a quarter of them. Some cannot be completed until later (like running the Rose and Bay Awards) or the end of the year (a lot).

Completed in the past week (4):

* Participate in the snowflake_challenge. [Begun 1/1/21, completed 1/29/21]

* Collate at least three more poetic series or threads into collection files. [MET 1/24/21 Fire and Ice, 1/25/21 Rutledge, 1/25/21 Fortressa]

* Read at least four cookbooks, marking recipes of interest. [MET Recipes: American Cooking: The Northwest 1/13/21, Recipes: American Cooking: Eastern Heartland 1/20/21, Step by Step Chinese Cooking (not good) 1/21/21, Foods of the World: Chinese Cooking (not great recipes) 1/23/21, Far Eastern Cookery by Madhur Jaffrey 1/24/21, The Essential Wok Cookbook 1/27/21]

* String the bells. [MET 1/23/21]
(This ornament uses the 6 clear prisms, 3 brass bells, and a rainbow strand.)

In another fun development, my window prism ornament inspired scrubjayspeaks to make a Sea-wrack Window Ornament. Yay!


This goal started out aiming for January, which is effectively met by this point. As it is working quite well, I have decided to keep doing it through the year. You can see where I've started to take notes as I encountered "Does this count?" questions and had to decide on those. I've also dropped one product already because wow, I did not realize how trashy it was in comparison to the company's other products.

* Bullet journal vegetable days at least through January. [Begun 1/1/21]
**Starchy vegetables and legumes count.
**Eating some amount of single or mixed vegetable dish counts.
**Any mixed food with a vegetable in the first 3 ingredients counts:
Tai Pei Potstickers (cabbage, pork, green onion)
Patak's Tikka Masala Curry Simmer Sauce (water, onion, tomato)
Patak's Butter Chicken Curry Simmer Sauce (water, onion, tomato paste)
Patak's Jalfrezi Curry Simmer Sauce (water, red and green bell peppers, onion)
Patak's Roghan Josh Curry Simmer Sauce (water, tomato, onion)
Patak's Dopiaza Curry Simmer Sauce (water, onion, tomato)

--Patak's Korma Curry Simmer Sauce does NOT count (water, sugar, desiccated coconut)


Begun total (18)
Out of 37 goals, I have begun but not completed 18 of them, which is about half. Some, like most of the yardwork, cannot be started until later.

Begun in the past week (2)

* Supervise updates of the Polychrome Heroics material. [Begun 1/25/21]

* Keep up with writing records better, updating at least monthly. [Begun 1/28/21]


Out of 37 goals, I have either begun or completed 28 of them, which is about three quarters. That's a great start.


New Goals

Last week I thought about how I was burning through the shorter-term goals. While I can't keep up maximum effort forever, I do want some other things to do during the year. I have decided that I really like the idea of monthly goals. I may not be able to think of a project for every month, but I do have ideas for February and March.

* February Goal added 1/24/21: Wok Study
We have actually started on this one already, since we got a wok about a week ago. Out of 7 goals, I have already met 5. Another one has been started, and last I haven't touched yet. I have more ideas for expanding wok use to other cuisines besides just Asian.

* Use the KitchenAid meat grinder at least three times. (Make this the March project.)


Discoveries

I have made some really cool discoveries in this year's goal setting. I love the fact that I have been exploring all my life and I can still find nifty new things. :D

* I love one-day resolutions. I have always liked them, but this year I came across them as a category unto itself, so I paid more attention. I realized that completing several goals in January gives me a feeling of accomplishment that provides valuable momentum. Also, this has proven highly effective at getting me to do tasks that have been sitting around for ages that I just hadn't found time to do. BOOM! Smaaaash. \o/

* I like the idea of monthly resolutions too. While I have not yet tested this thoroughly, I really enjoy the idea of exploring something new for a month. The wok project, while sometimes exasperating, has also been a lot of fun and very interesting. <3

* Bullet journaling worked a lot better for me than I expected. Because I suck at recordkeeping, I thought it would be hard to keep up with the entries. But it is quick and easy, and I put the pages right beside my computer, so it is staying on track just fine. \o/

I also like the visual interface. It is very simple for me to glance at the bullet journal pages and see whether I have done a thing today, how long it's been since I've done a thing, and a general impression of how much of it I have done.

Finally, I have found that bullet journaling is very effective at getting me to do the things more often. First, just having the goal and the page makes me think about it more often, which raises the chance of me doing it. Second, I can see when it's not getting done, and I don't want that to go on too long, so I put more effort into getting it done, which also raises the frequency.

* Making resolution check-in posts motivates me to do things so I will have accomplishments to report. I also look at my goals for 2021, which keeps those in the front of my mind, which increases the chance that I will work on more of them. When I write the posts, I also want to find resources of use to my readers, so I go out and research New Year's resolutions and other goals, which means I learn more about how they work. That's how I got the ideas for bullet journal pages, one-day resolutions, and monthly resolutions as separate things rather than just odds and ends that I had fiddled with before. That greater emphasis has made them more effective, which makes me happy.

Overall, I am very pleased with what I've started on my goals so far. :D

Comments

[pronker]

I had the merest velleitous resolve to clean out my files and am 90 percent finished, talking here about bank statements going back to 2004.

Go you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

That's a good accomplishment.

Also, congratulations -- I had to look up velleitous. :D