Resolutions Diary: July 2014

Image Credit: Daniel Friesenecker

Hi there! I’m not going to lie, I’ve been feeling incredibly guilty the past few months when it comes to my New Year’s resolutions. I made them but I feel like I haven’t taken a big enough step to accomplish them – you could probably tell by how often I write this column. I guess that’s something that comes along with writing these resolutions. You sit down at the end of the year and basically write down everything that you didn’t like about what you did the year before and things that you want to change for the better.

When you’re doing any form of self-improvement, you’re constantly teetering on the edge of having an optimistic and motivated mindset and a negative one that plunges you into a never-ending sea of guilt and self-loathing, which is hardly the goal.

I think my problem has been that I’m trying to approach this too theoretically, or maybe that’s not the word I’m looking for. The way I’ve been looking at it for the past couple months is as a to-do list that I have to check off everyday, if that clarifies my meaning a bit. But now that I look back at the list of resolutions, I’ve been doing pretty well. Not fantastic by any means, but pretty good. Keep reading to find out how exactly I’m doing on each one of them!

1. Blog everyday. Okay, this one is probably one of my worst. Obviously, ever since April or so, I’ve been blogging four times a week, but I’ve been blogging, which is the first most important thing. Consistency is something that I’m aiming to fix this month, especially before school starts again. My plan of attack is to make blogging a routine as opposed to something that I’m frantically squeezing into whatever time slot is empty in my schedule, have lots and lots of ideas at my arsenal at all times, and have a blogging schedule planned out well in advance.

2. Write three comments on other blogs everyday. And I’ve been bad with this, too. There’s no denying that I’ve had no time to read blogs and it’s really something that I should be doing more. I will comment on blogs whenever I read something that really strikes a chord with me, but I haven’t been doing that nearly enough. I’m on the hunt for new blogs to read right now, so I’m hoping I’ll get a lot better with this particular resolution.

3. Use my agenda daily. This happened in July, guys! I actually used my agenda every single day during the time period that I went to summer school, including the weekends, so I’m pretty proud of that.

My good friend and I are planning to get ourselves some pretty fancy schmancy agendas for the next school year that are just the perfect format and everything, so I’m crossing my fingers that this will get me more motivated to use it. Well, that and the guilt of having spent such a ridiculous amount of money on a freaking agenda.

4. Drink at least 2L of water daily. I also did this, too! Drinking plenty of water was a big goal of mine as I started 2014 and I’m really glad that the habit’s stuck. Before, I’d get by with like three glasses of water which was absolutely awful, but now that I’ve been drinking more water, I can really tell the differences in my skin, mood, what/how much I eat, etc.

5. Keep a food diary. The intention behind doing this was so I would refrain from eating bad food, so if I were to write it down, I’d feel guilty about it and then I wouldn’t eat it unless it was a treat of some sort.

While I haven’t kept one consistently at all, I have been eating twenty million times better than I was last year. It’s rare that I’ll indulge in junk food because I just don’t find it appealing anymore and I, for the most part, am on a healthy diet (as in what I eat, not like a meal plan) of plenty of greens, fruits, whole grains (save for the white rice that’s a staple in every Asian’s family that you just can’t get rid of), and healthy proteins and fats. I will try to keep a food diary (and a regular diary!) for the remaining months of the year, but I’d say that in terms of eating better, I’m doing very, very well.

6. Follow the workout schedule. Oh my goodness, there are no words to describe how happy my workout schedule makes me. I’ve gotten into the habit of going to the gym 5-6 times a week and if I manage to keep this up for the rest of the year, I will have pretty much exceeded my expectations from the beginning of the year.

Of course, with the stress and time limits of summer school, last month wasn’t as great as May and June, but I’m going to try my hardest to stick to it religiously with the occasional break for the next five months.

7. Follow the one-minute rule. I’m pretty guilty of not following that rule this past month. I would blame it on summer school, but that’s just unfair. I think I’m going to throw in weekly cleanups of my room and some areas of the house just to keep it in better shape so I don’t get overwhelmed by the end of the month by how messy my space is.

8. Get at least eight hours of sleep every night. Hmm, I’m not even going to bother elaborating on this one. I’ve evidently not followed that at all and really need to work on it a lot or else I’ll start getting premature grays and I really don’t want that.

9. Practise sewing once a week with Mom. We’ve both been busy. Yeah. After visiting FIT, I’ve definitely realised that I’ve been slacking way too much in that department and really do need to get my butt up and moving when it comes to learning proper techniques, so our sewing room is currently being cleaned up and reorganised so we can start sewing this weekend.

10. Calm down and just breathe. I’d say I’m doing pretty well with this. Last year, I was a psychotic perfectionist always up and moving and trying to get too many things down at once and forgot to just relax. That led to me relaxing at the worst possible times and then to guilt for slacking off and not getting x and y done.

I’ve learned to be less of a perfectionist and while I’m still running around doing too many things at once (I doubt the overachiever in me will ever go away and it’s not like I want it to, either), I’m significantly happier and less stressed about it all. I’ve started approaching it as “I want and am excited to do x and y” instead of “I have to do x and y.” It’s funny how you can just flip a few words around and how it totally changes your mindset.

How are you doing with your resolutions? Did you make any resolutions? If yes, do you have any that are the same as mine? Leave your comments below and here's to hoping that we all accomplish our goals this 2014! Good luck!

Thank you so much for reading!

- J

Bloglovin' | Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest | Instagram | Tumblr