As the excited buzzing of a new year approaches, new resolutions are being made left and right everywhere I look (mostly, it seems, due to overindulgence by the population at large over the long holiday). And while I myself am gearing up for a new year filled with new goals, I can’t very well move forward without looking at how far I’ve come with this current year’s resolutions.
Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person in the whole world who actually keeps myself accountable for new year’s resolutions set last January first.
This might be a sign that I need to surround myself with more motivated Facebook friends 🙂
All that aside though, I present to you my progress on my 2013 resolutions:
Goal #1: Eat like a vegetarian at least 3X a week.
Although I was much better at keeping this during some times of the year (summer) over others (now), I would say it’s safe to say that I kept this resolutions 80% of the time. In fact, I got so comfortable with the idea of meatless cooking that I actually picked up a vegan cookbook the other day, a feat I would not have dreamed of just a year ago.
Overall, my goal was to spend far less money on meat this year and to learn to get more comfortable with vegetable-based meals, and I would say that I definitely met that.
Goal #2: Read Two Chapters of a Book on Most Days
I think this is the resolution that surprised me the most—I didn’t think it would make that big of a difference, but it totally shifted my habits after work and made me much more conscious of how much time I spent on the computer. Before I set this goal, I usually just watched movies or bummed around on the Internet looking at blogs until bed. Now, I usually go up to bed at 8:30 so I can fit in plenty of relaxing reading time before sleep. Not only has this helped me to actually reach this goal, but it also meant that I was much more able to fall asleep quickly.
Plus, the numbers speak for themselves–in the past two years combined, I read 42 books. This year, by this time tomorrow (most likely), I will have read 39. I would say that’s pretty darn successful.
Goal #3: Completely finish Baby Steps #1 & 2 of Dave Ramsey‘s Total Money Makeover plan, and start on Step #3.
Check, check, and check! In fact, because I’d been so focused on getting our money in order this year, I was able to not have to go into debt when I unexpectedly had almost $2000 worth of medical bills in November. I definitely could not have done that last year.
Of course, now I’m working hard on building those emergency savings back up after those medical bills, but it felt good knowing that we HAD the money when an emergency really did come up.
Goal #4: Completely De-Clutter our Apartment by Doing a “50 Weeks to Organized” Post Each Week
This one I didn’t complete to the letter of the law, but I would say I’ve completed the spirit of the law on this one. About halfway through, I realized the pace I’d set for myself of doing a project a week was unrealistic, so I scaled back. However, with only about 36 hours left of the year, I only have part of one room left of the house to go through, and it should be done by then. So I think it’s safe to say that I literally went through every scrap of our apartment this year and consciously decided to keep or not keep everything in it.
That’s pretty nuts, considering how much stuff we started out with.
As for the sub-goal on this to get rid of 500 things this year, I’ve met that goal. I have my one final load packed and ready to go to the DI, and it’s filled with almost 100 items.
Nailed it.
Overall Thoughts
As I mentioned in my post about a week back, I think more than anything, this year I learned the importance of doing a little bit every day instead of waiting for the great surges of energy to come every now and then. Not only did I more or less get my home and finances in order and take better care of my diet, but I feel like I’m less likely now to procrastinate things than I was before because I was more used to just doing a little bit every day (of organizing, of simplifying, of grading, etc.).
Plus, I was also able to start up running again this year AND really start going for some of my photography goals, so I feel like those were a nice bonus (courtesy of being motivated from completing the goals I’d made above!).
Do you remember the goals you’d made at the beginning of this year?
