Happy New Year! It’s that time again – when a lot of people start to think about how their lives are going to be different in the New Year. They wrack their brain for ways they can improve, and then come to the conclusion that something needs to change. So they come up with what have been called “New Year’s Resolutions” to help them turn those thoughts into actions. I’ve come up with my own resolutions for the New Year, but I didn’t do it the way most people would – just a list. No, no. If you know me, then you know I had a step-by-step process to write out my resolutions. And here it is…

Step 1: Find Out What’s Lacking/What Needs Improvement

You can’t change part of your life without knowing exactly what needs to be improved upon or why you should change it in the first place. I sat down towards the end of December and made a list of all of the things I’ve been doing that haven’t met my standards of living a successful or fulfilled life.

Step 2: Clear Off Anything on the List that Isn’t Coming from Your Own Head

This one seems unclear, so let me explain a little more. You need to make your own choices for your own reasons; it’s important that the list of things you need to improve be what you actually think needs to improve – not what your mom, your partner, your second-cousin-twice-removed-on-your-great-grandfather’s-side told you to fix. So cross off/erase/black-out anything that isn’t truly from your own thinking about your life. (And don’t pretend that you didn’t write some stuff other people told you to do – everyone writes something like that.)

Step 3: Come Up With Your “New”

Okay – so you’ve got a list of stuff to improve. But that doesn’t help you unless you know what those improvements really look like. Hence step three – writing out what each fix truly looks like in your everyday life. Think about what you want to be doing a week, a month, or half a year from now. Pin down exactly what you’re doing in this improved life as a result of changing/updating/fixing your list items from steps one and two. Be specific! Then…

Step 4: …Write Your Resolutions!

Now that you know what your improvements look like, you can list out what you’re going to do to achieve those improvements. Resolutions are like goals – you need to make sure that you have them in order to really get anything done. But to make sure that you’re reaching these goals efficiently and effectively, you should go the extra mile to make sure that they’re SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound).

We’ve already got you covered on the R part (you made, like, three lists already making sure this stuff was relevant to you). Now you have to make sure you cover the SMA and T parts. Your goals need to be specific to your lifestyle – day-in and day-out of you. You need to have a clear method of measuring your progress towards those goals. Of course your goals have to be achievable – you don’t want to set the bar too high because there needs to be visible improvement in order for you to stay motivated. And lastly, you need to assign time-frames to each goal – the amount of time in which you’d like to achieve each thing.

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I know this sounds very methodical, and that’s because it is. Most people tend to skip right to the last step and just write out basic resolutions about surface-level things they think they want to change about themselves. But that’s not the best way to go about it. You need to make sure that you’re writing these resolutions with the intention of actually doing them! And to keep that intention clear in your mind throughout 2019, you might just have to get a bit methodical.

Click below to read my 2019 New Year’s resolutions!

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Ever since I can remember, I have struggled with maintaining a healthy weight and a healthy diet. Fast food and junk snacks are my favorite things in this world, and that has caused sluggishness and a feeling of not being healthy or comfortable in my own skin. I’ve tried a bunch of fad diets – none of which worked. They all made me feel bad about myself, and they weren’t sustainable.

I finally reached out to a health and wellness coach who I have access to through my employee benefits. Her name is Rachel, and we’ve spoken on the phone quite a few times. She’s my motivation to keep going because I know that if the next time she calls me, I tell her I fell off of my plan, she’ll be disappointed.

But what is my plan? Well, I’m glad you asked, ‘cause I’m gonna tell ya (even if you didn’t ask!). Keep reading to find out what I’m doing to start feeling healthy and fit!

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MyFitnessPal

First of all, there’s this app. It’s amazing! Rachel mentioned it when we first spoke because it helps you to keep track of the calories you’re eating. As much as I’d love to be able to eat clean all the time, that goal is unrealistic for someone with a new job, a new apartment, and a new husband. Things get busy, and I don’t always have the time to make a good clean meal. Well, according to Rachel, fitness is not just about clean eating. It’s actually mostly about your calorie intake.

Your body has a certain calorie level that you need to reach in order to maintain your weight – this is based on a number of factors including your current weight, height, and age. In order to lose weight, you have to be eating less calories than you need to maintain your weight. The MyFitnessPal helps me keep on track of how many calories I eat. I plan my meals in advance and then log them into the app in advance so that I don’t forget to log as I eat.

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Exercise

Of course, exercise is good for your body. My exercise routine isn’t something I do to keep track of a number on a scale or in an app. My exercise routine is something I do to make me feel good. As it stands right now (because it’s summer and extremely nice outside), I go for half-our walks on Tuesdays and Thursdays and hour-long walks on Saturday mornings. On Tuesday, I’ll also go for a half-hour swim (weather permitting), and on Thursdays I also lift weights for a half-hour. This way, I’m getting an hour of exercise twice a week, and I’m soaking up some vitamin D for two hours each week. I always feel really good when I take the time to move my body, and that’s why I also do yoga each morning – to start my day off by moving and stretching out those limbs.

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My fitness plan is for me – no one tells me I have to do things this way. Rachel is an awesome guide, but I didn’t stick to the MyFitnessPal calorie-counting for her. And I didn’t start the exercise plan for her; all of this is for me to feel my best.

1. You don’t have to have your life figured out right now. There are plenty of successful people who didn’t have a “career” picked when they went into high school… Actually, I don’t know of anyone who had their perfect career picked out when they went into high school. Chill out.
2. Stop saying things just to make others happy. You are your own person; if they don’t like what you have to say, screw ‘em.
3. Guys can suck sometimes – even the ones you end up loving. Don’t give up on them so quickly.
4. “Mr. Perfect” doesn’t exist, but “Mr. Perfect-For-You” does.
5. Stop rushing. You’re going to “grow up” in just the right amount of time for you, and you can’t change that without serious consequences.
6. Perfection is something you’ll never attain. It doesn’t exist so quit killing yourself to try to be it.
7. It’s okay to be depressed and/or anxious.
8. Your depression and anxiety can’t be controlled and have nothing to do with anyone else – just you. So don’t allow anyone else to make you feel bad about them.
9. Your body is your own; it doesn’t belong to anyone else for any reason.
10. Never allow yourself to stop believing in love because love is literally the one thing that will always exist in the universe. It sounds corny, but it’s true. You haven’t had much experience with it up until now, but you’ll get there.

Why don’t you know yet?

Oh my god, you’re 22 years old with a college degree, but you don’t have a career path planned out?

What do you mean you don’t have job stability? How are you going to buy a house or have kids without a stable, constant, planned-out source of income?

I hear all of these questions and more at least once a week. They come up any time I visit a distant relative, have coffee with an old friend, or just eat food with my loving (but very nosy) family. These questions are getting at the root of all of my imagined problems – the fact that I have been doing “nothing” with my degree.

I have a Bachelor of Arts in English, but I haven’t been doing anything “English-y” with it. At least, that’s what almost everyone thinks. Apparently, in order to be “doing something” with an English degree, you have to be a writer, a teacher, or a professor. I didn’t realize there was such a rigid set of rules when I joined the major. In fact, I only joined the major because English was my favorite subject in school for as long as I could remember. But it wasn’t my favorite because we did a lot of writing, teaching, or professing. It was my favorite because we did a little bit of everything. There were days when we would even be doing math in English class!

I have a lot of interests, and I find it extremely unfair that I should have to pick one from the list to “do” for the rest of my life. Why is the concept of a career such a linear one in our society? My career path has been – and will continue to be – cyclical. I have a full-time job as an administrative assistant that keeps me on my toes. Every single day, I’m doing something different with that position, which excites me greatly as I have to be there for eight hours, and it would pretty much suck otherwise.

I come home from that job, and I get to do literally whatever I want. If I want to veg-out in front of the TV and eat my way through my kitchen, I can. If I want to write chapters for a book I’ve been working on, I can. And if I want to leave my house and take a road trip to take pictures someplace I’ve never been – you guessed it – I can! And there’s no reason that I can’t do my best to make a living doing ALL of those things (and more).

An English degree is applicable in so many situations. I’m currently working on creating a budgeting training session for my full-time job. I have to edit a ten-page document and then turn it into a PowerPoint. I’m using skills that I learned in multimedia class, first year seminar, and English class to get that project figured out! I learned how to write effective editorial/informational/creative writing pieces in English class which is a skill I now use to write this blog and the many narrative works I’ve been fiddling with over the years. Those skills have helped me on more than one occasion, and I am so grateful to have been an English major and earned a degree that I can literally use for everything.

So the next time you think I’m not doing anything with my life and you want to ask me “What’s your plan?” – just remember that plans change. And I’m one of the lucky few who can do a little bit of everything to roll with the punches – specifically the punches I give you for being such an ass.