You Guys, I’m Serious, This Year Really IS Going to Be Different! (Or, a Cautionary Tale of Good Intentions)

I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions, but I am going to make this year awesome.

This year is going to be different. This year already feels different.

Maybe I have a more optimistic outlook because this year started out so much more relaxed than 2018, or what turned out to be 2016 Part 2. That and I made the conscious decision to take more responsibility for my happiness and how I respond to the often unpredictable world around me.

Around this time last year I was pulled in many directions personally and professionally. Some of that was due to expectations people had of me (it pays to be valuable, but it is time consuming), and a larger part was due to the expectations I set on myself. I HAD to say yes. I HAD to answer every request. I HAD to put 100% effort into every situation. Everyone wanted a piece of me, or so I led myself to believe. I had gone from servant leader to indentured servant.

I was frustrated, on edge, easily upset, and wanted to scream at everyone to leave me the hell alone for five seconds. And frankly it was just a crap year. I had some unexpected home and car expenses. I’ve nearly gained back all the weight I lost from Plankton the Parasite. (Okay, I’m 119 pounds right now, so I will begrudgingly admit that I needed to gain the weight back, but still, that gap in my waistbands felt soooo good….) I developed a Ganglion cyst in my right hand. A former coworker died. My building got STRUCK BY LIGHTING AND CAUGHT ON FIRE (sort of). Y’all I was even smoking cigarettes for a little while (I quit; I promise).

Last year’s blog was a big drag, now that I can review it in its entirety. Other than a post about how much I enjoyed Body Combat classes at the gym I was dropping some pretty strong hints about how unhappy I was. My biggest heartbreak was that I could no longer feel joy and satisfaction from going to taekwondo class, plus the agonizing decision I made to leave my dojang and go somewhere new. Thank you to the readers who stuck it out. This year should be more fun.

This year I’ve shied away from over-committing myself to others and promised to commit to myself 100%. I can continue to help people professionally and personally, and I enjoy doing it, and I can keep my physical, mental, emotional, and financial well-being at the top of my priority list. I have to, or it will just end up being unpleasant for everyone. I’m taking my “Give Zero F*cks By Forty” mantra seriously and resisting the urge to sweat the small stuff. I’m not scrambling to address minor hiccups at work, and I’m not overstaying my welcome with my new taekwondo family.

As I close out the month of January I noticed that just about every day, even the busy ones, I’ve come home and thought, “Wow, that was a really nice day.” January 2019 has been so much more fun and fulfilling than last year, even though January 2018 had me catering to larger obligations. I started out this month with a surprising upswing in my pool game (I took it up about a year ago), and during the final weekend of this month I got to be a scoring judge for the first time at a taekwondo tournament and saw the hilarious musical “The Book of Mormon” for a second time. The cyst in my hand rapidly shrank. Everything in between has been pretty sweet.

I’m about to enter two very busy and demanding months at work, but I’m looking forward to them rather than dreading them. I feel much more in control of my choices and my boundaries, and I’ve been able to pare down my work to things I really enjoy doing. As for taekwondo, right now I’m just in training mode. Yes, I’ve helped out at a black belt test and a tournament in the last two months, but I’m not offering my services 24/7, and right now it doesn’t feel like work. Helping other practitioners feels fun again. I’m having fun just getting to sweat and practice, and occasionally shout “good job!” to a color belt (I can’t help it), and there is no greater feeling than that.

As a society we’re collectively leaving a decade (hello, roaring 20s?), and when my birthday hits this summer, I’ll be entering a new decade of life (stay tuned for a blog post about that milestone). I can’t wait to see how this year unfolds. It’s going to be a good one.